Sunday, February 28, 2021

#59 Shopping online in a foreign country

 Amazon Prime is not in Israel, at least as of March 2020, and shipping to Israel from Amazon without prime is really hard to find. 

Here's what is says on their website:

Therefore, online shopping as an English-only speaker is rough. But sometimes I really want something from home, either out of necessity or for comfort. You can't just but a $3 thing on Amazon that will get delivered in two days. At the fastest it might come from the US or China in 5-8 working days. Also, there's no cool one-stop stores like Wal-Mart or Target. 

There are two stores that DO ship here and both use a pretty neat method. The package is shipped to a store near my house, the store sends me at text and I pick up the package at the store. It works great! In the last few days I received some clothes from Shein, a cheap Chinese store with fun clothes, and iHerb, which ships here for free.

Here a sample from the Shein shipment. This sweater cost me something like $15!


Another option for shipping is through companies like MyUS or Shop & Ship. These types of sites give you an address in a variety of countries (MyUS is only US addresses but Shop & Ship has address all over the world) which you use when you make a purchase. This allows you to take advantage of free shipping or to make purchases from companies that do not ship to your country. The package goes to the company's warehouse where they then ship it to you, sometimes repackaging and sometimes paying customs for you. This way is expensive in Israel because the customs fees are so high. But I still used it during the Loft annual sale! Even with the customs fees I saved money from the list price of the items!

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