Buying Goods on-line from the US

[AlanUK]

One of the things I frequently find when I am looking to buy things on-line is that I can get stuff much more cheaply from US sites. The restriction on this is that usually a lot of the stores won't ship to the UK

Having been ferretting around on the internet this aftertoon I have come across the following site.. www.shopthestates.com What it essentially seems to offer is a US shipping address where you can get the goods you want to purchase shipped and then they will forward your purchases on to you for a small fee ($4.95 on top of shipping costs)

Firstly I was wondering if anyone else had come across this or even perhaps had experience of using it.

Secondly I thought people might be interested in it.

I am not looking to purchase anything just now but I might give them a try when I do want something. It will at least allow me to have a serious look on the Abercrombie site

Alan.

 

[Frances999]

I purchased a US shipping address before (via Parcel2Go.com) but found the shipping costs for them to ship USA-UK to be extortionate. I now just ask some of our friends in NJ if they don't mind shipping any purchases on to me.

Does this company ship your purchases to the UK for just $4.95, or is there an additional fee?

 

[AlanUK]

The $4.95 is their fee for handling the goods. The cost of shipping will need to be paid as well as this. It looks from the site that they will re-pack goods and combine them into fewer packages in order to minimise shipping costs though

 

[Frances999]

The $4.95 is their fee for handling the goods. The cost of shipping will need to be paid as well as this. It looks from the site that they will re-pack goods and combine them into fewer packages in order to minimise shipping costs though

I thought that might be the case. As long as they charge the actual shipping costs, I think it is a great service. However, some of these companies "inflate" the actual costs a little to help their profits

 

[shellbell]

We have been trying to get hold of a paticular Boston Celtics top for my FIL for christmas, but are having problem with the shipping cost cheapest has been £17, the other problem is some companys can't ship to the uk. They do however ship to most other european countries

Shipping costs are very expensive.

 

[shellbell]

Alan if you do try it can you keep me in the know?

If your successful then i'll give it a go too

 

[jns]

Alan if you do try it can you keep me in the know?

If your successful then i'll give it a go too

Me too

 

[kazzie]

I've just used Shop The States for the first time.I wanted to make an order from the US Urban Outfitters and have wanted to order from US sites so many times and find it frustrating that they won't deliver to the UK

I can highly reccomend using this site.As soon as they got my parcel they e-mailed me with 3 shipping options,with obviously 3 different costs.The parcel arrived (after I'd paid the extra import tax to Royal mail,don't forget about this) really well packaged When I e-mailed them twice with a question they responded very quickly.

It doesn't work out cheap so I don't think it's a good idea if you think you can order something much cheaper from the States,it just won't be worth it.But to order something unusual that you can't get over here,then I think it is worth it to

 

[florida sun]

Wow thats really good to know

Thanks Guys for the Info


Sue

 

[catherine]

Like Kazzie says don't foget the inport tax! DH's family have stopped sending stuff to us after we were nailed several times with tax. One parcel that DMIL sent us had £187 to pay. The funny thing is that when we were living in CA we never had tax to pay on anything that my family sent us!

 

[gilld]

I buy my perfume from San Francisco because I've used it for years and it is no longer available here. They mail it here but I've never been charged any inport duty/tax.

It costs more to send it over than the perfume costs in the first place! But still cheaper than it used to be when available here.