Shopping online in the US and shipping to Thailand

[djlest]

best advise i can give anyone. never ever use DHL or FEDEX for anything in thailand. they are an absolute disgrace and i have tried them many times to confirm this. if you ask me they do not even remotely come close to Western standards and just hijacked the name, they dont know the meaning of express service ive had them hijack parcels for weeks unless i pay their absolute fabricated tax rip offs.

They work with customs to rip everyone off... they will tell you they paid tax on your behalf and now you need to pay fedex to get them to deliver your item. except the tax calculations compared to correct actual HS Codes and tariffs will be complete <deleted>.... use the post office instead... whilst not fool proof its 1000 times better than these fraudulent fedex and dhl companies in Thailand. I hope to see them banned or removed from Thailand soon if more people complain to the HQ sources back home.

[Dogmatix]

I used to use Shipito quite extensively and found them quite good and, initially very cheap, but noticed they had been hiking prices quite sharply and come out a lot higher than the prices you can calculate on USPS's website, despite their claims to get bulk discounts for the benefit of clients.  I started finding that the small number of non-xenophobic US Ebay sellers willing to ship to Thailand offered cheaper 1st class USPS than Shipito.  I tried PE for the first time late last year and have now received a number of packages from them without issue.  I get the impression that PE is now tweaking up its prices a bit, while Shipito is reducing its airmail economy prices, presumably in response to stiff competition from PE.  I still use Shipito occasionally.  They have a slight advantage over PE in their Oregon warehouse which makes everything sent there free of sales tax.  Amazon and some other retailers, that also have depots or other physical presence in many states,  have to charge sales tax on items sent to virtually state now except for those that don't have a sales tax like Oregon.  PE having only a single presence in CA has no flexibility on this but may offer cheap enough rates that you don't mind paying sales tax.    

[Dogmatix]

One upcoming event in Thailand that might take away the punch bowl is the new E-commerce law that will cancel the exemption Thailand Post has on collection of VAT on packages valued at less than 1,500 baht. In order to calculate VAT it is necessary to charge import duty too.  That will mean from 12-37% on every single package and Thai law requires all packages that are to be taxed to be opened and inspected and that the recipients pay the tax and collect the package at the post office.  I doubt they will be able to cope with taxing every single package, which was the reason given for the exemption in the first place, and tax on a large portion of the packages will be less than the cost of collecting it.   

 

With this kind of hassle I for one will not buy many of the things I now buy from overseas at all.  So Thailand will not earn more in tax.  I certainly won't buy them in Thailand because they are either not available or too difficult to find, since Thai retailers' presence online is still so poor.  I refuse to go back to trekking around stores asking if they have something, only to be shown a tiny selection of poor quality items I don't want.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

9 hours ago, Dogmatix said:

One upcoming event in Thailand that might take away the punch bowl is the new E-commerce law that will cancel the exemption Thailand Post has on collection of VAT on packages valued at less than 1,500 baht. In order to calculate VAT it is necessary to charge import duty too.  That will mean from 12-37% on every single package and Thai law requires all packages that are to be taxed to be opened and inspected and that the recipients pay the tax and collect the package at the post office.

 

I wasn't aware of that coming change!  Thanks for posting the info about it.

 

Is there any sense of how soon that change is likely to take effect?  And any details on how it actually will be implemented in the real world?

 

Shopping for a lot of things of any quality is c**p is Thailand, and this kind of change isn't going to make things any better.

 

PS - I saw the mention of repealing the up to 1500 baht exemption from VAT in some of the articles re the Revenue Department's original proposal back in mid 2017. But that doesn't seem to be mentioned in a later write-up on the second revised plan from TRD. Dunno if it was amended or the following source just decided not to mention that detail.

 

https://home.kpmg.com/th/en/home/insights/2018/01/tax-news-flash-issue-33.html

 

But I now see a March 26 BKK Post article about the 1500 baht VAT exemption repeal measure being still in the bill that they said is headed for Cabinet consideration soon. They talk about planning to begin charging the 7% VAT, but no mention about adding customs duty.

