Hi guys,

I live in UK and I'm moving to CR next year. As I presently do 90% of my personal shopping on-line, I wondered how I'd manage once I've moved.

Do Ebay/Amazon et al have to become a thing of the past?

Many thanks!

Don't have a complete answer for you but a partial answer is: There is a WHOLE LOT that Amazon won't ship overseas. You can still have it sent to your UK forwarders address and then forwarded to this one. There are actually companies out there whose sole business is receiving and forwarding. A quick online search will turn up a few and you can check them out before you come here. You'll have some increased shipping costs, either way.

Here is a link to the type of business I mentioned. I am not talking about a typical freight forwarder. These guys are set up to help people like us. The link is for a U.S. company but I would guess there are several at least, in the U.K.

http://www.myus.com/cgi-bin/aff/new_landing.cgi?id=1000721&gclid=COqe3dPEhakCFYZ66wod7Tvqjg

I'll P.M. you with the link in case it gets edited here.

Avoid DHL like a plague.

I recently received some free books from the U.K via DHL.

DHL decided there was 350 baht duty on them and charged us 200 baht more to pay it. Total was 550 baht for a few second hand books.

Avoid DHL like a plague.

I recently received some free books from the U.K via DHL.

DHL decided there was 350 baht duty on them and charged us 200 baht more to pay it. Total was 550 baht for a few second hand books.

Yes, I have found DHL to be a terrific pain in the butt. In most cases, our postal zip code, 57000, is not in their system. They send all CR shipments to Chiang Mai, where they have an office, and then the package is handed off to another shipping company, that then eventually gets the stuff here. But before that happens, I have long e-mail arguments with the product shipper about whether CR even exists or not, because DHL is telling the shipper CR and 57000 do not exist. That usually costs two or three days at least, before the product even leaves the host country. Why they don't add the zip code to their database is beyond me. We always have to call DHL BKK ahead of time and let them know the package is coming. If we don't, then they send it where they think is right and it is never right. Their poor methods usually add several more days to the shipping time for us. If I have another comparable price choice with shipping, I always choose it over DHL. Unfortunately, some of the product shippers have "deals" with DHL and that is the only way they will ship it without adding terrific price increases for shipping. For folks here in CR, it is a good idea to steer clear of DHL unless you have time to stay on top of the shipment the whole time and want to make the phone calls necessary to help them do their jobs each step of the way from BKK onwards.

Amazon will take care of it all, and even pay the taxes and duties in Thailand for you, though they will separately include it in the invoice you pay in advance.

They never charge any taxes or duties for my book shipments, but their freight costs are in general rather expensive. If you could only find the books in Thailand, the total comparable price would probably be around the same.

My own experience with DHL is similar.

I once had to have a friend ship a sentimental item from UK to CR and told him to send FedEx. He chose to send DHL. 10 days after he sent it, it was still in UK. It eventually arrived in Thailand on the eve of Songkhran and as there is no DHL office in CR, they were going to put in in the regular post! Eventually I convinced them to puit it on a Thai Airlines flight and collected it from airport cargo (after it closed, but that's another story).