Ming-Tzu Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · seeking users' experiences: best way to ship gears to russia? | |
Whenever I ship things overseas, I use the United States Postal Service (USPS). Cheaper than UPS or FedEx, and never had issues with the buyer not receiving the item. Not sure what "excessive" is when you mentioned the fee. I usually do Priority shipping with my own box, and it comes to about $45 or so flat-rate from NYC to anywhere in the world.
As far as customs and duties, that's a tricky subject because it depends on the country you're shipping to. I'm not an expert but, from what I understand and past experience, it's based on the amount you declare on the customs form when you're completing it on the USPS website (e.g. larger declared amount = larger customs and duties).
So your first step is to do a little research on the customs fees and duties for Russia. Figure out what the threshold is before customs and duties kick in, and adjust your declared amount accordingly. Obviously, I believe the risk of using a declared amount less than the value of the actual package contents comes if the items are damaged or the package is lost, although I'm not sure how that part of the process works since all my international packages arrived safe and sound.
After you and your friend decide the declared amount to use, you can create the shipping labels on the USPS website. The first page is pretty straightforward (e.g. name, address, zip, etc.). The second and third pages are confusing, especially if you've never completed it before. If you decide to do USPS, let me know and I can provide a bit of information, and what I usually do.
Note that I've never sold camera gear overseas, but have sold and shipped high-end watches over the years. My most recent international sale was last week to someone in Singapore. I researched the threshold for customs/duties in Singapore and found that it was $400, so after discussion with the buyer, I set the declared amount to $375. The package arrived yesterday and everything was good, except he had to buy some customs and duties. Why? I forgot to account for the USD to SGD currency conversion (e.g. so $375 USD was really $511.23 SGD), and it looks like the calculation also includes the cost of shipping (e.g. $84.32 SGD). Add both of those up and multiply by the Singapore GST of 7%, and you get about $51 SGD in duties and fees.
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https://s33.postimg.org/h8obva1nz/Delivery_receipt.jpg |
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