Package Forwarding from USA to Thailand: Re-shippers recommendations

[lowp]

I am looking for advice on a re-shipping company to forward packages from USA to Thailand.

In the distant past I had used Shipito and had a good experience over many packages and cheap rates. Then they seemed to have gone sideways. ie rounding up to the next pound instead of by the ounce etc. I am looking for recommendations of who is good and why and those to avoid. I used to buy things off of ebay and at that time fees were only about 10$/lb. I expect they have more than doubled. I don't need consolidation as I buy infrequently and don't need a year contract, but if cheap enough I might consider it. I also do not care about speed - ie fedex, dhl - a month+ or so is no big deal. Tax free states like Oregon would be a plus. Shipito was great as you could word the customs form accurately, but vague enough to avoid theft potential as I usually I didn't care if it got lost. Then as the items were used, I could put low valuations to avoid import fees and opt out of insurance. That being said, I did send a couple of ebay laptops and cameras without issues. Has anybody used MyUS.com? With many items containing lithium batteries do re-shippers charge more for those items or do they just need to be declared while the shipping fees remain the same? Thanks *To moderator, I wanted to post this to general Thailand forum, but it did not seems possible.*

[mokwit]

Planet Express pretty much fits your requirements. I use them following a recommendation here.

[lowp]

Thanks Mokwit!

[Dogmatix]

+1 for PE. Shipito also added a cheaper mail service which was about the same price as PE when I input some dimensions on a dry run.

[J Branche]

FYI Check if they are familiar with shipping to Thailand and watch out for DHL.   There is an Import tax and a certain tax to be prepaid.  

 

I've read customs will pick any price off the Internet if the receipt and/or value is not declared.  You buy something on Sale they may want Full Retail tax on item.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I do a lot of package forwarding, mostly small size/weight stuff for personal use...

 

Originally, years ago, I used Shipito.. Then in  more recent years, used Planet Express for several years.... But ceased using them about a year ago when I had a run of packages where more than half sent by their Planet Mail method over a period of months went entirely missing.

 

These days I've been using a Thai company that you can find on Facebook called We Shipping USA.  They offer very inexpensive two-month ocean shipping delivery for 300b per kilo, or about two-week air delivery for 800b per kilo.. all inclusive, no extra customs or duty charges ever, regardless of content. Once in Thailand, they send those items to your home via very cheap EMS mail delivery for a small added fee.

 

The only method of payment they accept is transfer to their Thai bank account. And the method of interacting with them is via FB Messenger. They've worked quite well for me over a period of months, and I haven't had a single package sent thru  them go missing or get damaged, etc.

 

And it's also nice about not having to worry about unexpected Thai Customs duties anymore, or have to worry about keeping the value of my shipped items under $50 USD in order to qualify for the official "small package" exclusion on Thai Customs duty assessments that would otherwise apply when reshipping thru vendors such as Shipito or Planet Express.

 

https://www.facebook.com/WeShippingUSA/

 

 

[watthong]

On 11/1/2023 at 6:17 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

These days I've been using a Thai company that you can find on Facebook called We Shipping USA.  They offer very inexpensive two-month ocean shipping delivery for 300b per kilo, or about two-week air delivery for 800b per kilo.. all inclusive, no extra customs or duty charges ever, regardless of content.

 

Does this company operate similar fashion to Planet Xpress. Meaning do they keep a warehouse where you can mail your stuff to them and they can do the packing (ie consolidating various separate items into one big box) before shipping them out?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

26 minutes ago, watthong said:

 

Does this company operate similar fashion to Planet Xpress. Meaning do they keep a warehouse where you can mail your stuff to them and they can do the packing (ie consolidating various separate items into one big box) before shipping them out?

 

We Shipping USA does maintain two warehouses / receiving addresses in the U.S. -- one in Oregon that's the destination for air shipment packages, and the other in Virginia for sea shipment packages. The user/sender sends their item(s) to either address based on which service they want to use (air or sea).

 

We Shipping USA does automatically do a kind of consolidation, mostly on the once received in Thailand end. You can send them 1 or 3 or 5 or 10 different packages to one of their locations for any given shipping cycle (the air shipping method has a weekly receipt cutoff of early Monday morning, while the sea shipping deadlines come on various dates about every two months).

 

I don't know how exactly they package my packages for the air or sea shipment headed for Thailand. But once the items arrive here and clear customs, they at their BKK warehouse tend to consolidate a given sender's items all into one box, or if larger, into a large shrink wrapped package with multiple packages inside, and then have those sent / delivered here by EMS.

