At the moment my two favorite mail forwarding companies are Aramex and MyUS. I use the Aramex Shop & Ship service for packages that I am not in a rush to get and I use MyUS for packages that I need ASAP. The way these mailboxes work for those of you who aren’t aware, a lot of online stores don’t mail products outside of the US. With a US forwarding mailbox you order stuff online and mail it to your US address, then your packages gets shipped from that mailbox to your address in Kuwait and you just pay the shipping cost. Makes online shopping a lot easier.
A few weeks back I got an email from another US mail forwarding company called Shipito. According to the original email, Shipito are the biggest mail forwarders to South America and Europe and they’re hoping to become the same in the Middle East. To try out their service, they offered to ship any package for me that weighed up to 10KG. 10 freakin kilos!! I was ordering a MacBook Air around that same time but I was like nahhh, that wouldn’t really be taking advantage of their offer since it’s so light. After a bit of online shopping I realized that all the winter gear was heavily discounted because the season was over so I decided to order a snowboard, snowboard bindings and boots. They were 2015 models and were selling for 40% off at Backcountry (a really great store btw), so I decided to order them in hopes I would still manage to get some snowboarding done before the summer. That was obviously before I hurt my ankle last week.
I roughly calculated the weight of all my snowboard gear and it was going to be around 10KG, so I placed the order and shipped it to my Shipito mailbox which they had setup for me. Shipito provides you with three different US mailboxes to use each with their own advantage:
Minden, NV
The biggest Shipito warehouse. More storage (six times bigger mailbox capacity for free storage compared to California, or double of Oregon). 180 days storage for Virtual Mailbox (other locations offer 90 days). Lowest shipping cost for USPS, FedEx and DHL.Tualatin, OR
No sales tax in Oregon! Save on 7-9% expensive purchases! Full service location. More storage space for your Virtual mailbox and shipping rates slightly higher than in California.Hawthorne 2, CA
All shipping methods available. Consolidation available. Low shipping cost and fast speed due to proximity to LAX airport. Russian Post available. Lowest price for Airmail.
Clearly the biggest advantage Shipito has over Aramex and MyUS was the fact they have an Oregon location which means you don’t pay taxes. When I ordered my Macbook Air from the Apple Store, I paid $87.43 in taxes when I shipped it to MyUS mailbox. If I had shipped it to Shipito’s Oregon address I wouldn’t have paid any tax whatsoever. I placed my order for the snowboard gear and two days later it reached my Shipito mailbox.
Once a package arrives to your Shipito mailbox, you have the option to have 10 photos of your items taken before they ship it (costs: $2.5). My packages arrived in two shipments so they took 20 photos in total and emailed them to me. They then gave me a bunch of options to help cut down on shipping. First thing I wanted to do is consolidate the two shipments into one. Then I had the option to completely get rid of all the boxes to cut down on shipping cost, or to keep the product boxes but have them repackage them so they can minimize the space used, or to leave everything the way it is. Since I needed the product boxes incase I needed to return an item, I had them redo the packaging. They did that and also sent me pictures of the whole process by email. Finally the package was ready to send and they gave me the following carriers I could ship with: DHL Express, FedEx Priority, FedEx Economy, USPS Priority Mail, USPS Express Mail, Airmail Economy, TNT Economy, TNT Express and USPS First Class International Parcel.
I chose DHL Express and a couple of days later my package had arrived to my doorstep in Kuwait.
So would I use Shipito again?
Obviously my first experience was great since I didn’t pay for anything but since I have the mailbox already setup with them I would probably use them again. For one thing they’re great when ordering from the Apple Store. I placed an order for an Apple Watch and it still hasn’t gotten canceled by Apple so I think they ship to Shipito mailboxes. I tried previously with both my Aramex and MyUS mailboxes and both orders got canceled. Plus you don’t pay tax, that has to be the biggest advantage. Shipping cost on the other hand varies. Aramex is by far the cheapest option but also the slowest. Shipito vs MyUS is more difficult to calculate because MyUS now doesn’t charge based on volumetric weight but on actual weight (up to a certain size). So if its a big box MyUS will probably be cheaper. But if it’s a smaller box Shipito is cheaper. For example a 25x25x25cm box weighing 1KG would cost $47 with Shipito but $52 with MyUS. So yes I would use my Shipito address again mostly when ordering small electronics like laptops, cameras and other items that don’t come in a large box. Also expensive items I would save a lot on by not paying any tax.
