has anyone bought lights or anything overseas???

oldeng95

Enlightened
Joined
Sep 12, 2003
Messages
264
Location
SD,PB, CA
I found a light that might be a mod, but still, how much does it cost to ship from japan?
plus how long do u think it would take to get to California?
 

Tomas

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Joined
Jun 19, 2002
Messages
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Location
Seattle, WA area
Re: has anyone bought lights or anything overseas?

I haven't bought anything directly from a source in Japan, but I have from Southeast Asia, Austrailia, Canada (yes, it really is a different country /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif ) and the UK.

Shipping has cost anywhere from just marginally more than I would expect ordering from, say, New York, to twice that much. Actually I've generally been surprised at the reasonablness of the cost.

Shipping times have varied all over the map and don't appear to make any sense. More than once I've had things shipped via air from the Toronto area take over two weeks (confirmed by postal dates on packages/envelopes), while the last thing I had shipped from Austrailia (padded envelope, regular postal service) was in my mailbox in 4 days. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/huh.gif

My guess on something from Japan to California, if it were a padded envelope via the postal services, would be within a week. Keep in mind this is purely a guess, but the amount of mail traffic between Japan and the US west coast makes me think that the delays are probably minimal.

Let us know how it works out for you. I'm sure others are curious, too. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

T_sig6.gif
 

DumboRAT

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Jul 18, 2003
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504
Location
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Re: has anyone bought lights or anything overseas?

Because of my other hobby, airsoft, I do a lot of purchasing from overseas -- Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc.

Shipping costs typically depend on the type of service requested. "Express" shipping by expedited air shipments (typically less than 24 hours from the time it exits their store to the time it checks into its US Port-of-Entry) are the most expensive, followed by "Air Mail," followed by "surface." Air Mail can take upwards of one to two weeks in terms of transfer time, and surface shipment methods can take month(s).

Independent carriers most popularly chosen include United Postal Service (UPS), TNT (changes to, I believe, Airborne Express when it gets here into the US, but recently I've been seeing TNT trucks here...I'm no longer 100% certain of this), Federal Express (FedEx), or the native national postal service (i.e. EMS for Japan, HKSpeedPost for HongKong -- in any case, these change over into USPS as end-carrier).

Costs are also affected by any Customs brokerage fees or taxes/duties on the products that you import. How the product is declared as well as its declared value will of course impact such charges, but honestly, whether if the product is taxed or other such fees assessed is a chance toss-up.

Similarly, so is the amount of time your item can spend being "inspected." While many items may pass right through without any inspection (it's a numbers game -- only so many Agents have to check so much cargo), or it may be delayed a day or two, or even two or more weeks, depending on how detailed an inspection can be. There's again no hard-set rules here, it's mostly chance, but it's affected again by the goods that you purchase.

As such, although it may only take 24 hours for your goods to depart their shores and get into the US at its Port-of-Entry through various "express" methods, it may be delayed there at Customs for two weeks!

Choose a method of shipment which allows product "tracking" via the 'Net. EMS and most of the independent companies offer this type of service for nominal cost. This way, you can always track where your item may be.

=)

Allen
aka DumboRAT
 

sph3ric_pyramid

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Joined
May 11, 2003
Messages
46
Location
Osaka, Japan
Re: has anyone bought lights or anything overseas?

From the States to Japan via USPS Global Priority Express in the flatrate envelope costs 5 bucks, and it takes around 5 days. I've had a package get here in 4, and vice versa. Surprised me, because of the reasonable costs. When going through an intermediary, shipping costs *much* more.

UPS is notorious for their bad service and terrible rates, especially recently, for some reason. The only time I had an insured and registered package sent via UPS
from the States, it gets lost. Uninsured USPS, gets here every time.
 
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