Online shopping has become a necessity and is no longer just a fad but, you may have come across websites that do not ship to international destinations. There are times when you badly need something and the product has no other local seller. If you are planning to buy something from a store in the USA or any other country but are unable to do so because the site does not ship to your country, do not worry. There are alternates to traditional parcel providers. These companies ship your favourite products to your doorstep whether or not the shopping website has international shipping option. It is easy to compare the best forwarding companies here.
MyUS.com
It allows you to shop from any webstore across the US and still get the product delivered to you. There is a pretty simple and easy concept behind this possibility. You will be given a local US address of MyUS.com and you can give that address as your shipping address in any USA shopping site.
You will only pay for the product and the local shipping charges applicable. The product will arrive at the address of MyUS.com and MyUS will ship that product to your preferred destination at a much lower cost. So you can buy any product from anywhere in the U.S just like a citizen of U.S. MyUS charges a membership fee and there is a monthly membership fee of just $7. You can enjoy discounts on shipping along with various other offers too.
This site allows you to enjoy a 30-day free trial so you can get to understand how it really works for you.
Shop and Ship
Shopandship.com, is owned by Aramex and is another website similar to MyUS, except that this site allows you to shop from websites of any country. Once you become a lifetime member of this website, you are given 22 personalized physical addresses. These are the addresses that you can use to get your product delivered to. Once the product reaches any of these addresses, it will be shipped to your doorstep from there.
This is for shopping lovers who want to buy stuff from other countries. This is pretty much legal and there is nothing you have to worry about, as long as you don’t wish to purchase from their list of restricted items. There is a protection guarantee and you can get what you buy safely delivered without any damage. There is a money back guarantee on your membership, should you find the service useless to you. There is an exclusive S&S perfume service that lets you buy perfumes and fragrance products from anywhere in the world too.
ShopandShip charge a one off joining fee of $45. They are also able to offer you shipping from many different countries to your home location.
USGoBuy.com
This is another parcel company that sends your purchase from a US based shopping site to any part of the world. This site has two different services to help you meet your shopping needs. One is that you buy any product from a USA website and give USgobuy.com local address.
So this parcel company will receive the product on your behalf and then ship it to you. The cost of shipping is drastically reduced with this system. There is also an option called ‘buy for me’ service. Here, you can ask USgobuy to purchase your desired item and ship it to you. In other words, you can ask them to do your shopping locally in the US and send it to you. This can be anything from clothing to sweet candies or even a pack of cigarettes. So there is nothing stopping you from shopping like an American sitting at another corner of the world.
USGoBuy do not charge a joining fee or a monthly fee. They do offer package consolidation and repackaging.
ReShip.com
This is a parcel company that allows you to buy anything, anywhere from the USA, UK and Canada. So once you become a member, you will receive three addresses, one in each of the above countries. You can buy anything from online shopping sites of these countries and give the shipping address of local reship location. They will receive your products and send it to you with a low-cost shipping charge.
ReShip.com has a one time fee of $5 that you need to bear for your first shopping. There is an assisted purchase service that helps you find a product of your choice. So they will do the search for your product with the lowest price guarantee and then ship it to you. This helps in case you are not aware of the brand and its reputation. Apart from shipping your products, they also have the list of shopping websites that you can visit in USA, Canada and UK.
Opas
It also gives you a local shipping address in U.S. They have many membership options. First one is free with a no monthly fixed outgoing. You just have to pay $10 for consolidation. There is a $100 per year account known as the premium account.
You can expect discounts in shipping, free consolidation and multiple account access. Lastly there is premium plus for distributors, not individual shoppers. Opas used to offer you a parcel forwarding address in Japan, which many of the others do not, so you can shop from many of the shops in Japan with international shipping, but unfortunately this was discontinued in 2017. Opas was started by Toshiyasu Abe in Japan to help Japanese buyers shop in the USA, and has now expanded further afield.
Stackry – Get $10 credit with this link. (Sponsored)
Another USA shipping address and package forwarding company. Stackry offer free registration and a very comprehensive level of service. Consolidation fees are just $2 a package and repackaging is $5, and you will not need to pay US sales tax on your purchases, as they are based in a tax free state.
Shipto
Shipito will send your shopping from the US to anywhere in the world. They have two membership plans, standard (free) and premium. Individual services have different costs depending upon which plan you are on, for instance, consolidation is $3 or $5, and you get longer storage on the premium plan. Otherwise they are much like the others.
Borderlinx
Borderlinx.com offer a UK shopping address as well as from the USA. So they are also Europe focused. They make it easier for you to buy something from say Germany or France and have it shipped globally. This is done through their UK location, but you can still shop the US.
Borderlinx do not charge membership or on going fees, but individual service do incur costs, there is a cost for package consolidation, and import duty and taxes are not calculated using the economy service.
FAQs.
What is package consolidation?
If you were to buy multiple products from different shops, to ship each individually would be quite expensive. So package consolidation means that the company will wait until all of your parcels are received by them from the shops, they will then consolidate them, or repackage them together into one box, of the right size, to be forwarded on to you.
What is repackaging?
Sometimes a shop will send you your item in a huge box, so there is a lot of wasted space, with shipping parcels you pay for the overall size of the package. So repackaging means the shipping company will repackage your item into a smaller more suitable package for shipping across the world. This will help to save you money.
Will I get a shopping address in the USA?
Each of these companies listed above will give you an address in the USA, and certain other countries like the UK, which you can use at online retailers as your delivery address.
Which package forwarder is the best?
Each of the ones listed here in our guide have their merits. It is up to you to choose the one that suits your personal preferences and budget. Please leave reviews and comments in the section below.
There are plenty of similar parcel sites that offer these services and you can easily shop from any country. Bongo International, Shipito, Viabox, Stackry, etc are some other reputed companies you can rely on. You can leave or read reviews here. Read more about package forwarding here.
Which is the cheapest?
The cheapest parcel forwarder varies according to what services you require and how you plan to use them. Whilst shipping costs vary between forwarders so do account costs and fees for extra services. You may need to take into account services such as consolidation, repackaging and photo costs if you are a frequent buyer or are purchasing many items to be shipped to you in one package.
Some forwarders charge membership fees, although this is a monthly or yearly fee, it does mean that they can offer even cheaper shipping fees. All these fees are worth considering when comparing. A website called ForwardersCompare.com is a good place to compare shipping and extra costs before signing up.
Can I use an express shipping service?
The package forwarders offer a broad range of shipping services from the most well known international couriers such as FedEx and DHL and many domestic couriers in local countries. A wide range of shipping services are offered including economy, standard and express.
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