Buying from Amazon and paying Customs Duties

[The Deerhunter]

Tried to buy something from Amazon last week. They don't ship to Thailand anymore. When you loo at the item check & see if it is stocked & "fulfilled" by Amazon or if the advertiser does the shipping. EG some brands of smart phone cases are sent direct from the manufacturer. Only 2 or 3 months ago I ordered stuff & it came just fine. Now, it appears you have to order things Amazon do not " stock and fulfil"

[Sandman77]

You can always try to contact a market place seller direct ,over the contact form. Or simple search the name in google most of marketplace seller have also a online shop where you can buy cheaper!

[elzach]

Don't use your falang name. Customs picks up on those and will open the package. Try using a Thai name for delivery. Customs dings me every time I use my own name. If I use my wifes thai name it gets right thur without any taxes or vat charges.

If you want to evade customs completely don't write a word in English text, it will be singled out because of that alone

Email your seller a Thai name and address to print and stick on the box in Thai language only

This will avoid the Hounddogs in customs nearly all of the time as farang names and English text are a sure sign of easy money for them

It's a nice idea... But I don't know of any U.S. retailer I buy from -- Amazon, TigerDirect, drug stores, etc -- that will do what you suggest. Perhaps low-volume EBay shippers might be more amenable.

All the purchases are automated online, and the addressing info has to be entered in English when making the purchase online via their websites.

Other than that, I don't know how the U.S. Postal Service and such are set up in the U.S. to handle understanding a 100% Thai language address label.

A big retailer won't but most eBay sellers will do as you ask if a sale depends on it

Are you kidding? Even from a small independent eBay/Amazon seller, the package still has to go to the local post office in the US, UK whatever. Do you know any PO clerk there who can read Thai script? The minimum they need to have in English is City and Country, plus the Customs/Int'l form (even if "gift") filled out in English.

The only thing you can practically do is send it to a Thai friend, in English of course

Then again, if the Thai P.O. gets a package for a "worldly" Thai who shops overseas and is presumably well-heeled, they may charge him/her even extra.

[MrWorldwide]

Tried to buy something from Amazon last week. They don't ship to Thailand anymore. When you loo at the item check & see if it is stocked & "fulfilled" by Amazon or if the advertiser does the shipping. EG some brands of smart phone cases are sent direct from the manufacturer. Only 2 or 3 months ago I ordered stuff & it came just fine. Now, it appears you have to order things Amazon do not " stock and fulfil"

Yep - got a stack of 'This item does not ship to xxxxxx, Thailand' but when I ordered the CDs which were being supplied by Amazon and not a reseller I had no problems. I seem to recall that the US was making a lot of noise at one stage re the coup and the 'removal of a democratically elected government' : no idea if Japan went one step further and imposed trade restrictions. Personally, I would have given every audio toy currently sold in Japan just to be in that office when the General sacked the Police Chiefs - they should have broadcast that live.

[akampa]

I buy from alibaba I get free shipping e g l e d DF lights here 650 baht for 1 I paid 150 no hassel sent via china post then Thai post and I don`t pay any duty ,on 1 occasion I bought something for my 6 month old daughter thru amazon US and the duty charged by them was much higher than customs amount but had to wait over a month with many emails to amazon to get back the difference.

[cocopops]

Tried to buy something from Amazon last week. They don't ship to Thailand anymore. When you loo at the item check & see if it is stocked & "fulfilled" by Amazon or if the advertiser does the shipping. EG some brands of smart phone cases are sent direct from the manufacturer. Only 2 or 3 months ago I ordered stuff & it came just fine. Now, it appears you have to order things Amazon do not " stock and fulfil"

Yep - got a stack of 'This item does not ship to xxxxxx, Thailand' but when I ordered the CDs which were being supplied by Amazon and not a reseller I had no problems. I seem to recall that the US was making a lot of noise at one stage re the coup and the 'removal of a democratically elected government' : no idea if Japan went one step further and imposed trade restrictions.

It has always been such. I haven't noticed any changes since the coup.

I know this because Amazon's email system is apparently smart enough to figure out what I would like to buy, but not smart enough to realize that none of it is deliverable to the only delivery address I have registered with them... Sigh...

