International re-shipping service

[dfnr2]

Hi all,

On recent episodes of the podcast, there has been mention of a re-shipping service that accepts pacages at a US shipping center, and aggregates international shipments, at a reasonable price. Can anybody provide a link to the service mentioned?

Thanks,

Dave

 

[vwestlife]

That's what eBay's Global Shipping Program does. The U.S. seller ships the item to Pitney Bowes in Kentucky, who does the customs paperwork and sends the item on to its international destination. To the seller, it is usually quite a bit cheaper than shipping the item directly to the destination country, although the buyer often ends up having to pay a customs fee upon receipt of the item. I've sold items using the GSP and most buyers have been happy with the service, although a few have complained about the customs fee.

Also, Pitney Bowes reserves the right to open up and repackage your item, such as in a smaller/lighter box to save them money. eBay says Pitney Bowes will get the blame and will bear the responsibility if the item gets damaged in shipping after it leaves their facility, although I've heard of some finger-pointing going on, and eBay not protecting sellers against getting negative feedback when items get damaged after being repackaged by PB.

 

[Tor]

There was another reshipper (independent of Ebay) mentioned in another thread a while ago, but I can't find the link that I thought I bookmarked.
As for Ebay's GSP, I mostly ignore items sold that way because most of the time (although not always) it comes out as very expensive for the the international buyer (me). Much more expensive than ordinary shipping + VAT and customs handling fees (paid by me). But sometimes, or should I say, occasionally, it works out to something acceptable from what I can tell from auctions I have looked at.

 

[inakito]

In my experience using ebay GSP i can say it is usually more expensive and slower than shipping a similar item the usual way. Many times i skip sellers who sell by GSP if i can find the same item from a seller who offers conventional shipping. The other re-shipper is Bonvu, which allows to buy items you could not buy outside the US.