Thursday, March 29, 2012

MyUS.com - Shopping Experience

I got an AMEX Gold Card some time back and they are tied up with MyUS.com, using which you can buy things from USA and Ship them to India. Here is my experience.

I bought Skechers Shoes from www.shoes.com, the shoes cost 50 USD. The membership fee is waved off for 1st year for AMEX customers. MyUS.com has a good personal shopper where you can just put the details of the product you want to buy and pay for it, they will do the rest, but they charge a fee ($10 + Any USA shipping fee), for me it came to 20 USD. So total of 70 USD.

The package arrived at their FLORIDA Address. As soon as it arrived, I received an email from MyUS.com for my permission to ship it. The shipping cost after 20% discount was 40 USD. So the total came to 110 USD.

I checked the Indian Customs website and it said that anything below Rs 5000 (=100 USD) is free and will not be charged, but when the package arrived, I was shocked, that it asked me to pay, 1200 as custom charges (approx 25 USD), that's almost 60% of the shoe price, I have no idea why so much of custom charges.

So the total cost of 50 USD shoe came to

50 + 20 + 40 + 25 = 135 USD, more than twice the cost of the product !!!!

PROS (MyUS.com) -

1. Excellent communication through Emails.
2. Clarity on charges.
3. Good Package.
4. Through AMEX, discounts are available.

CONS (MyUS.com)

1. They don't mark the product as GIFT.
2. There is no calculation of custom or an estimate on how much it will cost.

FINAL words

There are other websites which include everything, including the customs etc, like www.shopyourworld.com, ebay.in (Global Shipping Program) and they are good, I have bought earlier from them. I thought, MyUS.com would be cheaper, but it turned out to me at least 20 - 30 USD more expensive. One should one use it, if you are getting some Deal, like the product is on 80% discount or something, otherwise use www.shopyourworld.com or Ebay.in or similar websites.

5 comments:

Huz said...

I think custom duty is 40% on personal goods in india. MYUS have an option to mark down the value of the item. Try that next time.

Brijesh said...

This is what exactly I was charged, considering 1 USD = 50 Rupees, it comes to 50%.

http://blog.brijeshradhika.com/2012/03/indian-custom-duties-upto-60.html

Anonymous said...

How come you paid "duty" for $50 shoes?? The dutyfree baggage limit is Rs. 25000 (if stay was more than 3 days) plus 1 laptop. Besides used personal stuff except jewellery is dutyfree. Besides duty if applicable is only on part excess of Rs.25000 at 35.7%. Not 60 % as you paid.

3 weeks ago my friend's friend brought 42 inch LED/LCD TV from Dubai for him to Bangalore without paying duty. But paid Rs. 600 as bribe to the shameless customs fellow.

My friends have brought lot of stuff from US trips within 25K limit.

Looks like the crooked customs guys conned you. Always pays to know Indian Air Passenger Baggage Rules, HS Codes, Import Duties etc. in advance.

Indian airport customs officials are the worst on Earth.... always waiting to extort passengers, especially ones who don't know the Baggage Rules and HS Codes.

Refer to:
http://www.cbec.gov.in/travellers.htm

Good luck next time :)

Kishore
kishore1111patil@gmail.com

Brijesh said...

@Kishore, I did not TRAVEL to the US, I purchased the shoes from www.shoes.com and had www.myus.com, shipped them to me. They shipped using DHL and I was charged customs duty on them.

Unknown said...

brijesh even i had the same experience today.I was charged 41.49% as customs for literally i had to pay 50$ as customs for 100$ goods. It is terrible.