[MrWorldwide]

Tried to buy something from Amazon last week. They don't ship to Thailand anymore. When you loo at the item check & see if it is stocked & "fulfilled" by Amazon or if the advertiser does the shipping. EG some brands of smart phone cases are sent direct from the manufacturer. Only 2 or 3 months ago I ordered stuff & it came just fine. Now, it appears you have to order things Amazon do not " stock and fulfil"

Yep - got a stack of 'This item does not ship to xxxxxx, Thailand' but when I ordered the CDs which were being supplied by Amazon and not a reseller I had no problems. I seem to recall that the US was making a lot of noise at one stage re the coup and the 'removal of a democratically elected government' : no idea if Japan went one step further and imposed trade restrictions.

It has always been such. I haven't noticed any changes since the coup.

I know this because Amazon's email system is apparently smart enough to figure out what I would like to buy, but not smart enough to realize that none of it is deliverable to the only delivery address I have registered with them... Sigh...

Yep, I've noticed that little glitch in their system. That and 4 weeks to get something delivered from Kentucky or Dogpatch Iowa

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Tried to buy something from Amazon last week. They don't ship to Thailand anymore. When you loo at the item check & see if it is stocked & "fulfilled" by Amazon or if the advertiser does the shipping. EG some brands of smart phone cases are sent direct from the manufacturer. Only 2 or 3 months ago I ordered stuff & it came just fine. Now, it appears you have to order things Amazon do not " stock and fulfil"

The answer to this is to set up an account with a re-shipper in the U.S. like Shipito.com. Then have Amazon ship, often for free, to your Shipito.com address in the U.S., usually Calif or Nevada or Oregon. And then they send it onward to Thailand, based on your directions on their website and your account with them. Shipito's own Airmail rates to Thailand are far more economical than FedEx, DHL and even USPS.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Out curiosity I checked on what it cost for me to send something. I picked a $5 toy and it was $65 total...

Is there anything similar to Amazon in thailand so there's not such heavy shipping/customs/taxes?

Some of the various Thai online sites are listed in the attached image file.

Edited June 26, 2014 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[ldnguy]

Don't use your falang name. Customs picks up on those and will open the package. Try using a Thai name for delivery. Customs dings me every time I use my own name. If I use my wifes thai name it gets right thur without any taxes or vat charges.

If you want to evade customs completely don't write a word in English text, it will be singled out because of that alone

Email your seller a Thai name and address to print and stick on the box in Thai language only

This will avoid the Hounddogs in customs nearly all of the time as farang names and English text are a sure sign of easy money for them

That's just not true at all. I've been to customs three time and I was the only foreigner there. There were 50-100 Thais and many of the packages had Thai writing. The still had to pay their customs duty, open the packages, etc.

[MrWorldwide]

Don't use your falang name. Customs picks up on those and will open the package. Try using a Thai name for delivery. Customs dings me every time I use my own name. If I use my wifes thai name it gets right thur without any taxes or vat charges.

If you want to evade customs completely don't write a word in English text, it will be singled out because of that alone

Email your seller a Thai name and address to print and stick on the box in Thai language only

This will avoid the Hounddogs in customs nearly all of the time as farang names and English text are a sure sign of easy money for them

That's just not true at all. I've been to customs three time and I was the only foreigner there. There were 50-100 Thais and many of the packages had Thai writing. The still had to pay their customs duty, open the packages, etc.

Of course it's crap - Thai Customs would be kissing billions of baht goodbye if they were that stupid. Clearly some of us have a grossly inflated view of the size of the Farang population in Thailand and their propensity to import expensive goods.

[chubby]

do you use your foreign visa/MC on something like lazada.co.th or Tesco Lotus?

maybe I could buy something for a friend, and have it delivered to them ? or must the name on visa/MC match the receiver of an item , online in Thailand ?

