Buying Online
Posted by: chips48
12th May 2011 09:23pm
How many of the members of cafestudy find it really annoying when oerseas online stores and/or companies will not sell items to people in Australia? It really makes me angry, especially in this day and age of internet shopping.
I'd be interested to find.out if they have let these stores and/or companies know how they feel, and if not, why not?
You must be a member to reply to this chat topic. Click here to sign in.
Help Caféstudy members by responding to their questions, or ask your own in Café Chat, and you will get the chance of earning extra rewards. Caféstudy will match these and donate equally to our two chosen Australian charities.
Australian Marine Conservation Society are an independent charity, staffed by a committed group of scientists, educators and passionate advocates who have defended Australia’s oceans for over 50 years.
ReachOut is the most accessed online mental health service for young people and their parents in Australia. Their trusted self-help information, peer-support program and referral tools save lives by helping young people be well and stay well. The information they offer parents makes it easier for them to help their teenagers, too.
Comments 21
Nemeen
I have come across this but have not complained. I don't know why, I guess because I respect the choice of those selling it even if it is incredibly annoying. I get it a lot with Kickstarter where you can choose not to ship internationally. Just means that I do not pledge to back those people's projects if I can't get the incentives.
Whenever I sell stuff on ebay, I choose not to send internationally because its too much hassle, maybe thats why these people aren't doing it, laziness.
lpullman
Amazon are great ones for this. Can't say it makes me angry - I just take my business elsewhere. I've had a couple of US based vendors who mistook "international" for "North America" but they were quite open to solving the problem once it was pointed out..
What did you have trouble with? The only other thing I've had insurmountable issues with was shipping products containing alcohol out of the US. Apparently it's highly dangerous. But only withing US airspace, in Europe or Canada, they are quite safe.
Cooky
I totally agree with you. But really unless some people who got together & voiced their opinion, I am not sure if any thing would be done or not.
Anonymous
i share your frustration - when i'm buying records and other music stuff - many of the us and uk stores don't ship to australia, which is annoying because there are virtually no records stores where i live (brisbane). at many times it can also be drastically cheaper - ie. when i bought a record of bjork's biophilia, it could be bought online for about $14 (including postage) , but since the store didn't ship to australia, i was forced to buy it at jb-hifi for $63 . i suppose we'll just have to do some waiting :(
Anonymous
I agree with you, We buy a lot of country and western clothing etc
The product sold in Australia and NZ is of poor quality so we try
to get the good stuff from the states. Unfortunately American retailers
are the worst companies to deal with.
Most online stores me and my family have tried to purchase from will not
dispatch goods overseas. Fortunately now we have a good friend in the
USA who acts as our inhouse delivery address, she then forwards our
product to us.
muckey
I haven't bought from them for a while, but they send to Aussieland.
http://www.ericas.com/
Proteus
I don't do a lot of online shopping due to financial restraints, but to date I haven't found too many that will not send goods to Australia. The only thing that annoys me is the huge cost of the delivery charges they hit us with!! Sometimes it just makes it easier to shop online from Australian stores due to the high freight charges from the US, UK and Canada :(
chips48
I agree with youm Proteus, but it depends what you are buying. The craft supplies I buy are usually lightweight, so the postage is not usually a problem. Shopping on ebay is usually not a problem, either, because most people there will sell worldwide, but when it comes to specialty craft stores online it is very hard to find ones that sell to overseas customers. Some of the biggest ones I have found just won't do it, and I really cannot understand why.
matty
I concur with Pgs...My sister has used the mentioned web address to get certain patterned quilt blocks,,
chips48
Thanks, Matty. I'll give them a try.
PGS
There are companies in the US which you can use as the delivery address there & they will forward it for the extra post & a fee.
www.shipito.com is one of them. search for: 'mail forwarding' & the country, you should find more.
lpullman
I use Shipito.com for the more difficult US retailers. Added about $20 to the shipping cost, but that's still much lower than the postage quoted when they insist on a parcel service with tracking and insurance.
chips48
Thanks so much. I'll give this a try.
Ash
It depends on what you are trying to buy form those online stores. Australia has got very strict laws on what you can import. Some of those restrictions are warranted but there are others that are really stupid…..for instance if you are a big gaming fan like me and want to buy the latest Mortal Combat game online, then too bad you can’t because we don’t have an R18+ rating for games in Australia which is the stupidest thing ever.
PGS
Hi
If you are up to a holiday in China, drop in to the lovely town of Yi Wu, and visit the markets section. 5 buildings, each the size of Westfield in Parramatta. I had a week there & couldn't see all of the stores in 1 building.
I do have a friend there - runs an online business - that may source what you want & send it if you can give full details. Payment by PayPal is ok with her.
Nemeen
The R18+ rating for games comes in on January 1st, my husband is excited.
chips48
Hi, Ash
I am just wanting to buy craft supplies that we simply cannot get here in Australia, such as crochet threads, patterns, yarn, etc. There are no restrictions on imorting these into Australia, but the online stores in the USA, etc just aren't interested in selling to us here in OZ if it involves a little bit extra work for them, such as weighing the package to work out what the postage will be. Some sites do it without any trouble, but others just aren't interested. It really bugs me big time.
atwistedlife
Hi chips48, Sorry to hear you have hit shopping blockades online, I have never seen an online store anywhere that won't sell to Australia, What were you shopping for? Most of my online shopping is for PC hardware, games, videos and the odd electronic nic nac. I mainly shop in China for what I want and I really haven't had a close look at Importing stuff from other countries mainly because of costs being higher for same products or delivery is too high.
PGS
Actually, some things on Amazon can't be sent here - Logitech mouse is one example, Scarlet (sequel to 'gone with the wind') is another.
Buying onine in China is great, but often you will not get what you think you are getting. Pretty safe to say any software will be pirate - regarless of packaging & 'genuine' claims. Clothes may not fit or really be as described. Some PC hardware items & camera are fake. I found one site selling 'genuine' Scandisk 256Gb USB drives - that held a mere 20Gb for a day then all data vanished.
lpullman
Aha! A friend's mum is into quilting and I know she get's a lot of stuff from overseas. I'll see if I can find out where she buys from.
chips48
Hi, atwisstedlife. I mostly shop for crochet patterns, threads and yarns because we are so limited in our range of supplies over here in Australia. And what we can buy is so expensive, it is not worth it. I just cannot understand how sites that are only on the web, not in stores in any particular place, won't deal with customers all over the world. After all, that is what the internet is supposed to be all about - making things available to everyone around the world. I'd just be interested to know how many other people are in the same situation as me, and if they are, if they would be willing to start an email campaign to the craft stores online who won't deal with overseas customers.
Thanks for your response.
Christine