This will hopefully become a guide to help with ordering stuff from manufacturers and retailers outside of your country of residents. I’ll start with a few of my good and bad experiences RE: shipping charges. Some of these may be out of date and subject to change:

Excellent

Tinny at MiniBull designs, USA (http://www.minibulldesign.com). If you order over ~US$30 worth of stuff, then shipping is just the standard US$5

Evan Cabodi at Black Rock Gear, USA (http://blackrockgear.com/):
Also charges just the standard $6 for shipping to most places. This is for up to two beanies per shipment.

Steve Evans, Canada at www.suluk46.com
Charges actual postage and no packaging/handling fees. Steve will go out of his way to find the cheapest or best shipping option for overseas clients.

Titanium Goat, USA (www.titaniumgoat.com)
Charges actual shipping costs

AYCE, USA at Thru-Hiker.com
Charges actual shipping costs plus US$5 for handling

Not so Excellent….

REI
Charges based on purchase value of goods, so even if it’s small and light, you can end up paying through the nose for shipping. For instance, I wanted to buy a Mcmurdo FastFind from them as they had the *best* price at the time, but they were gonna charge US$75 for shipping!

LuxuryLite
Uses expensive courier service, and won’t send without tracking and insurance. This makes shipping a large item like the LuxuryLite pack a very expensive proposition. Even worse, if you are not satisfied with the item and wish to return it, you must send it the same way, ie tracked and insured! Ouch.

That’s just for starters. Who else has some Excellent/Not so Excellent experiences to add? How about shipping from UK/Europe to USA or rest of world?

All experiences based on shipping to Finland.

Excellent

Tarptent, shipping costs are reasonable, if you want a lower shipping cost you can contact the company and ask for it, usually is possible. Will pack it in a way that it goes by the customs!

ULA Equipment, I paid 40$ for 1st rate shipping, and it was four days later here.

BushBuddy, shipping costs included in the price, my BushBuddy Ultra took nine days to be here.

Trail Designs, very fast shipping and cheap. Also is packed so that it sailed by the customs =)

Maybe posting details about who will post things 'creatively' to escape Customs isn't a good idea? ;)

Hi Folks

Well this may be unpopular but I have been very unhappy with o/s shipping charges from this site, each time the amount charged me was much more than actual shipping charges - as labelled on the box. 30+% shipping surcharge seems to be the norm. Not nearly good enough.

It should be possible to do standard USPS shipping with standard insurance and be charged the actual amount. Certainly this is standard practice for every other US business I order from, surely it can't be that hard.

As a result I haven't bothered ordering any physical goods from the BPL site for a couple of years. I would like to order some things from the store but until I know they have sorted out their shipping rates I will not consider it.

Chrs
Lachlan
Sydney, Australia

Mike, there wasn't any "creative" packaging involved. The goods were packed in a normal, small parcel and just went with ordinary mail I believe instead of packages.

Lachlan, a very valid point you have there. I haven't ordered anything from BPL because the shipping is ridiculous. I mean 34$ for items which weigh less than 200 g? And no email where one could contact and ask if its possible to get a cheaper shipping = no business from me. And believe me, I know plenty of people in Europe who feel similar. If shipping from BPL would be flexible and appropriately priced they would see a lot more business.

In the US there is First Class and First Class Parcel for up to 13 ounces. Priority Mail is 1 lb and up, as is Parcel Post. When we ship under 13 ounces it becomes air (though they changed the name). The Postal service overhauled International shipping this year considerably.

The cost difference Parcel and Priority is huge, especially if going down way far South. Even an 8 ounce book to OZ or NZ is between $8 and 10 for a flat padded envelope. Odd shaped boxes go up in cost as well.

While the US also has the option of a Flat Rate trio of boxes to choose from in most cases they are still horridly more expensive than shipping Parcel Post.

Least but not last, in any company that ships out of the US it is often one employee who handles these orders. They often require a trip down to the post office to handle as well. That eats up time, and hey time is money.....and not everyone wants to deal with insurance and tracking (it isn't cheap and eats up time) so that pricey shipping covers when they have to reship a lost or stolen order.

I might add that shipping times out of the US are so vast, it is not fair to judge a company on how long it takes to get to the buyer. An example is for every person in the UK who gets a package in 4 days, there will be the black hole for the 10th buyer, who waits 20 or 30 days. It is NOT the sellers fault on these, ever. It is either ours or yours postal system goofing up.