 

Edited April 9, 2018 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Langsuan Man]

On 10/21/2017 at 10:29 AM, smo said:

Of note is that the tracking number only works with USPS website, the thaipost website doesn't see it.

Thai post will pick up the USPS tracking once it arrives in Thailand, then the parcel will be tracked by both USPS and Thai Post 

[Dogmatix]

8 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

I wasn't aware of that coming change!  Thanks for posting the info about it.

 

Is there any sense of how soon that change is likely to take effect?  And any details on how it actually will be implemented in the real world?

 

Shopping for a lot of things of any quality is c**p is Thailand, and this kind of change isn't going to make things any better.

 

PS - I saw the mention of repealing the up to 1500 baht exemption from VAT in some of the articles re the Revenue Department's original proposal back in mid 2017. But that doesn't seem to be mentioned in a later write-up on the second revised plan from TRD. Dunno if it was amended or the following source just decided not to mention that detail.

 

https://home.kpmg.com/th/en/home/insights/2018/01/tax-news-flash-issue-33.html

 

But I now see a March 26 BKK Post article about the 1500 baht VAT exemption repeal measure being still in the bill that they said is headed for Cabinet consideration soon. They talk about planning to begin charging the 7% VAT, but no mention about adding customs duty.

 

 

From reading a rather vague article in one of the papers I thought it had got further than the second reading. Either the measure has been dropped or KPMG didn't think it was important or overlooked it completely.  Somehow I am not optimistic it has been dropped. They are desperate to try to penalise foreign businesses selling to Thailand by making them register for Thai VAT which is absurd in the extreme and I hope foreign jurisdictions will retaliate by making Thai businesses register for their sale tax or just simply charging tariffs on Thai exports.  So I think that repealing the exemption would seem an important part of this brain dead strategy to protect non-existent Thai businesses and maximise tax by killing the imports completely.  At least I suppose some foreign exchange will be saved but this will not help Thailand with its current account surplus. In fact it would make the baht go even higher and make Thai exporters even less competitive than they already are. 

 

 I guess that companies like Amazon that are bothered by compliance issues and have general counsels on the payroll would simply not to ship to Thailand any more, rather risk legal and tax issues with a tin pot third world country that generates a fraction of a percent of its global sales.   Since they are setting something up in SE Asia, they would probably direct all Thai traffic there and have a tax compliant structure that makes buying from them uninteresting like the EBay system of charging import taxes in advance on packages that are not taxable at present.   I am not sure what the Thai Revenue Department is planing for Joe Blow in Seattle who sends half a dozen packages to Thailand a year via Ebay but Ebay sellers who still send to Thailand might also get spooked.  The position of the Shipitos and PEs would be interesting but they might also shut down accounts with Thai shipping addresses.

 

Here are a couple of articles still mentioning repeal of the exemption. https://www.ft.com/content/2fb53b78-f781-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1a00 and https://thethaiger.com/news/e-commerce-sites-will-blocked-dont-pay-local-vat

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The BKK Post article I referred to above was just two weeks ago, and it mentioned the 1500b exemption repeal still being in the measure that, at least at that point, had yet to be sent to Cabinet. But supposed to be going soon...

 

[joealx]

On 4/10/2018 at 8:25 AM, Langsuan Man said:

Thai post will pick up the USPS tracking once it arrives in Thailand, then the parcel will be tracked by both USPS and Thai Post 

Besides EMS, what USPS product has  international tracking?

[Arkady]

5 hours ago, joealx said:

Besides EMS, what USPS product has  international tracking?

 USPS has several international services but the two most commonly used ones are International Priority Mail and International First Class Mail.  Priority mail has complete overseas tracking and costs start at around US$35.  First Class Mail only has tracking up until the package leaves the US but is much cheaper, starting at around US$12.  Shippers like Shipito and PE offer  untracked airmail services cheaper than USPS First Class mail using European POs that send the mail via Europe, a service that is only available to bulk shippers, not to the general public. Priority Mail and First Class usually take a week to 10 days.  The European providers usually take 2-3 weeks but are also pretty reliable.

