US Freight Forwarders

[andtan]

After filling my shopping cart on Marco's website last night with about $300 US of parts, I decided to see what sort of shipping costs I was looking at. The last order I did - a while ago - was about $40-$50 US.

Holy cr@p!!! The cost of the shipping from iGlobal came in at $267 US, and that was the cheapest option   

Has anyone used freight forwarders such as; HopShopGo, or Shipito for parts from Marco's etc? I'd be interested to know what the difference was between the websites freight estimate for international shipping and the freight forwarder. I realise that I would have to pay for shipping within the US.

Cheers,

Andy

[pinball god]

And the say the world is getting smaller  you gotta thank places like ebay to enable the postal and shipping services to extort money out of us.

[Gruntis]

A mate of mine uses hopshopgo all the time and has nothing but praise for their service.
Personally I haven't, but I have considered it for the very same reason you are. Given what I have heard from my mate though I wouldn't hesitate to used hopshopgo.
Hope thats helps somewhat
Cheers

[Crashramp]

I use to use Borderlinx abit but now use Shipito. It's been a few months since I've needed to buy anything from OS but the last few times were Marco orders with iGlobal quotes around the $300 mark. I can't remember exactly what I paid for those orders with Shipito but they were around the $40 to $50 mark. Huge difference, I don't know what Marco's are thinking with iGlobal. It must cost them sales.

[Strangeways]

You will also find that Marco's will not accept paypal EXCEPT for US Residents. So if you change the address to a USA address, but your paypal is @com.au, then it won't process. iGlobal is a huge issue, but it has been this way for 2 years.

[ralph67]

My last order came to almost $300 postage  ,  And it wasn't a huge amount of parts ,
I removed a few items and it came to still $135 us , What a rip off it has become , There were resonable with shipping in the past .
 I wont be buying much from them again . till they give us a better deal , i do hope they get the message from fewer sales ... My rant over ...

[andtan]

Thanks for the replies.

Hopefully I can source some of the parts locally, but for those that I can't I'll give one of the ones mentioned a go and see what happens.

Cheers,

Andy

[Mr Pinbologist]

After filling my shopping cart on Marco's website last night with about $300 US of parts, I decided to see what sort of shipping costs I was looking at. The last order I did - a while ago - was about $40-$50 US.

Holy cr@p!!! The cost of the shipping from iGlobal came in at $267 US, and that was the cheapest option   

Has anyone used freight forwarders such as; HopShopGo, or Shipito for parts from Marco's etc? I'd be interested to know what the difference was between the websites freight estimate for international shipping and the freight forwarder. I realise that I would have to pay for shipping within the US.

Cheers,

Andy

FAAARK 

what were you ordering, ie any large/bulky/heavy items?

Only reason i ask is that i was looking at their website at their cab decals, looking to get a set for an F14 Tomcat i have to do soon. I was thinking of ordering from Marco's but if freight is going to be THAT expensive i'll look elsewhere, or at other options to redo the cab art 

[andtan]

FAAARK 

what were you ordering, ie any large/bulky/heavy items?

The items consisted of the rubber Fish Tales fish (for a topper), a Dr Who mini playfield gearbox, a pair of WPC back-box hinges, an assortment of springs, nuts & bolts, and some return lane plastics. I dropped the Fish and gearbox off the list, cost dropped to $153 AUD, but the shipping was still $144 AUD.

It's almost like each item has a minimum shipping rate which are just added up in the cart, rather than being combined.

[pinball god]

Looking at what is left, why not go rtbb or other oz supplier as the parts listed look like stock stuff.

[andtan]

I actually use local suppliers as my first option.

On the occasions that I had to use an offshore supplier, (usually due to no one stocking, what I was after, or having it in stock at the time) I used to bulk up the order with a heap of smaller, light items to justify the shipping - which then was about $40 - $50.

Now it seems those smaller items are bulking up the cost. 

[pinsanity]

Shipping prices sure have jumped from Marco since my last order in December.

Just added the same item to my cart and did a dry run checkout to see what it would cost now. In December shipping was $22, now it is $59 for the same item!

[DSB]

Does the low Australian dollar affect shipping costs?

[swinks]

I just got a package from Pinballlife for parts I could't get locally with the order being $225 USD and freight $75 USD. But once they went to the post office I was pleasantly surprised to get a $25 USD refund as postage was cheaper than the auto calculate. It was shipped with UPS and was on my doorstep 5 days after ordering which is better than some of the aussie postal destinations.