7 Easy Steps to Buying Online and Using a Forwarder

tags: online shopping, amazon, comgateway, forwarder, US to Singapore, shipping to singapore, US to Asia

Getting trapped in your room with an internet connection and your credit card really is quite a dangerous thing. It’s fun, though!

On-line shopping is now really a common thing, and with websites like Amazon or eBay, it is just as easy and quite addicting (against the futile complaints from my budget).

However, there are some cases where the item that you want (which often isn’t available where you live) cannot be shipped to your destination. These items, especially for Amazon can only be shipped in the US or the UK. And, without a US address, you’re left with a stronger longing for that product (and an itchy card). Enter forwarders to the rescue!

Forwarders are actually shipping companies (or one of their constituents) that allows you to order online, accept the deliveries and then forward it to your destination of choice. They act as a sort of ‘stop over’ for your online purchases which is within the acceptable locations of the online product delivery. It effectively removes our initial dilemma. And sometimes, it’s actually cheaper than to ship the products directly to your place.

It’s quite simple how to employ a forwarder’s services. For my case (and the reference to this blog post), i’m ordering from Amazon.com and using Com Gateway to deliver items from the US to Singapore. Here are the steps:

1. Register to Com Gateway website.
It’s quite a standard registration process. There are some forwarders that require you to shell out a few dollars to complete the registration. For Com Gateway, it’s completely free. Nice.

the web address is: http://www.comgateway.com

2. Get your US address.
Upon completion of your registration, you’ll get a ‘personalized’ US address. Take note of this address as this will be the one you’ll be using when you purchase online.

You can always get your US address when you login to their website.
For my case, the address is somewhere in Oregon.

3. Add your new US Address to your shopping site.
For most shopping sites, they let you set a delivery address. Amazon, for example let’s you put in several address in your Address Book. Just add this new address to your account.
Just log-in to Amazon website, go to your Accounts Page and click the ‘Add New Address’ link. Follow the instructions from there.
See image below for a quick guide:

4. Shop at your (favorite) online shopping website.
Go through your online shopping as you normally would but when it’s time to checkout, use your US address in the delivery address. DO NOT use it for the billing address – that one should still be the billing address of your credit card.
You can order as many as products as your credit limit allows :) from as many websites you want and have them delivered to your US address.
Get the Confirmation or Order number from the online shopping website at the end of the transactions.

Amazon sends the following e-mail for confirmation of your order. Please take note that the Billing address is different from the Shipping address:

5. Check your packages.
From time to time (depending on the estimated delivery of the product), check Com’s website and see if your packages have arrived. Just login and go to the ‘Packages’ section. Or, you can check your mailbox if you’ve received an e-mail from Com regarding a delivery. 
Comgateway used to ask for customers to register their expected packages. Now, they just list the packages when they arrive which is really a simpler way of doing things.

6. Have your items shipped to your doorstep.
Once all your packages (or at least the ones you want shipped at the moment) arrives in your US address – you can have Com ship them immediately to your desired address.
Com provides you with options to re-pack your items, and consolidate them for the most efficient way of sending your package.
In the ‘Packages’ section of their website, select the items you wan to ship, follow the prompts to compute the cost, input your destination address and proceed with the payment.

7. Receive your items.
Here comes the sometimes ‘excruciatingly painful’ wait for your items to arrive at your doorstep. Com uses DHL for their deliveries so you can actually use the tracking services from DHL’s website. Com would send you an e-mail like the following:

Notice the Shipping Address should be your real address.
There is also a link to the DHL tracking page that you can use to see where your package is.
After a few days, the items should be happily settled in your eager hands.

Other Things to Consider:
1. Since you are buying online from US sellers, just consider the difficulties regarding warranties (unless it is international) and returns/change of products.
2. Delivery would take at most 2 weeks (from my experience) from the time i ordered online but this would vary on the seller and what type of delivery you selected on your purchase and Comgateway’s services.
3. You can ship to almost any country that has DHL but do consider the taxes you have to pay with customs. With Singapore, there is a tax exemption if the items are less than SGD$400 per package delivery. So, if you are shipping to Singapore try to separate your packages so they are lower in that value.

I’ve only used Amazon and Com Gateway. This combination is sometimes cheaper than if i had the items shipped directly from the Amazon (US) to Singapore.

I have not tried other forwarders and will probably stick to Com, as I am really satisfied with their service and excellent customer support (had to use their ‘chat’ support once and was happy with the transaction).