- That store owner told me that he has a friend residing
in the US, and when that store owner needs to purchase items not available in Yemen or not shipped to Yemen, then he purchases those items from the online sellers, such as Amazon.com, and eBay.com, and while purchasing he is typing the ship address for
his friend residing in the US. Thus, the items purchased are calculated with a local American shipping fee. After that, that friend of his sends all items to the store owner in Yemen.
- That store owner told me that 20% is the commission for the store for each item after calculating shipping fee. And he told me that $30 is shipping fee for each item.
- That store owner told me that the service 'USPS' Priority Mail Express International is not immediate delivery to Yemen, however, items shipped with service '**USPS'**Thru Priority Mail Express International with must be
passed thru other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, or United Arab Emirates, then can be passed thru other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, or United Arab Emirates, then the products are delivered to Yemen.(I.e. from the US -----To------ Saudi Arabia/UAE
--- To ----Yemen). If so, then why is the service 'USPS' Priority Mail Express International as long as there is no immediate delivery from the US to Yemen? from the US to Yemen?
You just learned some very useful information here. So now you know how someone else is doing it. If you can ask him another question, it would be good to know if he had to register anything with the Yemen Customs department. Our country's stance
on imports and exports is an open policy of monitoring. So basically just about anyone here in the US can ship or receive packages to/from just about any foreign country without any issues. Items sometimes get held up in customs for inspection, but for the
most part the officials just try to keep an eye on who and what is coming and going. Certain illegal substances are confiscated when found, and the offending US party could get in trouble if they are suspected to be up to something bad. If it is bad enough,
US Intelligence may work with the other country to investigate the other party as well. What you need to know is if your country has an open policy regarding imports, or if you need to register first.
Regarding your last point about the route your package takes to get to Yemen, I was already suspecting that Saudi Arabia was the import "hub" that passes mail on to Yemen. Being a much bigger country, and one that the US has good business relations
with, I believe that it is just a matter of logistics. My guess is that there are a lot more airplane flights going between the US and Arabia, compared to US and Yemen. Since Yemen shares a large border with Arabia, it is convenient to ship mail to Arabia,
and let Arabia forward it to Yemen via land (probably by truck).
However, for instance, the shipping fee of Patriot 32GB Supersonic Rage Series USB 3.0 Flash Drive With Up To 180MB/sec
at eBay.com is about $66.90, and price is $27.99. Then total is $94.89
However, according to the shop owner(that 30 is shipping fee, and 0.20 is commission).
I don't know how shop owner calculated the total of USB flash drive to be $64.
USB Flash Drive is priced at eBay.com with Price:US $27.99
Then, the shipping fee is US $66.90 USPS Priority Mail Express International
Then the commission is (27.99+ 30) * 0.20 = $11.5
Total is 27.99 + 30 + 11.5 = $69
For the Bluray drive is OK according to the shop owner 's way. When I calculated the price according to what the shop owner to told me.
The price of Bluray at eBay.com is $74.77. The shipping fee for ship onwer is $30, and 0.20 % is a commission. So, commission is (74.77 + 30) * 0.20 =104.77 * 0.20 = 20.954
Total is 74.77 + 30 + 20.95 = $125.
4. at Amazon.com, the price of Patriot 32GB Supersonic Rage Series USB 3.0 Flash Drive With Up To 180MB/sec- PEF32GSRUSB is only $19.99, but no shipping to Yemen. So if that shop owner would purchase the item at Amazon, he would earn much earning since the price of items are very cheap
as opposed to the eBay.com
It could be that his American friend is not shopping around for the best price, and you're finding better deals. The Internet is amazing, isn't it? From your remote location in Yemen, you can shop just about any online store in the US and abroad!
Since you now know the import arrangement he has, you could try sending him direct links to the items you wish to buy that you have found a good US price on. Remember on eBay that he wouldn't be limited to the global/Yemen sellers either, since his American
agent buys the stuff in the US.
Just so you know, I had been bouncing the idea of being a US buying/exporting agent for you around in my head. Right now, I'm not sure that I want to get in the middle of this though. ;-)
5. the store owner will not give a warranty since he said that there are no manufacturer warranty when he will request the products from the US since there would be high amounts spending on back and return and get others if some products defected.
However, at eBay.com there is warranty.
I can understand this from the merchant's point of view. It would be a big hassle and incur real shipping costs for him, and his agent would have to get involved and make the same shipments again in the US, potentially incurring more shipping costs.
From his point of view, he's taking a risk and doing to a favor to even get the products into your country in the first place. He's just trying to make the 20% as compensation for his risk and time, and processing a warranty replacement would be more
hassle then he wants to deal with. I would feel the same way in his situation.
