Shopping Overseas
If you're anything like me, you might just be a little bit green with envy at the incredible choice of products available overseas. Bemoan no more dear friends... Bongo International to the rescue.
A little over a week ago, I found something I simply could not live without at J Crew in the US - and it was on sale! They don't ship to Australia so I looked into setting up an account with Bongo. I opted for a single use account so I could test out the service before subscribing. It was incredibly easy to get started - I just keyed in my details and within a few minutes I was emailed my 'address' in the US which I could use for my J Crew order.
Next I had to wait a couple of days for an unspecified amount to be deposited into my credit card account by Bongo. Once the amount was there, I had to notify Bongo and my account setup was one step closer to completion. Finally I had to scan in a couple of forms of id and email them, together with an USPS form to confirm my identity.
Done! All I had to do was sit back and monitor my account to see if my delivery had been received by Bongo. J Crew were pretty speedy - it was delivered to my new US address within 3 days. Then within a day, Bongo had it on its way to me on the other side of the world.
I received my package on Friday - in perfect condition, amazed at the speed of the whole process.
They offer two kinds of service - per use and subscription. I would definitely opt for the subscription-based service as there are good savings to be had if planning to shop internationally on a regular basis. This service also means Bongo can hold multiple items at their warehouse and then ship them altogether. This would be really handy if you were buying from different suppliers around the same time (think favours, dresses, stationery!).
It's really important too that you know how much each parcel weighs before committing to a buying spree as deliveries are priced per pound and even small parcels can be deceptively heavy!
I was so impressed with the service. It was completely hassle-free and easy to use. It has opened up a whole new world of shopping to me - no longer do I have to pine over those things I thought were out of reach.
Posted by Jane Cameron
Sunday, February 8, 2009
