To our international members - low cost shipping !

In the 'Aussie thread' one of our members (KenD) pointed out that there is an outfit in the US in Austin TEXAS (CPAP.COM is in Houston Texas) that will receive parcels from US online suppliers and forward them (apparently at USPS rates which are far lower than UPS & Fedex plus offer a better service & full tracking).

This outfit called BonVu can be found here ...

https://www.bonvu.com/bonvu/content/view/14/43/lang,en/


The issue here is that for example, cpap.com ship free to US addresses & so the BonVu company can be the US delivery address. Then BonVu ship to you in your country. Cpap.com use UPS who typically charge 100% more than USPS and offer a slower service. So paying BonVu say $US67 vs cpap.com's UPS $US140 to deliver oseas is a no brainer.

The main issues you need to grapple with is your country's customs & import duties & restrictions.

In Aust for example, items under $A1000 don't require an import approval and CPAPs are tax exempt. So the BonVu scheme is ideal for us & if cpap.com say they have no objection to shipping to BonVu, then they should expect *a lot more* orders from us over here & perhaps elsewhere.

So part of this post is to ask Johnny Goodman to state a position re us doing this. Cpap.com can only but benefit.

Thanks

DSM

To Johnny Goodman

It just occurred to me that there are some issues you have to grapple with re this shipping approach.

I believe you have a contract with UPS but don't see any problem if you stick to that contract when shipping to BonVu.

The issue I can see that might cause problems is with particular vendors who have insisted you don't ship
overseas. Technically by shipping to BonVu you aren't disobeying that but it might become a fight with
certain vendors - if you can see your way to supporting this without having to make a public statement
you may want to say "We will review any requests to ship to BonVu on a case by case basis" in that this
means you don't have to take a public position on it but can do it by individual negotiation.

I am pretty sure that certain vendors would oppose any public position on the matter.

DSM

Further comment to anyone wanting to import from a supplier in the US (I had a PM that raised some interesting issues).

Do ask the seller if they are willing to ship to a known US address even though you are outside the US. When I was doing this with eBay items for example, most sellers were quite happy when I could show that the adressee was a recognized paypal account address. Otherwise some will get very upset if you buy 1st then ask later even if you want goods shipped in the US. Reason for this is there are known scammers who use halfway houses (dupes willing to pass on items for money) as a way of laundering money.

Even when buying from an online seller you need to spell out that you are from another country but have a valid way to pay - I use a paypal account (paying any other way is pure folly as paypal has some insurance this insurance usually only applies if the deliver to address is known & registered with them. And also hat the address you are shipping to is a valid one that they will agree to send to.

Recently somewhere (on another forum) someone shipping to Italy from the US got taken when the buyer refused to collect the item from Italian customs then complained to paypal about non delivery. Paypal made the seller refund. It turned out the buyer just refused to pay the customs cost. That seller than stopped shipping any more items to other countries as it cost them to then retrieve the goods.

The past plan is to establish a relationship with a trusted US supplier (like cpap.com) and stick to a simple plan on deliveries and payments.

There is a high level of trust needed to get such relationships established and stable.

DSM