Aramex global shopper

[Mirai]

Clothing gets taxed to the max. Expect to pay high amounts on these, anything from 50 to 100% tax before import duties which is a fixed cost.

Yes. One can get an idea of the cost by checking it out via Amazon global shipping as that will give you the tax.

Clothing is one of those categories, they want you to rather support local manufacturers.

Selection in SA sucks though and it's not as if the clothing is even made in the country it will be sent from.
For example try to get anything as comfortable as Ecco shoes in SA? Nope.

 

[Nintek]

City, Ward, Town: Koto-ku, SHINSUNA

Chome Banchi Go: 3-2-9

Building Appt Company name: AIC X FRONTIER WEST 5F

Thank you so much, assuming I then add my aramex JNB as part of my full name?

 

[Mirai]

Does anyone have experience importing second hand clothing from eBay? My youngest is nuts for thrifting and there are several items she found that she wants to bid on. I'd like to know how I can minimise the tax/duties etc. on the Aramex end given that these are secondhand goods.

Apologies if this has been covered on the past.

BTW: these are $25-$30 items by and large.

You can't really minimise tax/duties. You can only get it at the lowest price and make sure the seller includes an invoice. Then you get charged VAT and duty on the item.
To get a taste of the costs, find some clothing on Amazon, put it into the basket and check how much shipping and import duty will be.

Ebay is also full of fakes so be careful.

 

[Mirai]

Thank you so much, assuming I then add my aramex JNB as part of my full name?

Yes. Name surname / JNB XXXXX

Unit / Room no. - stays blank

 

[SlinkyMike]

You can't really minimise tax/duties. You can only get it at the lowest price and make sure the seller includes an invoice. Then you get charged VAT and duty on the item.

Eish. Old flared jeans from the 90s with adequate wear for that vintage look and I'm sitting paying tax on that. LOL. Anyway, the cost of supporting a child's entrepreneurial experiments is something I'm willing to shoulder.

To get a taste of the costs, find some clothing on Amazon, put it into the basket and check how much shipping and import duty will be.

Pro tip, thank you!

Ebay is also full of fakes so be careful.

Yea, she's learning to read the reviews and reach out to sellers, etc. I guess getting scammed once is school fees.

 

[SlinkyMike]

You can't really minimise tax/duties. You can only get it at the lowest price and make sure the seller includes an invoice. Then you get charged VAT and duty on the item.
To get a taste of the costs, find some clothing on Amazon, put it into the basket and check how much shipping and import duty will be.

Ebay is also full of fakes so be careful.

Update: daughter won a couple of auctions last week so she sent them to my Aramex address in the US. Stuff arrived with Aramex very fast, uploaded invoices and the final cost was only shipping, no VAT, no duties. As it should be. All items were under 2lb and the highest value for one package was $60. En route to CT from JHB as we speak.

 

[airborne]

Update: daughter won a couple of auctions last week so she sent them to my Aramex address in the US. Stuff arrived with Aramex very fast, uploaded invoices and the final cost was only shipping, no VAT, no duties. As it should be. All items were under 2lb and the highest value for one package was $60. En route to CT from JHB as we speak.

You dodged a bullet then because clothing is 45% duties + vat.
But hold tight because I’m assuming a customs invoice is still on the way to you because nothing is Vat exempt.

 

[Tinuva]

Update: daughter won a couple of auctions last week so she sent them to my Aramex address in the US. Stuff arrived with Aramex very fast, uploaded invoices and the final cost was only shipping, no VAT, no duties. As it should be. All items were under 2lb and the highest value for one package was $60. En route to CT from JHB as we speak.

Yeah thats not final cost.

AGS usually ask for payment for shipping, usually when the item starts moving towards SA.

Then some time later, as they start the customs process locally, they eventualy send you another invoice for the customs/tax/import costs.

 

[SlinkyMike]

You dodged a bullet then because clothing is 45% duties + vat.
But hold tight because I’m assuming a customs invoice is still on the way to you because nothing is Vat exempt.

Yeah thats not final cost.

AGS usually ask for payment for shipping, usually when the item starts moving towards SA.

Then some time later, as they start the customs process locally, they eventualy send you another invoice for the customs/tax/import costs.

Thanks. Nothing will surprise me so I'll keep a lookout but the goods are already in JHB en route to CT.

 

[Tinuva]

Decent support from AGS.

I ordered some....heavy items, that would cost R3k to ship normally or R1.7k if you on Flex.
Flex for 1 month is R300. So was, ok lets sign up.

Yesterday payment request came, full R3k and I enabled auto payment because I am lazy.
Sent a request today asking about it, and they confirmed they have to refund me. They did request that I supply a bank confirmation letter, which I did and they processed the refund. Fairly effortless to get it right so decent support in my opinion.

 

[lkpat]

Thanks. Nothing will surprise me so I'll keep a lookout but the goods are already in JHB en route to CT.

If it's left ORTIA then it's cleared customs surely?

 

[SlinkyMike]

If it's left ORTIA then it's cleared customs surely?

This is my current position on it, that makes sense but I am still learning about this. I'll update as it goes.

 

[Tinuva]

If it's left ORTIA then it's cleared customs surely?