 

EMS is not a US product. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I do a lot of small package shipping from L.A. to BKK for personal use.

 

With Planet Express, both USPS Priority and their Airmail Express seem to take about 10-+ days to arrive here. No discernable difference in package delivery speed overall after many times using both.

 

However, the pricing varies. PE's Airmail Express is cheaper for anything 1 - 2.5 pounds or so. But once I get to 3 or 4 pounds, the pricing evens out and USPS Priority generally becomes cheaper than their PE Airmail Express  -- at least using the rates offered via PE.

 

I don't think PE's Airmail Express can be used for anything over 4.5 pounds or so.

 

I've never had any package go lost/missing with either shipping method, though I have had Thai Customs open and ruin a couple packaged food items (by grossly tearing open the package and then not resealing it, leaving the contents to spill out into the shipping box).

 

They seem to have a particular hard on for anything that's shaped like pills or powders. The two things Thai customs really destroyed that I mentioned above were a large bag of Reese's Pieces candies and a large commercial bag of instant oatmeal -- both torn open and left scattered in the shipping box.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 21, 2018 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[taxout]

Is it a waste of time trying to order from Walmart and Target? Do they normally block shipments to trans-shippers? (It's pretty obvious from the address.) Are there are any other online-places that don't like trans-shippers? As other posts here indicate, Amazon seems not to have a problem at all with trans-shipping addresses.

[Arkady]

3 hours ago, taxout said:

Is it a waste of time trying to order from Walmart and Target? Do they normally block shipments to trans-shippers? (It's pretty obvious from the address.) Are there are any other online-places that don't like trans-shippers? As other posts here indicate, Amazon seems not to have a problem at all with trans-shipping addresses.

 

I am not sure if they block shippers but I seem to remember trying to order from Walmart and not being able to use a non-US billing address. Never tried Target. Amazon blocks Shipito and some others for goods that the seller doesn’t want sent outside the US for global marketing carve up reasons or restricted items. But it doesn’t force its independent sellers to follow suit, although they may apply their own blocks.

 

Sometimes it is possible to get around the non-US billing address thing by filling in your billing address correctly until you get to state and country. Then select any US state and USA and your credit card may still work because enough items in the billing address have been matched. Put in your real postal code to improve the match, if the seller’s website doesn’t block non/US zips. I don’t think this worked with Walmart. PayPal usually won’t process payments unless  the shipping address is the same as your billing address but this block is fortunately disabled in Ebay. Some Ebay sellers specify in the description though that they will only send to confirmed US PayPal billing addresses. So you can place the order to a US shipping address but the seller will cancel it. With sellers outside Ebay who use only PayPal and are willing to ship overseas, it is often possible to place the order with shipping to your overseas shipping address and email the seller to get him to change the shipping address manually to your US shipper to save postage costs, if the seller is charging a minimum of  say $45 for USPS priority which is not uncommon. Increasingly sellers will not use USPS First Class overseas because of no tracking but may ship free or for a few bucks in the US.

[Langsuan Man]

Since I pay most of my online purchases with PayPal I don't run into any problems using a re-mailer / shipper address that is different from my "billing" address   

 

PayPal allows me to have as many shipping addresses as I need and during the PayPal part of a transaction, PayPal has a drop down for me to select which address to use.   This works since I have my PayPal account funded by my credit card.  As far as a vendor is concerned the shipping address and billing address are the same since both are my PayPal address

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

AMAZON: I've never had any problem with Amazon sending anything to any U.S. address, and in fact, maintain and use multiple U.S. addresses, including for reshippers, in my Amazon addressbook. That includes ordering things to my reshipper addresses that Amazon will not ship internationally direct. Almost never am I shipping Amazon orders to the same address as is my billing bank card address.

 

TARGET: Target, as best as I recall, was having a block on orders sent to Shipito last time I've tried that a year or two back. However, more recently, I haven't had any problems with Target online orders going to/thru Planet Express. And, sending an order with Target to an address that is different from your billing address isn't a problem.

