From a purely IT perspective it would be strange to me to track by name and address. Address is normally a free form field in a database and unreliable to search/match on… still could be done though i suppose.
Yeah, that’s what I thought. I don’t think they’ve got a standardized process for it. I think they’re mostly targeting the resellers who are reselling iHerb, Aliexpress, etc. for a markup. It’s fair enough that the gov’t want to collect duties to protect local businesses, but there are some things that can’t be bought locally. There should be a better way that’s more convenient for consumers.
I have just cancelled my membership with iHerb after many years. I waited one month for an order and the chat was really useless.
Is there another similar supplier that you know of?
Sadly, no - I hope others have ideas. iHerb seems to be having more and more trouble keeping things in stock, and/or they’re limiting what they’ll ship overseas.
Unfortunately it is the reason I pay about 2-3x the price I would in my home country for cereals, sultanas and nuts. Could be worse, could have to pay Wellcome prices I suppose.
In the past when I have had disputes with iHerb they’ve been pretty good. Once when I got slammed with customs duty they helped me pay for it. Another time they sent me the wrong oats, paid for organic got conventional. Got the ones sent in error for free, plus a credit on what I ordered.
I think iHerb’s logistics are a bit haphazard. I know of someone in Japan who had a box of bodybuilding supplements sent in error, it was something like 300 US dollars worth. When contacted, iHerb said just keep it, yeah it was an error, sorry. It was lucky that it got through customs without a duty, but even more so without a fine as it was a restricted substance in Japan. She ended up just binning it all in the end…
It was mostly their customer service that put me off. They said the same thing 3 times… let me check and I will let you know something within 48 hours… no response.
I just wish iHerb still sold the cereals I want. I know it’s weird, but I like “squares” rather than flakes for cereal - oatmeal squares typically (plus fruit and other stuff). Those disappeared from Taiwan a few years ago, and now they seem pretty much permanently unavailable from iHerb.
The tomatillo salsa I like has been unavailable for six or seven months now as well.
Costco’s pretty good for nuts. Cereal selection, sadly, is dire.
I’ve been ordering from iherb for years without a problem. Today I tried to place an order and, no matter what I do, I get an error message when trying to indicate the payment method. I can’t get past this error to complete the process.
Anyone else having this issue? I dread trying to ask their customer service about it.
EDIT: I used the app instead of the website directly and it worked. 
It looks like you got it fixed, but in the past I’ve had unexplained errors that turned out to be things like my package was overweight for the shipper, or something was out of stock - I had to look pretty closely at my order to see what the problem was, because the webpage itself certainly wasn’t helpful.
I’ve also had issues with iHerb being completely and utterly unable to remember Taiwan / English / NT$. Almost every time I go to the website it once again thinks I’m ordering from the United States.
1 Like
I had a bad experience with customer relations when my order from iHerb was 5 weeks late and ordered from Vitacost.
They guarantee customer service but were not interested at all to help.
They delivered through FedEx and I had to pay NT$1020 on a US$90 order, plus US$40 shipment making the good more expensive than buying locally. Excess luggage for what we cannot get here would probably work out cheaper.
Another disappointing online experience.
Sorry to hear about your experience, I’ve never used vitacost. Are you on some customs blacklist or something?
@lostinasia - vitacost seems to have a lot of cereals…
Must be US$90 order and US$60 in shipping and Duty.
Make sure you pay attention to the tariff code used… it makes a huge difference.
Also a lot of times, more than one codes can apply to a given item, but one code requires excessive tariff and/or documents (that also costs money to get) while another does not. Make sure your shipper knows this. You may be able to call customs and ask them to apply a different code…
That is very helpful. Thank you.
I’m saying this because I got some guitar woods coming. Fedex says I need some kind of documents proving the wood is disease free and has no pests. The document costs 1400 to get, on top of the duty (7%). I told them I was never asked for that kind of document and they only make sense for big shipments. I explained to them what the wood is used for, and said if they can look up the code for guitar parts/luthier kits. Lo and behold, no documents required apart from the duty.
They say it is because the order is over NT$2000. I checked earlier with friends and they said that it is only if over NT$3000. Still checking to see what can be done.
By the way, are you a guitar maker? My guitar maker friend from Australia is coming to visit me soon. It is a rare art.
Yea, I make guitars. I also fix them as well. I probably enjoy repairs more than new builds…
Food stuff is always the hardest, because there are bio security laws about them. When they come in through an importer the shipment is inspected and fumigated, but for the average person it’s generally not allowed because they want to make sure no invasive species make their way in. Australia is more serious about this because it’s a unique ecosystem and invasive species can cause a lot of damage.
I heard Australians have to deal with stupid customs rules and high shipping with instrument parts too.
No problem in Australia ordering from iherb… no duties, all easy… at least it was a year ago.
We will all have to keep in mind, any order over $2000 needs to pay duty. I dount I will be ordering on line again!
Fedex sent the Customs requirements … only in Chinese and I cannot read it.
Here’s for your information.
Sorry that non English version for your reference. You might have your Chinese/ Taiwanese friend help you to classify it.