Price USA News

I have updated the order form to make it a little easier to use. The major changes are:

• You can choose the country. This should make it easier for people from New Zealand or other countries to access my service.
• The mail-in rebate fields have been removed since very few people use it. You can still get mail-in rebates, you just need to put the details in the order description box.
• The form now warns you if you are likely to be charged GST or duty (ie the total is over A$1000).
• I have changed some of the name of the fields on the form and updated the help function.

I would welcome any feedback anyone might have on the changes.

Carolina

Edit. Thanks for the feedback some of you have provided so far. There was an issue with the USA shipping field which I think have been corrected. If anyone else is having problems with the form please let me know.

I have made a couple of changes to my fee structure to improve the service I offer.

1. All laptops will now be opened, checked, and have a hardware profile run on them before they are shipped to make sure that they match what you ordered. I have had to introduce this policy because some suppliers have been shipping laptops where the internal specifications don’t match what is on the box or what was actually ordered. While this change will mean that no more wrong or DOA laptops will be shipped, it does take up quite a bit more of my agent’s time. Because of this he is charging me an extra US$8.00 to do this testing and which I will be passing on to you.

2. I have also had quite a spike in orders that are paid for and later cancelled. Until now I have been happy to provide a full refund, but these orders are now taking up too much time. To try to cut down on these cancelled ordered, I have introduced a new processing fee of A$5.00 for cancelled and refunded orders. I will wave this fee if you place a new order within a week. This fee only applied to orders that have been paid for – quotes are still free.

Carolina

My agent had an out-of-town emergency family issue and had to leave with no notice. He told me that he will only have sporadic internet access (he will try and place as many orders as he can when he gets the chance), but he won’t be able to ship any orders until he gets back. He is trying to get a friend to ship orders for him, but he is not sure if they will be able to. These situations can happen and I will keep everyone updated.

Edit. My agent is back and all is back to normal.

I have had a lot of orders in the last couple of days for the Windows 7 pre-order upgrades. At this stage I don’t know how many my agent will be able to purchase as there is a limit of 3 per customer. I have asked him to buy as many as he can and and once I know how many he can get I will let everyone know.

Update: My agent is going to buy as many copies as he can. Because the cost varies a bit from store to store because of sales tax and shipping we are going to average out the costs across all the orders and fill them on first-come, first-served basis. The cost is likely to be no more than US$55 plus ship to Australia of around US$10. If you want a copy put in an order and I will contact you once all the copies have been ordered.

Update 2: My agent has managed to acquire 18 copies each of the Windows 7 home and professional upgrade. These are physical copies and will need to be posted to Australia. The average cost of Windows 7 home upgrade is US$53.75 and professional is $106.15. I will be sending out quotes to everyone who put in an order over the next couple of hours and the orders will be filled on a first paid, first served basis.

Update 3. We have sold all the Windows 7 home upgrades, but we still have a few copies of professional. The shipping to Australia is by express envelope and costs US$27.95.

Carolina

Just a quick note to let everyone know that my agent is currently overwhelmed with orders at the moment (volume is about 5x normal). Because of the limits on his credit cards he can only place a certain total value of orders per day. At the current rate he should clear out the backlog over the next two days, but if you have any concerns please contact me and I will try to do what I can.

Carolina

I am back from my rather nice holiday and so Price USA is now open for new order again. If you have written to me over the last  week I will get back to you over the next couple of days.

Carolina

My agent will be going away in early June for a couple of weeks holiday and I will be taking this opportunity to also have a break from Price USA. If you are wanting to order anything and have it arrive before the end of June then this week is probably your last chance. I will be taking orders until the 25th May, but it is likely that these orders won’t arrive in Australia until after the my agent gets back from his holiday.

Update: My agent will be away from the 4th to the 17th June, but he has found someone to ship the orders while he is away. This means that orders won’t be able to be placed by my agent until the 18th June, but any new order paid before the 25th May will still be placed and shipped as usual. I will be closing Price USA to new order from the 25th May and reopen on the 14th June.

Carolina

Last year my agent banned orders from Urban Outfitters as they were in his words “the worst people in the world to deal with.” So while I have got quite a few Urban Outfitters orders, I have had to turn down. This is not something I like to do, but as my agent has to deal with the mess when things go wrong I can understand his actions.

Since it has been awhile since he has had to deal with Urban Outfitters, I have asked him if he is willing to try again with Urban Outfitters and the good news is he gave a cautious yes. So if you wanting to be the new UO guinea pig I am now taking order for Urban Outfitters once again

Carolina

USPS has increased their shipping prices on Express and Priority Mail by 6% to 35%! The increases seem to be larger with the big packages. This together with the drop in the A$ makes ordering from the USA not such a bargain anymore

On a more positive note my agent has been able to obtain quite a good rate from FedEx which allows him to ship large items (like skis and snowboards, etc) for around the same price per lb as it would cost to ship via USPS (that is if they shipped such large items). The only problem with FedEx is the cost varies by where you live in Australia so it is hard to give exact prices on the shipping, but I hope to have a range list up soon.

Merry Christmas. I will be in and out over the Christmas break so it might take me a little longer than normal to get back to you.

Update: I am now back trying to catch up on all the emails and orders