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.
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:
- Use of only Citibank credit card (which i had applied, so no issue)
- Sales Tax!
CGW:
- Customer Service
- Potential missing in transit
- Opening up of parcel
- GST! (above SGD$400)
Ship for Me!
C Cube
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