 

So for each shipment, at least in my experience thus far, everything I send for a given cycle -- whether one item or 10 -- usually arrives to my door in a single EMS shipment. (Though there have been a couple times where maybe I had 10 items, and they ended up finding #10 after sending me the main EMS package, and then end up sending a small add-on package for the one they missed originally.)

 

So, unlike Shipito or Planet Express, with We Shipping USA, there are no add-on package consolidation charges, since they tend to do the consolidating automatically. But also unlike the other two services, with WSUSA, you don't get to custom decide what day you want your things sent. Whatever you have accumulated in their warehouses gets automatically sent on their next scheduled shipping date.

 

Also, for full disclosure, the WSUSA operation is a whole lot less high tech than the other two. There's no website to log into to check on or track your packages in their systems, or do order any activity. With WSUSA, when you send a package to them, they ask/want you to send them a FB Messenger message with the shipment tracking number, which is how they track things in their system.

 

When they're ready to ship the arrived contents to your home here in BKK, they'll then send you via FB Messenger some photos of your individual packages that have arrived, and then a FB Messenger message giving you the total weight, shipment price based on air or sea rate, and the small added EMS mailing fee. You do a transfer to their Thai bank account, and send them a screenshot of the payment confirmation. And they send out the package by EMS the next day.

 

[watthong]

On 11/1/2023 at 6:17 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

all inclusive, no extra customs or duty charges ever, regardless of content.

 

How could that be? In short you only pay, via bank transfer, once your package shipped by them already arrived in Thailand? And that's just for their services, nothing else? (Do you know how they got around not paying Thai customs duty?)

Thanks for a very detailed description of this shipping house. Your info is much appreciated.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

11 minutes ago, watthong said:

 

How could that be? In short you only pay, via bank transfer, once your package shipped by them already arrived in Thailand? And that's just for their services, nothing else? (Do you know how they got around not paying Thai customs duty?)

Thanks for a very detailed description of this shipping house. Your info is much appreciated.

 

Correct, you only pay them once your items are here in Thailand and awaiting delivery to your door. I believe they would tell you, customs fees are built into their overall shipping rates.

 

All I know is, the only prices you pay (regardless of your contents) are the flat rate 300b per kilo sea shipping rate and 800b per kilo air shipping rate, plus the EMS mailing fee at this end.

 

I do know all their packages clear customs here in Bangkok, because they often talk about an overall shipment going into or clearing that process... But I don't know any details of how they're able to handle things in the aforementioned manner.

 

[donmuang37]

On 11/1/2023 at 1:08 PM, J Branche said:

FYI Check if they are familiar with shipping to Thailand and watch out for DHL.   There is an Import tax and a certain tax to be prepaid.  

 

I've read customs will pick any price off the Internet if the receipt and/or value is not declared.  You buy something on Sale they may want Full Retail tax on item.

I bought a new HP 17"  top end notebook computer from Amazon. They shipped it free with SF Express.  Had to pay 7% sales tax, but no duty.  Arrived in about 2 weeks, and delivered with no hassles or extra charges.  Cost about one half the price of a 17" notebook here in Thailand.

[tyler28]

On 11/1/2023 at 6:17 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Then in  more recent years, used Planet Express for several years.... But ceased using them about a year ago when I had a run of packages where more than half sent by their Planet Mail method over a period of months went entirely missing.

 

If this was in late 2022/early 2023, then I had the exact same experience. It scared me away from using "Planet Mail" ever again.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

10 minutes ago, tyler28 said:

If this was in late 2022/early 2023, then I had the exact same experience. It scared me away from using "Planet Mail" ever again.

 

Yep, that's exactly when it was. I was in touch with PE at the time on the subject, and they came to realize they were having a non delivery problem with their Planet Mail carrier.... It's not clear to me whether that ever was fully resolved.

 

After long discussions with their management on the issue, we ended up some months later doing some additional test mailings to me here in BKK... And one of the two test packages I sent via them still never arrived here. I gave up after that.

 

[bbko]

On 11/2/2023 at 7:25 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

The user/sender sends their item(s) to either address based on which service they want to use (air or sea).

This is my first time trying to use a package forwarding company from the USA to Thailand and I'm in contact with WSUSA but have a couple of questions about addresses.

WSUSA told me to put "Amso" for the first name and put my full name for the last.  Question; if I order off of Amazon, do I add WSUSA's address to my Amazon profile as my default shipping address and the name would look like this?  "Amsco John Doe"

2nd question, how/where do input my Thai address for WSUSA to know where to send the package once it arrives in Thailand?

