Options to get stuff shipped from China...Lets discuss

guest_999 said:
How much customs/extra you paid & whether it was paid upfront or need to pay at the time of delivery?
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I've never paid customs for anything coming from China/Malaysia/Indonesia/Singapore through the post office for orders on eBay, Banggood or Etsy. The checkout price is the only amount I paid. The smallest order was this one at $3 something, and the largest order was something from Etsy for $150.

I was charged customs on paper (I mean I bought exotic writing parchment) from Hong Kong with FedEx and Japan with DHL. I was also charged for anything coming from the west, whether UK or US, courier or regular post. Also, orders that came through the post office from Germany were never charged customs either (all of my Makerbeam stuff — search the forum).

So I look for stuff that ships through the post office and have avoided package forwarders or couriers for most of the stuff I want to get.
 
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buzz88 said:
Btw the other day someone mentioned Devilo on some thread here, and I found this on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/RepFamIndia/comments/1fm86wl/guide_using_delivo_as_a_freight_forwarder

Has anyone used this service? How was the experience?
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Guide is sorta outdated. Their discord server might be coming up soon too so should be easier to ask doubts there. Right now whatsapp is just too big of a headache to use as a platform. Even telegram is better.
I'm deep enough into the r/reptime rabbithole now.

rsaeon said:
I've never paid customs for anything coming from China/Malaysia/Indonesia/Singapore through the post office for orders on eBay, Banggood or Etsy. The checkout price is the only amount I paid. The smallest order was this one at $3 something, and the largest order was something from Etsy for $150.

I was charged customs on paper (I mean I bought exotic writing parchment) from Hong Kong with FedEx and Japan with DHL. I was also charged for anything coming from the west, whether UK or US, courier or regular post. Also, orders that came through the post office from Germany were never charged customs either (all of my Makerbeam stuff — search the forum).

So I look for stuff that ships through the post office and have avoided package forwarders or couriers for most of the stuff I want to get.
Click to expand...
Yeah if it's mostly small tech stuff, it's fine. Prior to covid, I bought a used xeon processor from china and it came with no problem or customs. It depends on the country as well though. From what I can tell, certain countries with free trade agreements (I could be completely wrong), don't tend to get charged customs either unless it's a luxury product.

It also fluctuates on the evaluating officer's mood too lol.
 
Rezep said:
Guide is sorta outdated. Their discord server might be coming up soon too so should be easier to ask doubts there. Right now whatsapp is just too big of a headache to use as a platform. Even telegram is better.
I'm deep enough into the r/reptime rabbithole now.


Yeah if it's mostly small tech stuff, it's fine. Prior to covid, I bought a used xeon processor from china and it came with no problem or customs. It depends on the country as well though. From what I can tell, certain countries with free trade agreements (I could be completely wrong), don't tend to get charged customs either unless it's a luxury product.

It also fluctuates on the evaluating officer's mood too lol.
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Does FTA also applies to order from individuals? I thought it's only for govt and corporations
 
rsaeon said:
I've never paid customs for anything coming from China/Malaysia/Indonesia/Singapore through the post office for orders on eBay, Banggood or Etsy. The checkout price is the only amount I paid. The smallest order was this one at $3 something, and the largest order was something from Etsy for $150.

I was charged customs on paper (I mean I bought exotic writing parchment) from Hong Kong with FedEx and Japan with DHL. I was also charged for anything coming from the west, whether UK or US, courier or regular post. Also, orders that came through the post office from Germany were never charged customs either (all of my Makerbeam stuff — search the forum).

So I look for stuff that ships through the post office and have avoided package forwarders or couriers for most of the stuff I want to get.
Click to expand...

Couple of doubts..
What's the size of your larger orders? I mean, how big/heavy were they physically?

How can you tell which ones are going to come through post office? I've only ordered from Aliexpress and banggood; the aliexpress orders (china post, malaysia post or something ) were delivered by the postman and banggood one was by some private courier service.

What are the Malaysian/indonesian/sg sites that you bought from?
 
I placed and order from Alibaba last week. Today got this WhatsApp message from ushopvship asking to provide kyc documents like aadhar card, voter id or passport(any one) to their email id.



Do I need to provide it? I remember last time I ordered in 2023 and received similiar message from morning global. But I didn't provide and many other also didn't buy got the package delivered
1000154016.jpg
 
Update from me : My Sunsky (Yanwen) order has been released by customs, they haven't asked me to provide anything nor asked me to pay anything yet. Now that doesn't necessarily mean they are not charging me, sometimes, custom charges come as COD.
 
Raoskyneo said:
I placed and order from Alibaba last week. Today got this WhatsApp message from ushopvship asking to provide kyc documents like aadhar card, voter id or passport(any one) to their email id.



Do I need to provide it? I remember last time I ordered in 2023 and received similiar message from morning global. But I didn't provide and many other also didn't buy got the package deliveredView attachment 242549
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If you don't then they'll Whatsapp you and it gets delayed a lot. Share unmaksed aadhar.
 
idontknowman said:
Couple of doubts..
What's the size of your larger orders? I mean, how big/heavy were they physically?

How can you tell which ones are going to come through post office? I've only ordered from Aliexpress and banggood; the aliexpress orders (china post, malaysia post or something ) were delivered by the postman and banggood one was by some private courier service.

What are the Malaysian/indonesian/sg sites that you bought from?
Click to expand...

The largest was stationary items (paper, stickers, notebooks), it was the size of a motherboard box that was valued at $150. The makerbeam stuff was about the same size.

All of my banggood orders were without customs, and whatever I paid at checkout was all I had to pay, they were delivered by ushopvship with a courier.