[busmylord]

Try this one for tax and duties included, no surprises, everything amazon us have and cannot ship, they have on website. As long as it no too heavy and too volumetric, prices are decent. and once again no suprise as prices are all included delivered to your doorstep. www.galleon.co.th

[Langsuan Man]

Try this one for tax and duties included, no surprises, everything amazon us have and cannot ship, they have on website. As long as it no too heavy and too volumetric, prices are decent. and once again no suprise as prices are all included delivered to your doorstep. www.galleon.co.th

Another happy customer of Galleon, much, much cheaper than Shipito. Don't know how they do it but they do and am sure happy I found them

Made my inquiry at 9 AM on a week day and got availability and price in an hour

Ordered two pounds of hominy grits and despite the 5 day weekend got my item in 11 Business days. Had EMS tracking so was able to follow my order from the Bangkok Post Office to my door

http://www.galleon.co.th/?setLang=en_US

[Pib]

Try this one for tax and duties included, no surprises, everything amazon us have and cannot ship, they have on website. As long as it no too heavy and too volumetric, prices are decent. and once again no suprise as prices are all included delivered to your doorstep. www.galleon.co.th

Try this one for tax and duties included, no surprises, everything amazon us have and cannot ship, they have on website. As long as it no too heavy and too volumetric, prices are decent. and once again no suprise as prices are all included delivered to your doorstep. www.galleon.co.th

Another happy customer of Galleon, much, much cheaper than Shipito. Don't know how they do it but they do and am sure happy I found them

Made my inquiry at 9 AM on a week day and got availability and price in an hour

Ordered two pounds of hominy grits and despite the 5 day weekend got my item in 11 Business days. Had EMS tracking so was able to follow my order from the Bangkok Post Office to my door

http://www.galleon.co.th/?setLang=en_US

Are you guys saying there would be no customs charge?

[Pib]

Try this one for tax and duties included, no surprises, everything amazon us have and cannot ship, they have on website. As long as it no too heavy and too volumetric, prices are decent. and once again no suprise as prices are all included delivered to your doorstep. www.galleon.co.th

Try this one for tax and duties included, no surprises, everything amazon us have and cannot ship, they have on website. As long as it no too heavy and too volumetric, prices are decent. and once again no suprise as prices are all included delivered to your doorstep. www.galleon.co.th

Another happy customer of Galleon, much, much cheaper than Shipito. Don't know how they do it but they do and am sure happy I found them

Made my inquiry at 9 AM on a week day and got availability and price in an hour

Ordered two pounds of hominy grits and despite the 5 day weekend got my item in 11 Business days. Had EMS tracking so was able to follow my order from the Bangkok Post Office to my door

http://www.galleon.co.th/?setLang=en_US

Are you guys saying there would be no customs charge?

Never mind guys...a few minutes after posting about I found below on one of Galleon's webpages....it says their Checkout Prices are Inclusive of Shipping + Customs + Taxes.

http://www.galleon.co.th/etaestimator

[Pib]

Well, Galleon does indeed seem to have some good prices. Just for example, I see a Samsung 850EVO 500GB SSD has a price of Bt7,957 compared to a very frequently mentioned (on ThaiVisa) online seller based in Hua Hin which sells it for Bt10,400. A major savings. Yeap, I need to checkout this Galleon website.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Try this one for tax and duties included, no surprises, everything amazon us have and cannot ship, they have on website. As long as it no too heavy and too volumetric, prices are decent. and once again no suprise as prices are all included delivered to your doorstep. www.galleon.co.th

I just took a quick peruse of this site...and am not impressed. Clearly, the extent of products they actually list on their website, under their own product categories, isn't even a faint shadow of what Amazon U.S. offers.

For example, under Galleon's main website heading link for "tablet with call facility," they have NO products listed.

Under their entire "Medical Supplies & Equipment" category, they have all of two products listed: a lumbar support cushion for an office chair, and a CPAP filter.

Under their "Shaving & Hair Removal" category, they show two powered razors and one item of women's disposable razors (not even any for men!).

Likewise, under their "Over the Counter Medicines" category, they have nothing.

I just picked those categories at random, and those are the results I got. Hopefully some of their other categories are more fleshed out. But when those kind of results are the ones I get for the first 4 categories I pick to test, I'm not optimistic.

However, I do see they say, in the About Us section of their website:

In case, the product does not exist in our database, you can search and find almost any product available in the US with our search tool. We can then source this product and email you once the price has been provided.