If you want to find out more about Shipito you can visit their website [Here]
17 replies on “Shipito US Mail Forwarding”
you should try out now bindings, simply awesome!
you’ve got the same bindings? the reviews were great and price wise they weren’t bad after the discount.
I used to have Cartel Bindings on my burton snowboard, then i discovered now binding when i was snowbaording in Canada. They are absolutely amazing, prefect force onto the snowboard you can get better reaction with movement, and perfect ankle support.
is shipito better than viabox(viaddress) ?
No idea haven’t heard of viabox before
@Mark,
Without the credit card offer you have for MYUS, its not really much better than Borderlinx. It might still end up being marginally better after you factor in the $80 you have to pay, but thats only if you ship very frequently. I ship stuff about 6-8 times per year. You’re right that Aramex is still the cheapest, but they are so horrible to deal with (at least 5 years ago when I left them). I use Borderlinx, although I absolutely hate their prices and wicked evil volumetric formula.
PS> Borderlinx is no longer affiliated with DHL (although they still use them). DHL has its own forwarding service now called Skybox.net. They have big banners for it in the DHL Khalijea offices. I hope you review that also Mark, and add it to the comparison.
myus is better than borderlinx because they don’t use volumetric weight. Also skybox has been around for like 3-4 years I think, I might have reviewed them or posted about them. Not on a computer now to pull up the old post.
But generally there isn’t a single company that is perfect, each has an advantage. Borderlinx doesn’t have any advantage over MyUs or Shipito which is why I stopped using them.
If you think that’s good, try having an APO/AE address.
I don’t work for the U.S. Military so I can’t have one.
Watch out everyone….TruePrice is extended through 31 May 2015! After that MyUs is back to volumetric weight
oh, i thought it was a permanent thing.
The thing about ordering online recently isn’t about shipping prices anymore, rather, the bloody customs charges. Shipping companies are taking advantage of the chaos in the government and overcharging us. I was told by various sources in customs that most of the charges are between shipping companies, and they end up on the receiver’s bill with “Customs” tag. a big evidence is the new Amazon Global service, which ships directly to Kuwait with custom taxes already calculated, you can see how low true customs rates are, plus, how cheaper shipping charges are, because DHL/Fedex etc, are dealing with mighty Amazon, they can’t play around with charges. I’m doing my best to avoid forwarding and instead ordering directly from Amazon and eBay (which also launched a global service).
FYI: No sales tax in Minnesota either. I know cause I used to live there. Don’t know if that’ll help you or not.
Been trying shipito now for a bit, first things first, you have to do the paperwork and processing online for your shipments as opposed to the receive and ship process, practically everything you may need like extra packing repacking photos fragile sticker has a price tag a dollar here a dollar there it all adds up.
Service wise here is my feedback so far, only first order, my first package was misplaced part of it is in my account the other lost and found then after filling a misplaced package I got an email stating my address was not correct. Since they had the option of the package being photographed I verified this and it was not true the address was correct and so was the suite number, just mishandling from there end which they didn’t even acknowledge, who cares they found the package.
A day later someone elses package ends up in my mailbox as I checked the notification and picture and it showed Mr. Soon Woo which is definitely not my name. Created another ticket for that.
Its a headache to verify your account with their security checks since I had to talk to 3 reps to make them understand that the amount that was charged to my amex card was 1.56 and every time I entered the verified amount it failed, so then they proceeded to advise me to just send them a statement which showed the same information then they approved it.
Even after sending a copy of my civil id, account statement passport scan I only managed 60% verification level.
To get full verification you would need to wire transfer the amount in and or have notary done, 50USD at the USA embassy your kidding me ?
Explained that to them they said to use bitcoin, cross referenced bitcoin and it was some sort of digital monetary format and that alone is a long process to figure out so out of the question.
At the end of the day I had to wire transfer the amount into the account and now waiting for 5 working days for the amount to hit the account to have my items shipped? What a joke.
On the other hand they managed to contradict their support ticket twice which is good to know and hopefully once my wire transfer hits the account, I will for sure be closing my account and asking for a refund of all balance payment.
I would for sure pay that extra money and do less with the hassle I had to endure int 10 days using their service.
I would highly recommend using Shipville. They are the best
I have found. I have a US address and pay no sales tax!
Hello Mark, this is 2020 speaking. Would you still recommend those services for shopping from amazon in kuwait?
I have been very happy with US Global Mail, however their shipping rates seem high. I should probably compare the to USMail.