 

WALMART: Last time I ordered from Walmart online was back in 2016, and it went to and was received by Shipito, again, just fine. And also in that case, the mailing address on the order was different that the billing address used for payment.

 

So really, the only problem I've had in this area is the former Shipito/Target ban. But that's been solved by switching to PE instead.

 

I should clarify, though, in all cases above, the payment billing address has always been a U.S. one -- never a foreign one.  And, like LSM mentioned, in those rare cases where an online retailer's own payment interface won't accept a shipping address that's different than the billing address, Paypal or Amazon Payments instead usually solves that.

 

I've been ordering a lot lately, just on the likelihood that the government's plan to start charging VAT and possibly duty on all incoming packages -- by repealing the current 1500b and below exemption for VAT -- is actually adopted any time soon as promised.

 

Hard to know how/when that situation is going to play out in real life. But either way, I figure, it's not bad to stock up on regular things right now while I know I will not be paying any VAT or duty. And try to get ahead of the game a bit.

Edited April 22, 2018 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Arkady]

14 hours ago, Langsuan Man said:

Since I pay most of my online purchases with PayPal I don't run into any problems using a re-mailer / shipper address that is different from my "billing" address   

 

PayPal allows me to have as many shipping addresses as I need and during the PayPal part of a transaction, PayPal has a drop down for me to select which address to use.   This works since I have my PayPal account funded by my credit card.  As far as a vendor is concerned the shipping address and billing address are the same since both are my PayPal address

I think the restriction with PayPal is that the alternative shipping addresses are supposed to be in the same country as your billing address. When I go to the drop down menu all the shipping addresses outside Thailand are greyed out.  There is a lot of stuff online complaining about this.  If that block has not been applied to your account or you have a US billing address, you are ahead of the game.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

9 minutes ago, Arkady said:

I think the restriction with PayPal is that the alternative shipping addresses are supposed to be in the same country as your billing address. When I go to the drop down menu all the shipping addresses outside Thailand are greyed out.  There is a lot of stuff online complaining about this.  If that block has not been applied to your account or you have a US billing address, you are ahead of the game.

 

I remember once wanting to order from a Thai farang foods retailer online, and needing to pay by PayPal. I didn't want to pay with my Thai PayPal account that I rarely use, but instead wanted to pay with my U.S. PayPal account linked to U.S. bank cards.

 

But I was worried whether the merchant's ordering system would reject my order because the products' Thai delivery address wasn't going to match my U.S. PayPal billing address.  And the merchant advised no problem (and there wasn't), saying the PayPal system here in Thailand doesn't require address matching.

 

[Langsuan Man]

10 hours ago, Arkady said:

I think the restriction with PayPal is that the alternative shipping addresses are supposed to be in the same country as your billing address. When I go to the drop down menu all the shipping addresses outside Thailand are greyed out.  There is a lot of stuff online complaining about this.  If that block has not been applied to your account or you have a US billing address, you are ahead of the game.

I solved the foreign address problem by having a "Thai" PayPal account, so if I find a vendor that will ship to Thailand I use that PayPal account backed up by my Bangkok Bank ATM card if necessary ( AliExpress for instance).  But to be perfectly honest with you, most vendors don't really check shipping / billing address, once they see you are paying by PayPal

[Dibbler]

On 7/17/2017 at 6:19 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Here's an example of what I was talking about above in terms of how they're presenting their rates chart these days. This is an actual rate quote for a 1 lbs package I shipped with them last week via their own Economy Airmail. You have to pay attention to the entire chart...not just the top grouping under "Featured Shipping Methods".

 

Thanks for sharing the rates for Shipito.  It looks like there are three rates that come via USPS/ Thai Post.  By comparison, below are the rates for shipping 1lb to Thailand using MyUS.com.  These rates are available to Premium members (costs USD60/year). The only rate that includes postal clearance is the small package rate which is similar to Shipito airmail economy.  The small package rate applies up to 4lbs.  All the other rates are via courier (DHL, UPS or FedEx) which means they you have to clear Customs yourself.  I have been burnt by this in the past.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Dibbler

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

29 minutes ago, Dibbler said:

Thanks for sharing the rates for Shipito.  It looks like there are three rates that come via USPS/ Thai Post.  By comparison, below are the rates for shipping 1lb to Thailand using MyUS.com.  These rates are available to Premium members (costs USD60/year). The only rate that includes postal clearance is the small package rate which is similar to Shipito airmail economy.  The small package rate applies up to 4lbs.  All the other rates are via courier (DHL, UPS or FedEx) which means they you have to clear Customs yourself.  I have been burnt by this in the past.