 

TIA.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Hi... Regarding your questions...

 

1. I dunno why WSUSA messes around with their Amso request (I don't know what it even means)... When I set up my service with them, I asked them via FB Messenger to just use my regular first and last name as the addressee on my account, and they agreed and that's the way I've been doing it since my very first package with them. I'd imagine, they'd be willing to do the same for you if you asked.

 

2. In my case, when I set up my service with them,  they asked for, and I gave them, my Thailand delivery address (home address), which is always the same. And then whenever I have a new sea or air shipment that's arrived, they automatically just use that address...  Though before they send the EMS package to me here of the things that have arrived in TH, they always send me a FB Messenger message confirming the delivery address at the same time they send me the payment amount to pay via bank transfer.

 

If a customer were regularly going to be sending the packages to different or more than one address in Thailand, I'd imagine you could inform them of that upfront, and see how they want to handle it.... If I wanted to send to some different address in Thailand sometimes, I know they can/will accommodate that.... But, I just haven't done it myself thus far.

 

As I mentioned previously, you pretty much transact all communication and transactions with them via their FB Messenger account. And the lady handling that here in BKK can write in passable, transactional English.

 

Hope that helps....

 

[Sheryl]

@TallGuyJohninBKKthanjs for this info, very interesting. Do you know if they also ship things ftom Thsiland to US? 

[Liverpool Lou]

On 11/1/2023 at 1:08 PM, J Branche said:

I've read customs will pick any price off the Internet if the receipt and/or value is not declared.  You buy something on Sale they may want Full Retail tax on item.

If a value is not declared by the shipper, what else do you expect?   Import duty and VAT is determined on the value of the goods, not the price that was paid, which are not necessarily the same things.

[Liverpool Lou]

On 11/3/2023 at 10:26 AM, donmuang37 said:

I bought a new HP 17"  top end notebook computer from Amazon. They shipped it free with SF Express.  Had to pay 7% sales tax, but no duty.  Arrived in about 2 weeks, and delivered with no hassles or extra charges.  Cost about one half the price of a 17" notebook here in Thailand.

"Had to pay 7% sales tax, but no duty".

That is because laptops are zero-rated for import duty, regardless of which seller/shipping method/courier is used.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

29 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

@TallGuyJohninBKKthanjs for this info, very interesting. Do you know if they also ship things ftom Thsiland to US? 

 

Sheryl, I've never heard that they do...

 

But on a related issue, they have recently expanded to serving several other sending countries beyond the U.S., and their roster now, I believe, includes Germany, France, Australia and the U.K.

 

https://www.facebook.com/WeShippingUSA/photos

 

People can see their rate cards for the different sending countries in their Facebook photos catalog.

 

One difference, though, is that with the U.S., they offer BOTH the inexpensive  and slower sea shipping method and the more expensive and quicker air shipping method.

 

Whereas with the other non-U.S. sending countries, they appear to only be offering the quicker and more expensive air shipping method (plus/minus 1,000 baht per kilo), but NOT the cheaper and slower sea shipping method.

 

This is a video they posted to their FB page recently showing the volume of packages they're handling via their Virginia sea shipping warehouse:

 

https://www.facebook.com/WeShippingUSA/videos/1109180083401769/

 

Lotta Amazon, Walmart and Target on display there... :-)

 

 

[brian2322]

I've been having a really hard time with the FDA customs requirements for getting contact lenses sent here.  I had to abandon 2 shipments when the amount of hoops to jump through became too onerous.  Those were both sent via DHL.  (FWIW the prescription I need is not available in Thailand anywhere).  

 

Have any of you shipped medications or anything else that would normally trigger the FDA clearance process using the WeShippingUSA service?  

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

8 minutes ago, brian2322 said:

I've been having a really hard time with the FDA customs requirements for getting contact lenses sent here.  I had to abandon 2 shipments when the amount of hoops to jump through became too onerous.  Those were both sent via DHL.  (FWIW the prescription I need is not available in Thailand anywhere).  

 

Have any of you shipped medications or anything else that would normally trigger the FDA clearance process using the WeShippingUSA service?  

 

I've had contact lenses shipped from the U.S. to TH in the past via regular international mail (not private couriers like DHL) and had no problems.

 

AFAIK, shipping lenses via WeShippingUSA shouldn't trigger any extra custom's duty or blocking of your item -- but if you want to pursue that with certainty, you could ask them specifically via their FB Messenger account.