International Shipping: vPost, Borderlinx and ComGateWay

Had been dealing with numerous international shipping ever since i started buying and selling things in eBay, now even expanding to USA retail stores. Always using vPost as my only choice of shipping company to get my items.

Why not just ask seller to ship worldwide?
Answer is very simple. Cost efficiency, however with the compromise of time. Also not all sellers or retail stores ships their item worldwide. Hence we needs service from vPost to provide such intermediate services.

How did they do it?
Simple, upon registering with them. They will provide you with a unique USA address (which you cant stay in) to allow items to be shipped to. And from there, vPost will ship them into Singapore. Charging a base charge of $12.40 and addition actual/volumetric weight of as low as $4.30 (weight of 0.5kg).

E.g. $12.40+$4.30=$16.70 (Approx USD$12)
Pretty much similar to what USPS is offering.
*In this case, is not about cost saving but due to seller not willing to ship worldwide

More Options Now (already have)
Recently found a few other companies are providing similar service. They are borderlinx (BLX) and comgateway (CGW). However both are situated in USA. Read a few reviews on these 3 shippers and all of them are pretty extreme. Either Very Good or Very Bad.

Read Forums
(If keen)
Hardwarezone Forum 1
Hardwarezone Forum 2

With majority ranking vPost as the last shipper they would use, which i agree only for the transit time.

Both BLX n CGW are able to provide fast transit due to their base situated in US while vPost is in Singapore. It makes a huge difference in transit time of about 2 days!

How it makes a difference?
Communication:
For BLX n CGW, Spore buyers are communicating straight with the US corresponding shipper. When item arrives at Singapore, Singpost just need to do its usual processing.

Unlike vPost, we communicate with them about the matching and process of items. They need to communicate with the US corresponding shippers. See the extra step involved?

Time Zone & Operating Hours:
Making things worse to the above poor communication in the chain, our difference time zone and operating hours. Why?

Postal service usually only operate in office hours (9am-6pm).
E.g. (using analogy of 12 hours time difference)
Singapore 9am (start work) = US 9pm (end work)
Singapore 6pm (end work) = US 6am (still not operating)
In other words, one postal services is working at a point of time, no common operating hours.

So?
When i send in a request to match an item in Singapore, 9am (local), it will only to process at 9pm (9am US). So a delay of 12 hours. *This can be supported by why i always receive vPost email only at night around 8-10pm

However i cant do anything, since vPost is not operating at 9pm! So wait till 9am(local) next morning. Another delay of 12hours.

While above example only shows part of the process, which is matching. Imagine how many hours will be wasted for the whole process. Easily 2 days!

Wrote to vPost on their slow transit time, suggesting the above problem (which i hope they already know and dealing with it). Advised them to come out with more direct communication within the chain and operating staffs to work in US operating hours. Again hoping that things will get better.


Of course there are draw backs from using US shipping services (which you get to know them while reading the forum).

Personally to me they are
BLX:

1. Use of only Citibank credit card (which i had applied, so no issue)
2. Sales Tax!

CGW:

1. Customer Service

Both:

1. Potential missing in transit
2. Opening up of parcel
3. GST! (above SGD$400)
   

One reason why i still vPost in spite of their slow transit, is the saving of GST! which can amount up to 7% (inclusive the shipping fee). 7% on expense/charges is 7% decrease in margin/savings. My items usually hit above SGD$400 hence i stick to vPost. BUT will try out CGW for shipments less than SGD$400, since they are more efficient in their transit time


Ship for Me!
C Cube

Know-Your Expense: Month Aug to Oct

Its a long 3 months for me to record my expenses. But without me knowing, its has become a habit. Quite cool to see how your expenses 'behave' in different phases of your life. Instead of showing big picture consist of all the entities in bar chart form, i decided to show each one in their line chart and do a brief review on them, see how they correlate with schooling days, working days and do-nothing days.

Meals

Is fun to see how we consume in correlation with going to school.
April - May: Lesser lesson and eventually no lesson on mid May.
June - July and Sept: Meals are almost cut half! Also with work, means eat at work.
Aug: This is the part which stuns me awhile.. Making me think back what I'm doing for the whole of August, 20++ for all 3 meals!

Looking at my other entities, i found out that i was stuck at home most of the time, noting my increase in eBay buying. Well also could be more work, noting my increase in my Pay for that month (*figures not shown). Maybe after Desaru IM, i prefer to rest at home more, training alot lesser, which again means eat lesser

Sept - Oct: Notice that my Sept consumption falls within the same range ($60-$80) as Jun and Jul. But a bit of rise, thanks to School reopen (late Sept)

Now inspect to each meal, Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

Breakfast: Having the least movement on the chart, it suggest that Schooling have little affect to Breakfast and also the least impact to the Total Meal Consumption.

Lunch: Using October as the benchmark to suggest the real consumption of lunch during Schooling Period, which marks at range $60-$80. When there is no school, but training hard. Lunch consumption is range $30-$50. How about little activity? Doing nothing, still suggest, I have to consumption $10-$30.

Dinner: I personally see training as direct correlation with my training. As i don't consume dinner during school hours. Note the sudden spike in July which could imply that I'm eating more or better during this period of time. The gradual increase from Aug to Oct shows how well/much i eat as i recover from Desaru and training again for Standard Chartered Marathon. Lastly, thinking back on how to have my dinner for Jun-Jul and Aug-Oct. Jun-Jul, I'm having the cheapo kind of dinner, only Economic Rice. While Aug-Oct, with more money, I decided to eat better food like BBQ Half Chicken and Mini Wok which are all twice as much as Economic Rice.

Transport

Transportation is another linked entity with schooling, suggesting the trips spend to school. During Oct, it hits $60, higher than Jul which I'm most probably traveling to work. April's $70 amount was thanks to numerous trips to revision classes which are not schedule economically. why? 1 3hr lesson a day for 4-5 days per week.. That's the period, I'm having revision lectures which i can plan to squeeze 2 lecture per day.

Wanting to share the effect of School on MISC and Leisure. However, found little correlation in between them. Hence decided to leave them out.


Should I Start Eating Economic Rice Again?
C Cube