Shipping from US?

[stefan9]

What are the costs? Might be worth a try.

You have to setup an account for a once of fee, then you either pay a yearly subscription fee or a monthly one. then they give you a us address. then you contact your credit card company to add this address as a second billing address to the card. Then when you buy from newegg,etc you have them ship it to your us address and then they ship it to your SA address. The shipping fee is determined by weight. And you have fill in a form and email or fax it to them for each delivery.

http://www.myus.com/faq/

Shipping according to them takes 3-4 days.

 

[feo]

And its $15 monthly sub or $135 annual sub plus the once off fee of $35. You can also share the account with friends and family for $20 per additional member per account per year.

 

[mancombseepgood]

Actually I don't know

How? How were the boxes marked?

I can't remember - but it wasn't "gift" or the likes - always with full insurance on the weighbill. They were also sent by private individuals and companies...

 

[Ap0c]

Hi Guys,

Just to let you know a few issues can arise when dealing with stores in the USA:

1) Calculate their USA shipping costs into your calculation
2) Sales tax could be charged, depending where you are shipping
3) This is big: They wont deal with you as your credit card is non-US. Full stop. They wont even try process no matter what you tell them (newegg is an example of such)
4) Myus has quite a few 'hidden' charges - packing fees, invoicing fees etc.
5) Ship a few times using myus and you will need your own import code etc. This code is used by SARS, so just be aware they know how many items you import etc.

I've used myus in the past, and stopped using them. You need to get some major shipping weight before it becomes cost effective. Even with quite a few friends doing it at the same time, 90% of time things ended up more expensive than in SA.

As mentioned, you under-declare items, they break, you can do nothing. So just be aware of the trade off. No insurance vs. VAT savings.

Just have your shipment stopped 'for inspection' by customs, when you under-declare. You will have to produce original documents, pay fines, and wait a few weeks. Or they will just impound it all.

We now handle all our own freight etc to reduce costs.

 

[PearlJam]

Last year i imported a few things and i rarely paid VAT. This wasn't due to it being marked as gifts. It was just cleared without having to pay vat. Two of the packages was in excess of $500 each

 

[Syndyre]

I've ordered stuff from Amazon etc with a non-US credit card before but I know a lot of shops do have this policy.

 

[bwana]

2) Sales tax could be charged, depending where you are shipping

In general sales tax wont be calculated if you're shipping directly overseas from an internet company like Amazon. That flies out the window though if you're using a re-mailer service any you could be subject to the local, state, and/or federal taxes where they are located.

Its all to do with the internet tax freedom act.

Effect of the Internet Tax Freedom Act
Companies selling over the Internet are subject to the same sales tax collection requirements as any other retailers. Remote sellers (including Internet retailers and catalog companies) are generally required to collect taxes where they have a physical selling presence. If they do not have any such presence, they are not required to collect sales taxes.

Just something to keep in mind. Thats one of the reason that I buy my Mac stuff from Amazon and not directly from Apple. Apple has those stores of theirs almost everywhere in the US which generally means taxes on internet purchases.

 

[feo]

Well this is absolutely sickening. I was just thinking that I need a new keyboard so I googled a bit and I quite like the Logitech DiNovo.

So I check out prices at the usual suspects' websites and I feel like when I saw the prices. Click here for some ugly

Then I compare it Newegg and guess what...Now click here

R1750.00 vs $134.99 (R950.00). After reading that thread at systemshock that stefan posted about and now seeing the huge price difference for myself, I'm amazed that nobody is actually doing anything to give us realistic prices for hardware. I'll gladly pay less than 1K for this keyboard but frikkin' 1.7K that's insane.

 

[ziglet]

We should get a Myadsl myus account. Then we each just pay $20 for our names to be added to the address

 

[feo]

Ya it seems the only way to get hardware at sane prices is myus.com

 

[ziglet]

Even including their shipping costs and if you were charged VAT in sa, the price is not that bad for certain items.

Should tell my cousin to run a cheap myus for South Africans

 

[Ap0c]

myus.com is not the answer. Go open an account and ship the Dinovo to South Africa. I will guarantee you that the item will arrive here in SA costing more than R1800.

 

[ziglet]

Just been looking at LCD tv's on newegg.com, hehe!

USPS says it will cost R1500 to ship the tv. Even including 14% vat, its a good price!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889102106

Would come to, say R15000ish

 

[Syndyre]

myus.com is not the answer. Go open an account and ship the Dinovo to South Africa. I will guarantee you that the item will arrive here in SA costing more than R1800.

Because of what, customs?

 

[ziglet]

Hmm, so just ordered from Newegg.
Tax = $0

Sales tax is only required for orders shipping to destinations within our resident states of business. Therefore, all orders shipping to California, Tennessee and New Jersey will be charged sales tax according to the appropriate tax rate.

 

[Syndyre]

Let us know how the customs clearing etc. goes.

 

[ziglet]

Will do

 

[Syndyre]

Got family over there too, just usually only get them to bring stuff with them when they're coming out anyway, might need to persuade them to start posting.

 

[ziglet]

Though even with 14% VAT, which I have been charged lately, when bringing stuff into the country, price is still great!

 

[ziglet]

Well I just sourced everything that I bought off newegg, locally and compared the prices.

Overall if I don't get charged 14% vat, i have a saving of R4800
And if I do get charged, a saving of R3900

Thats a LARGE SAVING!