There should be a line stating it cleared customs.

From one of my own package tracking:

Johannesburg, South Africa    09/03/2023 14:15    Cleared from Customs
Sandton, South Africa    09/03/2023 12:13    Cleared from Customs
Sandton, South Africa    09/03/2023 12:13    Shipment Update - Code 1 | MRN: JSA202309035025744

Those only appear _after_ you have paid and everything checked out.

 

[Mirai]

Haha, mine was "confiscated by customs authorities" until I paid the duty and then it was cleared the next business day.

 

[SlinkyMike]

Thanks. Nothing will surprise me so I'll keep a lookout but the goods are already in JHB en route to CT.

OK so duties costs have landed and boy oh boy are they fun!

I have items where the duties is 112% of the invoiced amount.
I have items where the invoiced amount is still not updated from the amount recorded by AGS prior to receiving the commercial invoice from me (and is three times the actual invoice amount).
I have one item where the duties are double the invoiced amount.
...and I have one item where the duties are approx 40% of the invoice amount which is what is to be expected.

I have logged complaints via the web interface, is there a better way to query these things?

Real pity that this process is so fraught, my kid can't be expected to navigate this safely quite yet.

I think she'll have to focus on the storefront she has on Insta leaving the drudge work to me, which is not what I had planned.

 

[Tinuva]

OK so duties costs have landed and boy oh boy are they fun!

I have items where the duties is 112% of the invoiced amount.
I have items where the invoiced amount is still not updated from the amount recorded by AGS prior to receiving the commercial invoice from me (and is three times the actual invoice amount).
I have one item where the duties are double the invoiced amount.
...and I have one item where the duties are approx 40% of the invoice amount which is what is to be expected.

I have logged complaints via the web interface, is there a better way to query these things?

Real pity that this process is so fraught, my kid can't be expected to navigate this safely quite yet.

I think she'll have to focus on the storefront she has on Insta leaving the drudge work to me, which is not what I had planned.

Yeah we tried to warn you, clothing you don't want to import. Importing usually turns out more expensive than local, unless it is something you 100% cant even custom make local.

I usually also leave AGS as a last resort.
Amazon.com (and Amazon.co.uk for that matter) direct usually wins when it comes to customs pricing.
Even ebay where the sellers are part of the ebay global shipping which does customs upfront too, its also cheaper than AGS, so this option is close behind Amazon.com
Small things through the post office usually come to R48.50 or something if you can wait that long. This includes very cheap clothing. 1 gift a year when clothing through post office is 100% free.

 

[SlinkyMike]

Yeah we tried to warn you, clothing you don't want to import. Importing usually turns out more expensive than local, unless it is something you 100% cant even custom make local.

I usually also leave AGS as a last resort.
Amazon.com (and Amazon.co.uk for that matter) direct usually wins when it comes to customs pricing.
Even ebay where the sellers are part of the ebay global shipping which does customs upfront too, its also cheaper than AGS, so this option is close behind Amazon.com
Small things through the post office usually come to R48.50 or something if you can wait that long. This includes very cheap clothing. 1 gift a year when clothing through post office is 100% free.

Lesson learned. Thanks for the tips.

Clearly though there are some mistakes on the AGS side on this one. Using +- 40% as a guideline all but one of these shipments os way out.

 

[Tinuva]

Lesson learned. Thanks for the tips.

Clearly though there are some mistakes on the AGS side on this one. Using +- 40% as a guideline all but one of these shipments os way out.

Aramex actually charge you other fees on the customs invoice, but others like DHL etc also does it. You can try, but doubt you will get anything back. They will just say, that is what customs cost.

Thats why Amazon and Ebay Global Shipper is best for customers, because those are big companies that work out the tax themselves and there is then none of this where the shipping companies rip you off.

 

[SlinkyMike]

Aramex actually charge you other fees on the customs invoice, but others like DHL etc also does it. You can try, but doubt you will get anything back. They will just say, that is what customs cost.

Thats why Amazon and Ebay Global Shipper is best for customers, because those are big companies that work out the tax themselves and there is then none of this where the shipping companies rip you off.

Damn. I'm badly in the hole after those charges are added. I'd hoped to teach my kid that entrepreneurship is fun and profitable. I guess she's going to learn the hard way that it's also reality sandwiches a lot of the time. Still a valuable lesson. I'm interested to see what she comes up with to work around this.

 

[Tinuva]

Damn. I'm badly in the hole after those charges are added. I'd hoped to teach my kid that entrepreneurship is fun and profitable. I guess she's going to learn the hard way that it's also reality sandwiches a lot of the time. Still a valuable lesson. I'm interested to see what she comes up with to work around this.

What people actually do is, they only buy electronics and toys and non-clothing stuff from places like aliexpress and alibaba (if you do bulk), then sell that on takealot marketplace, bob shop, gumtree and facebook. They usually add a massive markup on it.

In fact, I saw a random youtube video, of someone going to the chinese malls and find items that look like they can sell. Buy 4, mark up massively on takealot. If it sells, they go back and buy all the stock the shop has and put it all on takealot.

Terrible video, but will give you and perhaps your kid the idea:

You(she) need to register a company to sell on takealot.