 

I haven't used Shipito in a while... But for Planet Express, their current Economy Airmail rates for an up to 1 lb package (I believe they round to the nearest half pound weight) are in the neighborhood of $8, plus a $2 mailout fee, bringing the total mailing cost to about $10 for that 1 lb package -- which would seem to be considerably less than the $14 rate you quote above. And no annual fee to get those rates.

 

And when I check Planet Express' postage calculator, those are exactly the rates I get for a 1 lbs package to Thailand. (BTW, those delivery time estimates are general ones, not specific for Thailand.  For Thailand, their Express Airmail usually runs 10-14 days, while Economy usually is closer to 3 weeks):

 

 

BTW, just to be clear, re MyUS's Small Package Saver rate, your image shows the $13.99 rate in that category for a 1 lbs package. I'm assuming that rate would change if it was a 2, 3 or 4 lbs package. It's not a flat rate price for anything up to 4 lbs.

 

But like Shipito or Planet Express' Airmail services, the total package weight eligible for airmail rates based on weight usually is limited to 4 or 4.5 lbs. Anything heavier needs to be shipped and charged via a different delivery method and rate scale.

Edited April 23, 2018 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Arkady]

3 hours ago, Langsuan Man said:

I solved the foreign address problem by having a "Thai" PayPal account, so if I find a vendor that will ship to Thailand I use that PayPal account backed up by my Bangkok Bank ATM card if necessary ( AliExpress for instance).  But to be perfectly honest with you, most vendors don't really check shipping / billing address, once they see you are paying by PayPal

I only have a Thai billing address but I opened a PayPal account overseas with it before they had Thai PayPal.  It is PayPal that blocks the non-Thai shippimg addresses, not the vendors. That happens where the US vendor is using PayPal's check out system, even if I use it to pay with a credit card.  Conversely paying with PayPal through Ebay's own check out system doesn't block any shipping addresses. 

[joealx]

On 4/21/2018 at 9:45 PM, Arkady said:

EMS is not a US product

same thing as express mail

[Arkady]

1 hour ago, joealx said:

same thing as express mail

EMS is the name used in Asian countries, including Thailand, and Europe for express or priority mail which may vary from country to country but USPS in the US does not use this name.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

10 minutes ago, Arkady said:

EMS is the name used in Asian countries, including Thailand, and Europe for express or priority mail which may vary from country to country but USPS in the US does not use this name.

 

As I've understood it, EMS is simply the international collective/network of different countries' national postal services. So in Thailand that's Thai Post. In the U.S., that's USPS, although they don't use that name in the states.  But when you send an EMS package from Thailand to the U.S., it gets delivered by USPS.

 

[joealx]

22 minutes ago, Arkady said:

EMS is the name used in Asian countries, including Thailand, and Europe for express or priority mail which may vary from country to country but USPS in the US does not use this name.

I think that there is an EMS logo on the USPS international express mail box (package).

[Arkady]

53 minutes ago, joealx said:

I think that there is an EMS logo on the USPS international express mail box (package).

That's possible but not shown on their website https://www.usps.com/international/priority-mail-express-international.htm. 

I have only ever used USPS First Class and Priority mails and don't know if express would arrive significantly faster as the Thai customs and post office tend to take their own sweet time once it's in country.

 

[Dibbler]

5 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

I haven't used Shipito in a while... But for Planet Express, their current Economy Airmail rates for an up to 1 lb package (I believe they round to the nearest half pound weight) are in the neighborhood of $8, plus a $2 mailout fee, bringing the total mailing cost to about $10 for that 1 lb package -- which would seem to be considerably less than the $14 rate you quote above. And no annual fee to get those rates.