And on the customs forms? If I get asked to mark it as a gift, they get a big fat NO. Not only is it illegal, it is unethical as a buyer to ask for that!

The fastest and cheapest shipping that I have ever had a parcel from the US to OZ was a WB stove from Trail Cooking, It came in around 5 days which is quicker that it can often take for a parcel to be shipped locally by Australia Post.

Tony

Sarah, I agree completely. Once an item leaves the US via the postal service, we have absolutely no control over how long it takes to arrive at the destination. Between customs and mail getting transferred into the destination country mail system, which can be private or public or both, there are too many variables to guarantee delivery dates. Deliveries to some countries (esp. Australia) are predictably quicker than others but it's all a giant crapshoot.

Also, yes, it is unethical and illegal to mark items as "gift" and we wont do it either.

-H

OWFINC has been very cooperative in shipping to Oz. No Customs charge to OZ as we have a Free Trade Agreement.

Often a better trick has been to use the free shipping to a friend with an American address, and to have the friend reship how you want it done - usually USPS or UPS. Pay friend's cost.

And I have found that USPS and UPS are just as fast, and sometimes a bit more reliable even, than the cheaper courier services. On the other hand, FedEx and DHL (etc) are improbably expensive.

Reshipping can actually profit everyone in some cases. I bought stuff from REI through a friend. I got MUCH cheaper shipping; my friend got the REI dividend.

Cheers

Edited by rcaffin on 10/23/2009 14:20:03 MDT.

Man,
Shipping to Australia is getting expensive, my first orders several years ago had free shipping, while I don't expect that, I think these prices are a bit excessive:

3 Aloksaks
Guy line set
Mini Balm jars
shipping options:

USPS Priority Mail International $32.35
USPS Express Mail International $39.00

Wow. If we get enough people together in Australia we can afford to fly Ben Tang over with a suitcase full of stuff, might work out cheaper than shipping.

double posted...

Edited by ben2world on 06/24/2010 02:39:57 MDT.

Someone mentioned my name?? :)

I've written this in the past and I guess I'll repeat it here. For those of you living outside of the US, if you want to buy US gear but the particular vendor refuses to ship overseas, PM me and we can arrange to have the package shipped to my address in California -- and I will then ship it to you via USPS air mail.

Couple of caveats:

1. Small hiking gear for personal / family use or friends. Please don't buy in quantities to resell. No bicycles or kayaks!

2. Once shipped, I will not be responsible for lost or damaged shipment. Let me know ahead of time if you want to purchase optional insurance from USPS.

3. Either you do the ordering online using my address -- or you can paypal me the purchase total in US dollars for me to order on your behalf (Paypal fees should be handled on your end). Once the goods are received, I will PM you the actual postage amount to paypal.

Folks should note that Los Angeles, California has a 9.75% sales tax. Shopping around, it's often possible to avoid paying this state sales tax by using online vendors with no presence in California. Upon "check out", the websites should indicate whether your purchase total includes shipping costs or state sales tax on top of the purchase price.

Any questions, feel free to PM me.

Edited by ben2world on 06/24/2010 02:49:56 MDT.

Got my DriDucks today courtesy of Ben2World for one third of the quoted shipping price from the supplier.

Ben, you're a legend!!! Talk about the "Gear Enabler"!!!

The contact/instruction for support is right on the Help page. Pretty easy to find IMO but I come from a web development background and have a good bit of experience with usability so I might be colorblind here.

Edited by simplespirit on 06/24/2010 05:20:38 MDT.

Yep,
I'll second that Ben=Legend,
If you ever need some Vegemite Ben, let us know!

"Folks should note that Los Angeles, California has a 9.75% sales tax."

Ouch. I think that's even higher than ours... but we don't have income tax, which makes our high sales tax easier to accept. I don't know whether or not that applies to you though.

Avoiding sales tax by ordering online is getting harder these days. It's also getting more and more complicated to calculate sales tax around here when you sell stuff :-/

"Talk about the "Gear Enabler""

Hey, doing my part to put more gear in people's hands. :)


Rakesh -- Yeah, tell me about it. Sigh...

Ben -- I'm going to have to wrestle with it sooner or later, since I plan on selling photographic prints. Sigh.

ask the guys in BC about sales tax... 14%...

Canada Post isnt the greatest but `kinda cheap. If we get UPS into Canada it costs us an arm and a leg.