World Shipping
Friendly Merchants:
While
many merchants feel the world ends with shipping within the USA, many understand
that there are consumers including ex pats that shop all day long online.
Seek out these merchants and you will find that not only are they knowledgeable
with international shipments, but they encourage them and are very helpful.
On the contrary, often merchants that do not ship beyond the continental
48, and want nothing to do with it offer Free Shipping in the USA, that
can help us; more about that later.
In addition
to Better World Books, here is just a sampling of some other World Shipping
Friendly Merchants:
YOOX -Fashion
for women and men.
JC Whitney-
Auto parts
West Marine-
Boating Needs
Office Depot
- Business / Office Supplies
Vita Cost
- Vitamins / Health Supplies
Northern Tool
- Tools / Equipment
These merchants
and many more can be found at www.only4deals.com as well.
Piggy Back
One of the
easiest ways to get what you need at greatly reduced shipping costs is
to Piggy Back with the locals. For instance, if you are a regular
customer of the local food wholesaler, chances are they receive weekly
(if not more often) full container loads of their products. If you
are a good customer, you might make an arrangement to have your goods shipped
to their stateside export freight forwarder (with merchants that offer
free shipping in the USA of course) then have them included on their container
load shipments. This process can yield some of the very best freight
rates available. A good relationship can go a long way here.
Remember, free shipping in the USA as offered by many merchants can get
your goods to them for inclusion on their container shipment.
Consolidate
on your own
As we all
know the first few pounds of a shipment are the most costly on a per pound
basis, as the weight and volume increases the cost per pound of getting
the shipment to a destination becomes considerably less and also offers
you more shipping options.
A very simple
way to get what you need from the USA. You use free domestic shipping
to send all you purchases form various online retailers to a re shipper
(like a packing/ hipping/mail drop company, they will take each of your
shipments, hold them and when you determine (generally a pre determined
date in advance) they will send them out all at once as 1 package/shipment.
The savings are very significant (as shown below) often 50% below the single
item shipping cost and sometimes as much as 65% cheaper.
CDRS: (Common
Drop Re Shipper)
Here
is another way to have free shipping in the USA actually work for you.
A CRDS is a designated shipping address (a Stateside mail drop/ship, persons
business, etc) where many individuals in your location have their individual
packages sent. As in consolidation above, they are combined into
1 large shipment. If you and your ex pat friends arrange a monthly
deadline for all packages to arrive at the CDRS (shipped free of course
to the CDRS from the merchant in the USA) they will package it up as one
shipment to your location. When the designated person receives the
shipment at your location, everyone will collect their pre-paid goods and
the total shipping cost will be divided up as a % by pound for the weight
of each person’s goods of the total cost
When everyone
gets in a groove, this can work quite smooth and even be a bit of fun.
Hey, when the mail arrives, why not have a little get together to celebrate.
Obviously the schedule can be set up to meet the groups overall needs,
possibly weekly shipments instead of monthly.
The CDRS location
is recommended to be a pack 'n' ship type store that offers mail drop and
box services and should be in a state side town known to one of the ex-pats
on the receiving end. This service is best set up in person on a
trip back to the states or by a close relative to get all the fine points
settled and all names listed so that arriving parcels get set up correctly
for re-shipping.
Shipping
cost saving examples
In this
example, we are shipping from Miami Florida zip code 33126- to Road Town,
Tortola, BVI. The quotes below are from the companies listed as of
2nd week of July, 2007. They reflect no volume or corporate discounts
that will likely be available for most shipping done on a regular basis
and from designated pack n ship type locations.
Even if a certain
re-shipping location charges a small fee to collect the packages for bulk
re-shipment, as you will see, the savings are still significant.
For this example
we will use a single 10 pound shipment and a single 100 pound shipment
for all except the US Postal Service - they have a weight limit of 70 pounds.
All prices shown are in USD $.
Fed Ex:
International economy service. 3 to 4 days approximately
10 pounds
$ 140.00 total = $ 14.00 per pound
100 pounds
$ 517.00 total = $ 5.17 per pound
Savings
$ 8.83 per pound
UPS International
: World Wide Saver. 4 to 5 days approximately
10
pounds $ 128.00 total = $12.80 per pound
100 pounds
$ 674.00 total = $ 6.74 per pound
Savings
$ 6.06 per pound
DHL International
: 2 days approximately
10
pounds $121.00 total = $ 12.10 per pound
100 pounds
$ 625. 00 total = $ 6.25 per pound
Savings
$ 5.85 per pound
United States
Postal Service: Global Express Approximately 1 to 3 days ( 70 lb limit
)
10
pounds $111.00 total = $11.10 per pound
70 pounds
$ 367.00 total = $5.24 per pound
Savings
$ 5.86 per pound
* IF
applicable, all taxes, duties or levies are the responsibility of the purchaser.
As you get
further into the shipping game to get what you need at the right price
from stateside, further saving opportunities like contract/ volume pricing
for regular monthly shipments with the same shipping company will present
themselves. Other alternate shipping methods will also emerge just
by association with the process, including direct ship coastal freighters
that often run regular schedules from selected USA ports, and can offer
even more savings. We will address that in another article.
For now, the
savings outlined above with these well known companies should be incentive
enough to make the effort. One thing I know for sure, if there is
a way to get something done, an ex-pat will find it, and by their nature,
be happy to tell others.
Some Helpful
Links:
 An
Expat’s Guide to Investing Offshore - So, you have decided to
make your move and become an expat. You have an income or a
lump sum and your expenses are under control – things are going well and
you love your new life. You know you’ve made the right choice and
you aren’t looking back. But have you dealt with your financial future?
Life as an expatriate has never been more exciting or rewarding, but being
an expatriate does not mean that you can ignore the importance of saving
and investing. At first there seem to be fewer options out there
for you, as you may not be able to contribute to a retirement plan in your
home country, such as a 401k, Roth IRA or equivalent plan. That is
one truth. But there’s another more valuable truth -- expats also
have many advantages with the array of offshore investments available to
them, so it’s possible for you to invest and save more successfully than
where you were at previously. |
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