 

And when I check Planet Express' postage calculator, those are exactly the rates I get for a 1 lbs package to Thailand. (BTW, those delivery time estimates are general ones, not specific for Thailand.  For Thailand, their Express Airmail usually runs 10-14 days, while Economy usually is closer to 3 weeks):

 

 

BTW, just to be clear, re MyUS's Small Package Saver rate, your image shows the $13.99 rate in that category for a 1 lbs package. I'm assuming that rate would change if it was a 2, 3 or 4 lbs package. It's not a flat rate price for anything up to 4 lbs.

 

But like Shipito or Planet Express' Airmail services, the total package weight eligible for airmail rates based on weight usually is limited to 4 or 4.5 lbs. Anything heavier needs to be shipped and charged via a different delivery method and rate scale.

That's correct the rate with MyUS increases to $19.99 for a 2lb package, $25.99 for a 3lb package, and $30.99 for a 4lb package. Anything larger has to go by the courier company (DHL, UPS or FedEx).  Just to note I checked again and these rates don't require an annual membership fee they are available with the free memberships.  But it does look like Planet Express is the better deal. 

[gaff]

On 4/23/2018 at 1:01 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

As I've understood it, EMS is simply the international collective/network of different countries' national postal services. So in Thailand that's Thai Post. In the U.S., that's USPS, although they don't use that name in the states.  But when you send an EMS package from Thailand to the U.S., it gets delivered by USPS.

 

 

Not always. USPS has many subcontractors now, depending on the location.

But yes, it goes through USPS as most post offices in the world, because EMS is the express service of public posts.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2018 by gaff

[Arkady]

Shipito must have been suffering from competition from PE for airmail economy stuff.  After hiking their rates aggressively across the board they seem to have lowered their rates for airmail economy to be similar or even slightly cheaper than PE.  But PE is still much cheaper for priority mail and and everything apart from airmail econ.  The main advantage of Shipito these days seems to be its Oregon warehouse because there is no sales tax in that state.  Amazon has to charge sales tax on stuff it sells itself to shipping addresses in any state where it has a physical presence, which includes California and Nevada.  PE can't get around this with its single presence in California where sales tax is 10%.  So for higher price items that Amazon is selling itself it's worth shipping to Shipito's Oregon  warehouse. However, you can often find another seller on Amazon that doesn't have to charge sales tax to California but won't get the benefit of Amazon Prime, if you are member. 

[joealx]

Did anyone try Shop and Ship US. An American Thai  shipper. 

 

http://www.shopandshipus.com/EN/service-rates.html

[Arkady]

Now that the elections have passed, albeit inconclusively, and the NLA has stopped its last minute rush to approve the government's hasty legislative agenda, it seems that the E-Commerce bill got stuck in the Council of State and was never made it to the NLA, despite efforts by the Finance Ministry to chivvy up the Council of State's review.  Let's hope the next government will let the bill die or at least delete the clause calling for repeal of the exemption of VAT on small packages valued at less than 1,500 baht that come by mail (not through couriers).  Thailand Post and the Customs Dept don't have the resources to open, inspect and tax every single small package and the law would have led to chaos.  Thailand Post offices storage space is already chokka full with the packages that have to be taxed and await collection by the consignee under the present law.  The bill probably would have required storage and collection by consignees of every package which would also have strained the limited parking available at post offices.   

 

In addition the concept of trying to make overseas sellers register for Thai VAT and pay non-refundable tax, which would be refundable if they were based in Thailand, to the tax government seems totally impractical and unacceptable to the foreign sellers and their host governments.  It would be far better policy to do what China does and encourage online exports by Thai vendors by giving them subsidized postal rates.  If Thailand could develop a competitive e-commerce export business, it would not want to encourage protectionism from other countries that might retaliate with protectionist measures against Thai vendors.  I would not be surprised, if it was considerations such as these that caused the Council of State to take its time reviewing this bill, although that might be too generous when one looks at the legislation that did make it past them.