Chatteling Learning Path

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by shelbyc

Since you are on this forum, and I am on this forum, have you found any problems people in India have that could be resolved with an agent in the U.S. and one in India? Wink, wink...

Hi Shelby,

Here is a service which helps people in Australia buy and ship products from the USA...

http://www.priceusa.com.au

The problem it solves is that sometimes things are much cheaper in the USA than they are in Australia. Also, some things which are available in the USA just aren't available in Australia at all.

Furthermore, many US retailers won't ship many items to Australia (probably they figure it's too much hassle). For example, Amazon will happily ship books, CDs, etc. to Australia, but they generally won't ship toys, electronics, and so on.

Here's how it works...

• What this service (Price USA) does is they have a person in Australia (I believe it was founded by an American who moved to Australia), and they also have an agent in the USA.
• An Australian who wants to buy something from the USA, tells Price USA what they want to buy, along with a link, and other information if known (e.g. size and weight).
• Price USA then gives the customer an estimate of the total cost (which includes a certain percentage added on as their profit), and asks the customer to pay a deposit.
• Upon payment of the deposit, the Price USA agent in the USA will order the item, and have it shipped to himself/herself (within the US).
• Upon receiving the item, Price USA can then give the customer a final quote (since now they definitely know the dimensions and weight, so they know exactly how much it will cost to ship, whereas earlier it was just their best estimate), and once the rest of the total amount is paid, they then re-ship the item to Australia, directly to the customer.
• If the customer doesn't pay the final quote, Price USA keeps the deposit, and also can resell the item, e.g. on eBay, to recoup more of the cost.

There are others who do this kind of thing, too... I haven't extensively researched it for other countries, though.

I think there are no duties/tariff problems in Australia as long as the value of the shipment is under $1,000. (Once it is over $1,000, then you have to worry about duties/tariffs/taxes.) Not sure how it would work in other countries...

Best wishes,

Dien