The most anticipated shopping season of the year is almost upon us, our heads filled with the promise of scoring the best price of the year on new clothing, cosmetics, homeware, gadgets, and more.
Before the sale starts, we’ve pulled together our best tips and advice to ensure you make the wisest buying decisions in this shopping season.
🌟Benefits of Overseas Online Shopping🌟
① Oversea online shopping allows you to buy anything from your favorite brands at a lower price or with good discounts
② Wider variety & range of products are available
③ Keep up with every foreign shopping season
🌟Why Buyandship🌟
Anyone who likes to shop online will know the frustration of picking out purchases on an overseas website, only to find at the checkout that the store can’t ship to UAE. Parcel forwarding service is the answer to this problem! Buyandship has 11 warehouses worldwide, which allows you to shop around the world! We provide our users with affordable shipping rate in UAE, and free parcel consolidation for you to shop in different countries. Learn More
6 Year-End Shopping Tips You Should Know
Click on the Following Tips to Check out the Details
1. What to Do if Your Credit Card is Rejected?
Sometimes the credit card issuer blocks the overseas transaction as a default setting. You can call their customer service center to clarify and solve this problem.
If the overseas websites don’t accept international credit cards or PayPal, you may search for the item on some other e-commerce websites like Amazon, Walmart, or eBay.
If you have filled in Buyandship’s overseas warehouse address as the billing address / chose “same billing address as shipping address” and your trasaction was not successful, please try to fill in the home country address you have used to apply for the credit card as the billing address.
2. Change Your Website’s Region
Sometimes you may need to manually change the online store’s region so you can access to the USA site, if you’re automatically directed to your current location.
For example, if you go to Ralph Lauren’s site, you may be directed to their Asia site (https://www.ralphlauren.asia/en) and you have to manually change the URL to https://www.ralphlauren.com to access to their US site. For Vans, you’ll also need to select “USA” region on the top right-hand corner.
3. Overseas Shopping Payment Options
Local Currency VS. Foreign Currency – Which One is Better?
When shopping on overseas online stores, some sites might ask if you want to pay in your local currency or foreign currency (e.g. USD if the merchant is based in the U.S.).
Always choose to pay in the currency of the country you’re buying from. If you choose to pay in your home currency that means you let the merchant to convert it, which the exchange rate is usually less favorable. On top of that, your bank may also charge you additional foreign transaction fees since the transaction is conducted with an overseas merchant.
PayPal vs Credit Card – Which One is Better?
There are several ways for you to pay for your online purchases, especially when you’re shopping overseas. A number of online stores accept multiple payment methods, including credit/debit cards and PayPal. More international online stores are offering a variety of payment gateways, but which one is the most suitable option for your shopping needs?
Check out the pros and cons of PayPal and credit card to helps you decide which one is better for you.
🔗 Further Reading: Buyandship Shopping Tips: PayPal vs Credit Card
4. Add Delivery Instruction when You Shop on Amazon US/JP
Amazon is one of our users’ favorite websites because you can shop for almost everything from there. To make your Amazon parcels delivered to you smoothly, we strongly recommend you to follow these few guides so your package can be sent to our warehouse in a more secure way.
For shopping on Amazon US, please add a delivery instruction “Please do NOT leave the package if nobody is there to receive it.” via Your Addresses page.
For shopping on Amazon JP, please choose a delivery setting as “置き配を利用しない (in Japanese) / Do not use unattended delivery (in English) / 不使用放置点交货 (in Simplified Chinese)” before making the payment.
🔗 Further Reading: 1 Min Step to Avoid Missing Your Amazon’s Package
🔗 Further Reading: New Delivery Option on Amazon Japan
5. Taxation
U.A.E. customs will charge duty fees for all personal shipment, the average duty fees will be 5%, and the shipments will be cleared after clients have settled the duty.
Please note that fees are calculated based on CIF (Cost, Insurance, and Freight) value. It means the import duty and taxes payable are calculated on the complete shipping value which consists of the cost of the imported goods, the cost of insurance, and the cost of freight. Duty will be calculated on the sum of the CIF and the landing charges.
Meanwhile, although parcel consolidation can help save shipping fee, we suggest not to consolidate too many parcels in one shipment order, as it also means there is a bigger chance to exceed the tax threshold. If you have many items, we recommend to ship them via a few shipment orders.
🔗 Further Reading: How Duties and Taxes Are Calculated?
6. Is the Item You Want Allowed to Ship with Buyandship?
Please read the prohibited items catalog before shopping from overseas online stores. if you are unsure about your product and whether it is allowed to ship, please feel free to contact our Customer Service Representatives via our website’s live chat / Facebook inbox and send them your product links.
🔗 Further Reading: Prohibited Items Catalog