Price USA News

I have had quite a few enquires about ordering from ebay. This is something that we do, but the process is a little different to ordering at a normal online store.

1. We won’t order from all sellers – basically the seller has to be reliable. We reserve the right to not order from any ebay seller if we have any doubts about them.
2. If it is an ebay auction you need to give me at least 48 hours notice. This is so my agent has time to place a bid as well as give you time to make payment.
3. With ebay auctions you fill in my order form the same as any other order except that the value you put in the price field is the maximum that you are willing to bid to on the item. My agent will then bid up to this level. If he is able to buy it for less then I refund you the saving.
4. If the auction exceeds your maximum bid, or if the item sells before my agent can bid (ie a buy it now sale), then I will refund you your money minus a $A10 fee. This covers the cost to both me and my agent of going through the ordering process.

In general, buying from ebay is only worthwhile if the item is very expensive or unique. For most other items you can purchase the same item from a normal online store for less. Carolina

I have been getting a lot of enquires about ordering skis and snowboards from the USA. Snowboards and skis are technically too long to ship via USPS, but lots of companies in the USA seems to be shipping them to Australia using USPS. We have recently started taking orders for snowboards and skis because of this, but so far we have yet to have any ship to Australia so I can’t tell you if it will work. The risk is the USPS depot in San Francisco will send the package back to my agent. While we don’t think this is likely, it is a risk. If you want to take the risk then you can place an order, or you can wait until I have some more news.

The cost of USPS shipping for a single snowboard is around US$110 and around $75 for a pair of skis. There is no problem ordering other ski gear like boots, jackets, pants, gloves.

Update:

We tried shipping the skis via USPS and they got blocked at the San Francisco depot and sent back to my agent. My agent now has a high volume UPS account set up so he can now ship skis and snowboards and the cost should be around $100 to $120 to ship. Interestingly, the cost of shipping two skis or snowboards is not that much more at around $120 to $150.

Update 2:

My agent has moved to FedEx – apparently they have a better to deal with. The cost are around the same as UPS. One thing FedEx does offer is very high discounts if the volumes are high so if everyone ordered a lot of large items then the cost would really come down.

After a trial run of accepting paypal/credit cards I have increased the limit from A$250 to $750. My fee is 10% rather than the normal 5% with bank deposits with these payment types, but if I get sufficient volume via these methods (over $5000 a month) then I will be able to reduce this fee.

Carolina 

I have finally passed the 1000 order. Thank you to everyone who has ordered using my service.

I have recently changed my iPhone agent because my previous agent became seriously ill. My new agent is charging me less to get the iPhones ($20 rather than $40 extra). He also pays less USA state sales tax so I have been able to reduce the price of the iPhones to $US449.80 for the 8GB model and US$557.52 for the 16GB model. With the Australian dollar up at the moment they now work out at around A$566 and A$692 to get here with my fees and express shipping included.