For Malaysia/Indonesia/Singapore, I search for sellers in those regions on Etsy or eBay and ask them to ship with the post office and not DHL/FedEx. They're happy to do that, because it's cheaper. But there's usually no tracking or limited tracking.

I try not to consolidate orders, those almost always attract customs, also I don't have that kind of income anymore to buy a bunch of stuff at once. So it's one cable, or one lens, or one processor, or one motherboard at a time.

I've had really bad experiences with consolidated shipments that I try to bring to India. In 2020, a shipment of 10 motherboards was confiscated, and I was asked to travel to Mumbai during the lockdown because the eBay seller did not include an invoice with the shipment. In 2008, a 100k+ shipment was seized because it was illegal to import over 100k as a private party; you needed to be a business with an IEC code/permit. A few years before that, a ~50k shipment was confiscated because it was illegal to import used/refurbished electronics.

My first online purchase was a Slot1 CPU Cooler for my 500Mhz Pentium 3 in 1998 from either coolerguys.com or 3dcool.com, I can't remember. That arrived no problem.
 
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rsaeon said:
The largest was stationary items (paper, stickers, notebooks), it was the size of a motherboard box that was valued at $150. The makerbeam stuff was about the same size.

All of my banggood orders were without customs, and whatever I paid at checkout was all I had to pay, they were delivered by ushopvship with a courier.

For Malaysia/Indonesia/Singapore, I search for sellers in those regions on Etsy or eBay and ask them to ship with the post office and not DHL/FedEx. They're happy to do that, because it's cheaper. But there's usually no tracking or limited tracking.

I try not to consolidate orders, those almost always attract customs, also I don't have that kind of income anymore to buy a bunch of stuff at once. So it's one cable, or one lens, or one processor, or one motherboard at a time.

I've had really bad experiences with consolidated shipments that I try to bring to India. In 2020, a shipment of 10 motherboards was confiscated, and I was asked to travel to Mumbai during the lockdown because the eBay seller did not include an invoice with the shipment. In 2008, a 100k+ shipment was seized because it was illegal to import over 100k as a private party; you needed to be a business with an IEC code/permit. A few years before that, a ~50k shipment was confiscated because it was illegal to import used/refurbished electronics.

My first online purchase was a Slot1 CPU Cooler for my 500Mhz Pentium 3 in 1998 from either coolerguys.com or 3dcool.com, I can't remember. That arrived no problem.
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How did you even find those websites back then ?

Google was their, but the web speeds sucked were very baaad.
 
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rsaeon said:
The largest was stationary items (paper, stickers, notebooks), it was the size of a motherboard box that was valued at $150. The makerbeam stuff was about the same size.

All of my banggood orders were without customs, and whatever I paid at checkout was all I had to pay, they were delivered by ushopvship with a courier.

For Malaysia/Indonesia/Singapore, I search for sellers in those regions on Etsy or eBay and ask them to ship with the post office and not DHL/FedEx. They're happy to do that, because it's cheaper. But there's usually no tracking or limited tracking.

I try not to consolidate orders, those almost always attract customs, also I don't have that kind of income anymore to buy a bunch of stuff at once. So it's one cable, or one lens, or one processor, or one motherboard at a time.

I've had really bad experiences with consolidated shipments that I try to bring to India. In 2020, a shipment of 10 motherboards was confiscated, and I was asked to travel to Mumbai during the lockdown because the eBay seller did not include an invoice with the shipment. In 2008, a 100k+ shipment was seized because it was illegal to import over 100k as a private party; you needed to be a business with an IEC code/permit. A few years before that, a ~50k shipment was confiscated because it was illegal to import used/refurbished electronics.

My first online purchase was a Slot1 CPU Cooler for my 500Mhz Pentium 3 in 1998 from either coolerguys.com or 3dcool.com, I can't remember. That arrived no problem.
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use delivo for most of this, only thing is they dont allow batery items and mobiles/laptops, you pay a flat fee but they deal with the indian customs for you.
 
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Uvula said:
How did you even find those websites back then ?
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The internet was a lot smaller back then, almost everyone knew each other, and pc modding/reviews was a tiny community. I was mostly active on pheatonforums, silentpcreview and xtremesystems, occasionally lurking on bit-tech, anandtech and hardocp. Your main source of information would be review sites like Anandtech or news pages like HardOCP, who would then link back to retailers.

I'd soak up all that I could from an Anandtech review, and find people at weddings to talk about the jump in bus speeds from 100MHz to 133MHz in motherboard design, and my grandfather would scold me loudly for being such a talkative teenager. Sometimes I'd visit my neighbours who had a computer and talk their ear off on their doorstep about how the 810e chipset is such a downgrade from the 440BX, which I had (he had a Pentium 1, not even MMX). Most of my schoolmates would rather discuss the latest Friends episode or what modifications they would make to the RX100 they were promised by their parents after passing the 10th boards.

Anyway, back then internet cafes had discounted rates after 1 am so a classmate from another batch would sneak out his father's chetak and push it a few kilometres to pick me up (my address was downhill so he'd mostly coast) and we'd go to those cafes where he'd download music and I'd browse Anandtech until sunrise. Since he had the transportation, I'd pay the internet cafe charges.

We had dial-up, but we'd have to pay twice, for internet and phone, so it was expensive. I remember being scolded by my father for asking permission to check my email once a week from home, and he'd be like, "Who would want to email YOU?" Today, I get an average of 5 emails a day from him. Now that I think of it, everything that I wanted and was scolded for is what they're using and relying on for themselves. Internet, wi-fi, inverter, IoT lights on the inverter during power outages, bleh.
 
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