I pit online shopping from outside the US (long, sweary, possibly incoherent)

[Tabby_Cat]

I live in Singapore and OH GOD I approve of this rant.
Seriously. Charge me shipping. Charge me exorbitant shipping. BUT SELL ME THE G D GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL DAMMIT

seethe seethe seethe
At least zappos takes my international credit card, which is more than I can say for Oakley’s. And thank goodness for freight forwarders. I try to keep shipping costs down by buying together with my colleagues and combining shipping, but not taking foreign credit cards really gets my goat. I mean seriously, what, my money not good enough for you?

[Shot_From_Guns]

@Isamu

Amazon.co.jp is great for buying goods that are already in Japan, and having them delivered within Japan. For buying from overseas it’s a piece of poo.

I guess I was just lucky that everything I was looking for, they had. (Including stuff like the entire run of *Transmetropolitan *in TPB form.)

[Lissla_Lissar]

Oh, lord. ThinkGeek. I bought my husband a sonic screwdriver last year from them, $10 shipping. Fine. Last Christmas, ordered another one for my BiL. Somehow the shipping for the $15 toy had doubled, and when it arrived I had to pay 20 farging stupid insane dollars on the Customs fee for putting it over the border.

Aarrgh.

[StarvingButStrong]

Why does the customs cost so much? Is it just a way of raising money, or is it intended to protect local merchants or what?

[bluezooky]

@StarvingButStrong

Have you Aussies considered applying for US statehood?
Seriously, you’ve chosen (in some sense of the word) to live completely on the other side of the ENTIRE WORLD from the entity you want to buy from. Does it really surprise you that shipping items COMPLETELY to the other side of the ENTIRE WORLD costs money?

Shipping was quite reasonable until the US postal service cut out surface, even airmail was a lot more reasonable however fifty bucks seems to be a very common charge nowadays, I understand some of the reason but it still sucks .I even paid forty dollars for a tiny envelope from the US which arrived with a five dollar stamp on it, needless to say no repeat business for those people.

[BlinkingDuck]

@Martini_Enfield

Lots of us would gladly move to The Greatest Country In The World™, except the Government thereof seems to have gone out of their way to make it nearly impossible for people to do that.

As a semi-consolation prize I think most of us would be happy to be able to order cheap stuff from the US online and not get shafted on shipping charges or told the seller doesn’t know how to spell “Australia” and therefore won’t ship to us.

Come one Australia! Become the 51st state (well…maybe 51st through 58th? states)

We’ll take ya.

[mhendo]

@BlinkingDuck

Come one Australia! Become the 51st state (well…maybe 51st through 58th? states)

We’ll take ya.

I think you’d get a lot of blowback from Alaskans and Texans, because their states wouldn’t look very big any more if Australia’s states were added to the union.

The state of Western Australia is about two and a half times the size of Alaska, and 5 of Australia’s 8 states/territories are larger than Texas.

[Sunspace]

@mhendo

I think you’d get a lot of blowback from Alaskans and Texans, because their states wouldn’t look very big any more if Australia’s states were added to the union.

The state of Western Australia is about two and a half times the size of Alaska, and 5 of Australia’s 8 states/territories are larger than Texas.

Ah. That’s the real reason Canada will never be allowed to join. Ontario, Quebec, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut are larger than Texas. It’s even worse being smaller than and outnumbered by subnational entities that speak different languages than you.

Texas: 696,241 km[sup]2[/sup].

Ontario: land area 917,741 km[sup]2[/sup]; there’s another 158,654 km[sup]2[/sup] of water, for a total of 1,076,395 km[sup]2[/sup].

Québec: land area 1,365,128 km[sup]2[/sup]; water area 176,928 km[sup]2[/sup], for a total of 1,542,056 km[sup]2[/sup].

NWT: land area 1,140,835 km[sup]2[/sup]; water area 205,271 km[sup]2[/sup], for a total of 1,346,106 km[sup]2[/sup].

Nunavut: land area 1,932,255 km[sup]2[/sup]; water area 160,935 km[sup]2[/sup], for a total of 2,093,190 km[sup]2[/sup].

[Miss_Gnomer]

I got a new one the other day … after searching around for an item that was about US$100 I found numerous places that were going to charge me over $150 for postage (I seriously don’t understand why the price of postage depended on the price of the item - surely it depends on the size/weight of the item more?) … so I have a friend in the USA who agreed to receive the package and forward it on to me (of course, free shipping within the USA) … I try to order online and it gets rejected … they wouldn’t take my credit card!!

what the?! It is a VISA card … I’ve travelled the world with it and used it everywhere … I’ve ordered online using it many times … it’s VISA for crying out loud … not dodgy-backwards-country-weirdo-credit-card!!! It’s not as though they aren’t getting the money upfront either.

You don’t like my money … well … you don’t get it … found somewhere else that would accept it!!

Oh … and postage by friend was $20!!

I used to avoid UK sites because of the exchange rate … but now with the postage from the US becoming sillier … it might be cheaper for me to order USA products from the UK.