#reshipping

Hong Kong has historically been known as a shopping paradise, partly due to the fact that there are not sales taxes in Hong Kong.  However, very often, things are much cheaper in other countries and/or you can't get certain products in Hong Kong, but this is not unique to just Hong Kong.  Often online stores, like amazon.com have some very good deals, but they will only ship within the USA. Often retailers will only ship within their countries.  The result has been the growth of "reshipping" companies.  At its most basic, when you sign up to one of these reshipping companies, you are given an address in the relevant country (for argument's sake, the USA).  When you buy something from an online store in the USA, you provide the shipping information you have been given from the reshipping company.  The items are delivered from the online store to the reshipping company, who then deliver the item to you in Hong Kong.  You obviously have to pay for the shipping from the USA to Hong Kong, but often the savings are greater. Some well known companies include Borderlinx* and ComeGateway to name a few.  Their websites are very user friendly and they take their time explaining the various procedures.  One of the downsides with these bigger companies is that, unless you are ordering quite a lot of goods, your reshipping fee can be quite high. I was looking to buy a relatively small item from a US website and was recommended a company called USADirect, which generally offers cheaper shipping fees from the USA to Hong Kong for smaller items, so I thought I would give it a go (this is actually the first time I would be using a USA reshipping company). The sign up process was pretty straightforward, and once you were signed up, you were given your unique shipping address in the USA.  When I bought my item, for the billing address (which was USA only) I used my HK address but had to make up my "State" and "Zip code".  Note, depending on your credit card issuer, your mileage may vary on your success rate for this.  For the shipping address, I used the address provided to my by USADirect (note, you need to put in the address exactly as stated by USADirect). One thing to point out, the USADirect warehouse is in New York State, which attracts sales tax.  Other reshipping companies normally use Oregon for their warehouse, as there is no sales tax.  The reason USADirect use New York State is as follows: "New York is a metropolis like Hong Kong, with well-developed transport network. It brings with lower delivery fee due to the cheaper transportation cost to the airport. However, there is sales tax......As for Oregon, it is a relatively remote place in USA. Less developed transport network leads to higher delivery cost and longer delivery time (14 working days or more). Since there is no sales tax, it would be advised for delivery expensive items (cost USD100 or more), like luxury goods, electrical appliances etc."  Also note, USADirect's shipping fee from Oregon is higher. Once the item arrived at USADirect's New York warehouse it was shipped to Hong Kong.  USADirect normally ship out to Hong Kong once a week, basically they will put all their customer orders in a bigger pallet to be flown out to Hong Kong. Once my item arrived in Hong Kong I was notified by USADirect to pay for the shipping from the USA to the USADirect warehouse in Hong Kong.  This was based on volumetric weight (more on that later).  I had to pay USADirect for the shipping fee, for insurance and also for processing the delivery from their warehouse to my location.  This involved depositing HK$100 with them either by PayPal (where they would impose a 5% handling fee) or by direct bank transfer.  Package was then delivered a few days later by local courier (SF Express), for whom I had to pay an additional HK$9 directly to the local courier. I had originally ordered my item on 16 October and it arrived to me in Hong Kong on 3 November.  USADirect do claim 7-10 business days, so this is within their time frame. The price of my item was US$30.  The cost of shipping in total worked out as follows: c.HK$21 in state taxes, HK$58 for shipping to Hong Kong, HK$8 for insurance (mandatory), HK$10 for USADirect arranging paperwork with local courier and HK$9 for local courier making the total shipping at around HK$106.  If I was to compare using Borderlinx for the same parcel size the shipping fee would have been about HK$200.  Note, though USADirect does give the option to pick up the package directly from their warehouse in Mongkok. The kicker for me was the size of the actual parcel that the online retailer had shipped the product in.  As you can see from the photo the size of the box of the actual product compared the shipping box is MUCH bigger:

So while my package only weighed 0.32kg, its volumetric weight 0.79kg.  If the shipping package had been closer to the size of the box of the product the volumetric weight would have been 0.5kg.  Based on USADirect's calculations that would have made my total reshipping for closer to HK$82. One thing that the bigger companies do offer includes repackaging, to deal with issues like the above and to reduce the volumetric weight.  Some of the of the providers offer this complimentary and some offer it for a fee.  If I had used Borderlinx to repackage to a smaller size the total shipping fees would have come down to around HK$167, so still more expensive than USADirect. This was my first attempt as using a reshipping company.  Overall the USADirect package did arrive, although it took longer than I was expecting (but within their suggested timeframe) and sometimes the process felt a bit confusing (partly because the website doesn't have a lot of information).  However when I did need help, their Facebook page was very helpful, questions would normally be answered within a few hours. I think for low value items that you are in no significant hurry to get, USADirect is a very good option.  The bigger players though are starting to market quite aggressively in Hong Kong now and a few of them have tie ups with various credit card companies in Hong Kong, making the reshipping even cheaper than usual.  

Internet has changed the pattern of buying and selling in the clothing industry. Now clothing retailers can place bulk orders with suppliers globally regardless of the country they’re operating from. All they need to do is look for wholesale suppliers dealing in clothing on internet, visit their websites, read their terms and conditions, select sizes and colours of clothing and place their orders online. These suppliers then deliver the products at their doorstep within the promised number of days. Despite this ease, many retailers prefer buying from offline stores because of the following reasons.

Buying from offline clothing stores is still preferable

Despite the fact that it is a digital age where every clothing supplier wants to make the most out of internet, there are still a good number of retailers, who do not prefer to shop from online clothing stores. A group of industry specialists conducted interviews with such retailers and asked the reasons of not trusting online sources. Some cited that it is due to a ‘feel good’ factor while others said that they want to keep their business limited because international wholesale clothing industry had unfavourable business environment.

Some retailers also highlighted that challenges or risks involved in online purchase hampers their decision of buying from online clothing stores. The four basic reasons, which almost every clothing retailer quoted for not using online wholesale stores, are given below.

Reason # 1 – Future deliveries can spoil image!

Since retailers’ business heavily depends on the business of their suppliers, many times they are unable to meet their commitments with their customers due to a problem at their supplier’s end. This is because if they source clothing from the suppliers located at far off places, there is no guarantee that the products would reach their doorsteps within the promised number of days. In international purchase, delivery pallets are passed through a series of steps before they are delivered to retailers. If delivery is delayed due to any reason, it becomes hard for retailers to meet their commitments with their customers.

  Reason # 2 – Online Supplier hunting is hard!

Online world is not as safe we like to imagine. Hunting genuine and legitimate clothing suppliers on internet is quite challenging. There are many genuine wholesale clothing suppliers on internet but they are hard to find. Online transactions have its perils since the suppliers that you stumble upon web are not always very trustable. If you are lucky to get in touch with genuine dealers, then there could still be many issues such as the quality of the clothes is not up to the mark. This is a major reason that keeps retailers away from making online purchases.

Reason # 3 – Colours and sizes are inaccurate!

Normally online clothing suppliers place bright coloured pictures of clothing which are not exactly the true depiction of what they have in their stock. When retailers get the delivery, they find out colours are slightly different from what they ordered. If retailers deal in a variety of shades within the same colour range, it can be even more problematic for them.

Moreover, sizes of clothing are sometimes different from what they ordered. And since retailers cannot touch or see clothing before placing their orders, they do not always receive the right sizes. Though sample checking in advance can fix this problem, yet there always remains a chance that colours and sizes would not match the specifications.

Reason # 4 – Return process is quite hectic!