Normally, major companies have physical locations in larger countries like the US. Warranty shipments are made to and from them, and the shipping costs are minimized because the package doesn't have to go far. The company may even absorb the shipping
costs as a loss. But when dealing with a remote import/export deal, and there's no local physical location for the company (i.e. Samsung) that would process the warranty locally for you, and so the shipping costs (and risk of losing the item) would be high.
Your local merchant simply wants to avoid all of this, so he is not offering a warranty.
7- do you not think that $996 is very high for those products. I think it is as much as the price of a new good laptop.
8. do you think that is better to purchase the products at eBay.com or letting store owner purchase them for me? If letting the store purchase them for me, then I must pay %20 for each item for the store owner. Also, if I'd like to open a small store
for me, and purchase products from online sellers, and purchase them in my own country, so I would do repeatedly purchase from online sellers, which means that I will pay %20 for each item I request from that owner. Why not saving that %20, and I order
the items from online sellers by myself.
I do think that is high. I wish there was an easy solution. However, (correct me if I'm wrong) I'm not sure that you could get a laptop with a large SSD and a Bluray drive for that cheap, especially in your country. As much stuff as you're dealing
with, it may very well be worth trying to import the items yourself. Just do your homework and don't blame me if something goes wrong!
Could you address these things below for me?
With using your suggested global site, I could have found out the same results found on the Yemeni postal site
http://www.post.ye after entering my item NO: EE008495761YE in that suggested site by you.
I was expecting that Yemen would not be listed/supported to Tracking shipments by that global site when I saw a note above item no field saying 'Track Post/EMS shipments for****137 countries here'
It seems as though global tracking site like this one redirected me to
http://www.post.ye once I entered the item no.
However, all information is still about the original country(Yemen) from which envelop was sent. But there are no locations about the destination country(Poland). If all the location updates are still available for the destination country (Yemen), and only
location updates for the original country(the US) are stopped after the package will leave the originating country, the US, then it is OK for me. If no, then what benefit is there since the problem might be in Yemen. I am not afraid of sending the item from
the US to Yemen. However, I have been afraid of where my item might be stuck after it got arrived in Yemen. So, with tracking an item, I can find out the locations where my item might be stuck while it is arrived in Yemen.
This is not an area I have much experience in, but from what I can find online, it looks like tracking is a feature that the initial shipper requests and pays for. That postal system then provides the requested tracking service. However, as soon as
the package leaves their system and enters another postal system, that new postal system has not been paid or asked to track the item, so tracking stops. Unfortunately for you, this is just when you need the tracking to begin!
Just an idea: Some people have sent GPS trackers through the mail and successfully tracked packages themselves. Long as the battery lasts the whole time, the package can easily be tracked globally this way. But these GPS trackers are expensive. If
you had someone in the US that bought all the items and shipped them to Yemen all in one package, it would definitely be worth looking into this possibility. But then again, that would be assuming a lot of risk if that package got stolen and could not be
retrieved!
I never received any items from another country with using just my name, country/province, and mobile number. However, someday I have received an envelope containing an
admissions offer sent by a UK University. However,
that envelop was sent to my university's post department since I, myself, typed in the number of Post office box for the university while I was filling the application form of applying for getting an admissions offer.
So, I am still asking myself that either post office box numbers, or mobile numbers,
if no P.O.B, are useful
Yes, the mobile phone number which I wrote in the Street address is much more useful in my own country since they will call me on it. However, the street name or even the city is not useful since they are not well-known with my people across Yemen.
If you're going to try to import items yourself, it is critical that you know exactly how this works. Since I don't live in your country, and have never done any importing/exporting myself, I can't help very much with this. But I can suggest that you
get in contact with your postal system and find out just how this works. And then, have someone send you a letter just to verify that the system works. If that passes and you're clear with Customs, try buying one of the cheapest items (like that USB flash
drive) from eBay. Once you have successfully imported a cheap item, you can have more confidence that you've figured the system out, and proceed to more expensive items.
I am thinking that you are going to need a Post Office Box. I don't know what it costs to open one in your country. It may be worth it. Or, if you know someone (or a business) that you can absolutely trust to hold, and not steal, the items, you could
use their address with your name, and use them as a "pick-up" location. This would be just like the University you mentioned.
Please be fully aware that when importing items from that far, you're taking significant risk. You may have a number of transactions go just fine, and then one that doesn't. Thankfully for you, eBay puts the burden of proof on the seller, so you probably
won't lose very much money in a transaction gone wrong, but there is always the chance you may. This is one reason items are more expensive from the Yemen merchant you were dealing with. For him, the extra markup he charges covers his losses, and for him,
hopefully provides a little extra, compensating him for his effort and time.
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