So it seem like the main way to deal with this website is not through their own category product listings, but instead, to simply use their search function which brings up many products that they don't actually list under own own headings.

Call me skeptical, but I'm seriously doubting that these guys, for their special order approach, are going to end up having a better overall price than buying from Amazon with free U.S. Amazon Prime shipping and then remailing via Shipito Economy Airmail, which has rates far lower than even USPS or EMS Intl. and basically never incurs any Thai customs charges as long as you keep the package value under $40-$50 or so.

Edited May 23, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Try this one for tax and duties included, no surprises, everything amazon us have and cannot ship, they have on website. As long as it no too heavy and too volumetric, prices are decent. and once again no suprise as prices are all included delivered to your doorstep. www.galleon.co.th

Another happy customer of Galleon, much, much cheaper than Shipito. Don't know how they do it but they do and am sure happy I found them

Made my inquiry at 9 AM on a week day and got availability and price in an hour

Ordered two pounds of hominy grits and despite the 5 day weekend got my item in 11 Business days. Had EMS tracking so was able to follow my order from the Bangkok Post Office to my door

http://www.galleon.co.th/?setLang=en_US

LSM, how much in total did Galleon charge you for your package?

And, in comparison, what was the Amazon website price for the same item, purchase and U.S. domestic shipping included?

Are you saying that Galleon sent your package International EMS from the U.S. to you? Or had it sent from the U.S. to Thailand via some other means, and then local EMS'd it from their TH facility here to your home?

[Langsuan Man]

Try this one for tax and duties included, no surprises, everything amazon us have and cannot ship, they have on website. As long as it no too heavy and too volumetric, prices are decent. and once again no suprise as prices are all included delivered to your doorstep. www.galleon.co.th

Another happy customer of Galleon, much, much cheaper than Shipito. Don't know how they do it but they do and am sure happy I found them

Made my inquiry at 9 AM on a week day and got availability and price in an hour

Ordered two pounds of hominy grits and despite the 5 day weekend got my item in 11 Business days. Had EMS tracking so was able to follow my order from the Bangkok Post Office to my door

http://www.galleon.co.th/?setLang=en_US

LSM, how much in total did Galleon charge you for your package?

And, in comparison, what was the Amazon website price for the same item, purchase and U.S. domestic shipping included?

Are you saying that Galleon sent your package International EMS from the U.S. to you? Or had it sent from the U.S. to Thailand via some other means, and then local EMS'd it from their TH facility here to your home?

Galleon charged me 840 THB for two pounds of Jim Dandy Quick Grits, that was my total price for the merchandise and delivery to my door

No, they did not send the package International EMS to me. They obtained the item and then repackaged it and sent it to me via Domestic EMS, took one day from Bangkok to my home

Amazon price for the item would have been $3.89 for the item and $7.35 for shipping to Shipito for a total of $11.24 and then approximately $18.39 for Shipito to forward it to me for a grand total of $29.63, (assuming that it would be able to go Airmail Economy and that I would not get hit with customs charges when it arrived in Thailand ) If I was not able to send it via Shipito's Airmail Economy the transhipping cost would jump up to $50.88 for USPS Priority mail

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Well, I did my own actual cost comparison here between Amazon/Shipito vs Galleon, and Galleon came out to be NO BARGAIN based on a couple things I'd actually ordered via Amazon/Shipito recently vs the quotes emailed to me by Galleon. Amazon/Shipito.com was substantially cheaper in every case. And that would have been true even if I was not an Amazon Prime member entitled to their free shipping and instead had to pay Amazon's shipping, based on the substantial size of the pricing differentials.

Specifics:

--I ordered a 42 ct. box of Goodsense brand lansoprazole (Prevacid) from Amazon and paid $19.60 for the item (including tax, but no shipping charge due to Amazon Prime) plus another $4 total for Shipito.com to send the 0.35 lbs package via their Economy Airmail with no insurance. For a total shipped price of $23.60.

Galleon quoted me 1241 baht purchased and shipped to Thailand, which translates at today's VISA network exchange rate of 33.28 to a price of $37.29.

