There's a lot of different parcel forwarders in the USA, including Youshop. Some of them mention they will charge GST when the parcel arrives at their warehouse, and some don't. What are people's experience with the non-Youshop ones charging GST?
USA Parcel Forwarders
Lbackfire on 16/12/2020 - 18:49
Comments
What was the reasoning for refusing to ship the coating?
My guess would be something in the ingredients they didn't like. Flammable? Pressurized can? But yes they do tend to blanket ban a lot of stuff like all batteries etc without looking too closely. This has changed now there is the economy sea freight option which allows many items that weren't previously.
Be warned that according to someone on GeekZone, MyUS does charge GST but doesn't seem to mention it anywhere in their calculators etc.
The rest of this is mostly partly OT:
I haven't paid much attention to YouShop or any other freight forwarders for a while. Didn't know YouShop now had a sea freight option, I do remember the economy option but that was only 25% cheaper albeit quite a bit faster than sea freight. Seems the demise of economy and the sea freight option are both fairly new. Also their rates have gone up a lot now blamed on the disruptions by COVID-19.
That said, I had a quick look at rates again comparing YouShop, ShipItTo, Stackry, FishIsFast, MyUS. It looks to me like YouShop still tends to be the best (based on current exchange rates) if we put aside GST (which is a complicated issue). Note I looked at the cheapest shipping options to NZ for each except YouShop I was looking at their normal service.
The high value item surcharge from YouShop probably means ShipItTo, MyUS and Stackry are cheaper for a very low weight high value well above NZD250 item although it isn't that different. For higher weight items, even with the surcharge, YouShop generally wins and possibly by a fair amount AFAICT.
However once you hit the NZD400 for YouShop's Tariff Classification Fee, YouShop is likely no longer such an attractive option. Also if you're shipping something where you expect a lot of volumetric weight, MyUS may be better. OTOH for orders below NZ$400 and especially below NZ$250 depending also on the weight, if you can put up with the long delays YouShop's sea freight option means they're even more attractive pricing wise.
Note I didn't consider consolidation or repackaging or any membership options for those who ship a lot. The one time I used their consolidation service, I wasn't that happy with how much space they left considering it's not like it was filled with protection and IIRC others have also found their consolidation and repackaging aren't as good as some others. They're also noted for often being poor at updates or when things go wrong.
I just used Youshop to bring over a 800gram tent for hiking. They now whack on quite allot of fees.
Tent was $412USD.Youshop charges:
International postage 8-12 days $106.38
High value surcharge $6.90
15% GST on total item value $87.87
Delivery total $201.15
Tariff classification fee $46.00
Including GST (15%) on New Zealand Post Services $20.78
Total cost for delivery NZD$247.15In the end only saved under $200… thats allot of beer..
The tariff classification fee is charged for any orders between NZ$400 to NZ$1000. (For orders over NZ$1000 it will need customs clearance.) It's quite a significant fee and so you may want to look around if your order is over NZ$400 https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/youshop/youshop-pricing/addit…
The high value surcharge is currently for items over NZ$250 and isn't that new. IIRC it was like that in 2017 or earlier. I assume it's related to insurance etc.
I have used you shop twice. Recently they denied sending a Graphene Coating and return to sender was little expensive around $40 within USA. My first item, A Camera, had no issues though I feel you shop customer service is on slow side, took 3 days for them to reply to every message. And Yes they charge GST too. Normally Amazon has direct shipping option to NZ. Keen to know what other options are there.