--------------------------------------

--I ordered a Spenco Total Support men's shoe insole from Amazon and paid $21.27 for the purchase (including tax, but no shipping charge due to Amazon Prime), plus another $7 to send the 0.80 lbs package via Shipito's Economy Airmail with no insurance. For a total shipped price of $28.27.

Galleon quoted me 1734 baht purchased and shipped to Thailand, which translates at today's VISA network exchange rate of 33.28 to a price of $52.10.

-------------------------------------

I also ordered a third item from Amazon/Shipito and came away with an even larger pricing differential with Galleon than the other two products I mentioned above. But, it wasn't clear from the search on the Galleon site whether they were quoting me for the exact same product as I had already actually purchased from Amazon. But, based on the size of the price differential, it seems pretty clear to me that anything close I had ordered from Galleon was still going to be higher priced.

---------------------------------

Now, some folks might say, well, you have Amazon Prime and so aren't paying for any domestic shipping, which would have added to your Amazon prices. I have two answers to that:

1. The price differentials between Amazon/Shipito were so large that even if I had added in some domestic shipping with Amazon their total pricing still would have been better.

2. Anyone who orders often from Amazon (as I do) would be foolish to not take advantage of their Amazon Prime shipping benefits, in addition to the fact that Prime now includes both their own Netflix-style video streaming service (which I use in place of paying for Netflix) and even their own included (though more limited) Spotify-style music streaming service.

PS - The couple of differences I can see between my examples and the one cited above by LSM is that:

1. he paid a quite high domestic shipping price for his Amazon purchase, meaning either he doesn't have Amazon Prime or chose to purchase the item from a non-Prime seller.

2. The weight of his shipment presumably was in excess of 2 lbs, whereas the two purchases I quoted were 0.80 lbs and 0.35 lbs each. I'll look to do some heavier package weight comparisons in the future, just to see.

I note, though, based on his Galleon price of 840 baht, which translates into $25.23, his Amazon/Shipito pricing at $29.63 would still have been less than Galleon if he had been able to avoid the $7.35 U.S. shipping fee he paid, by being an Amazon Prime member or finding a comparably priced seller with free domestic shipping.

PPS - BTW, using Shipito's Economy Airmail service, which is their best priced offering, I don't think I've EVER been charged any customs fees for packages sent here -- no VAT and no duty. But I do try to keep my package values under $40-$50 max per box, and they have a weight limit for the service of about 4 lbs.

If you go over that weight or have a box with total dimensions exceeding I think 37 inches, then you get bumped to a higher priced Priority Airmail service. Still usually incurs no VAT or customs duty since the packages are delivered locally by Thai Post, but the Shipito Priority mailing rates are somewhat more expensive.

Edited May 24, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Langsuan Man]

My purpose in ordering from Galleon was for the speed in getting the items on my table

I only did a cost comparison at your request

I am happy with my purchase, and that is all that matters

[Sandman77]

With my eu amazon Acount or also Acount in Thai. I can order in every amazon store only Japan amazon reject order how I can order there?

[galleonrep]

One of Galleon's founder here...

Someone sent us a link to this thread, so I thought I'd clear up some of the questions.

Langsuan Man - Thank you for using Galleon and for the review. We hope you enjoy your grits. We hope we can be of service to you again.

TallGuyJohninBKK: You're correct most of those categories are empty because they were copied over from our Philliphines website (http://www.galleon.ph) The categories only gets filled up when a customer requests an item and we assign them to that category. A manual process but one that is neccessay at the moment as we've found most customers prefer to use the search bar instead of browsing through categories.

----

Sometimes we're the cheapest method, and other times we are not. We work on bulk order shipping rates (more clients ordering per shipment the lower the price), and special orders. Generally, high value items with a reasonable weight is where we're highly competitive. Also, highly specialized products for coporate clients such as an industrial juicer, communication devices, and medical equipment. A lot of our clients also prefer to use us because they don't want to multiple points of contacts, or deal with customs on their own.

We do encourage our customers to find the ordering method that is most comfortable and satisifactory to them. Whether, it is through Galleon or through other dropship venues as long as you get the product, you're looking for and you're happy with your process. We defintely encourage you to continue using those venues and using us to compare to other services.

Cheers.