1 To pool purchases from several merchants to save on shipping, Globeshopper is your best bet.
Its concierge service is free and holds goods at your US forwarding address for up to a month - the longest period provided by any concierge.
vPost and Comgateway's concierges charge a fee for buying on customers' behalf. vPost's concierge is the most expensive: $20.38 per merchant plus a 5.1 per cent transaction fee. Comgateway's concierge fee is 5 per cent of the total transaction.
2 If one of your shopping items is a DVD movie, you may want to skip Globeshopper or Comgateway.
Their logistics provider DHL sends your DVD to the board of censorship. There will be a few days' delay in delivery and you need to pay a censorship fee which starts from $1.80.
vPost, on the other hand, does not send your DVD to the censorship board but using vPost does not make sense as it charges a per-merchant concierge fee of $20.38, which can buy you another DVD movie.
You are better off buying directly from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. The censorship board does only random checking of these packages when they arrive. Once here, the packages are handled by Singapore Post.
3 Buy more than one item to benefit from economies of scale.
Amazon and Barnes & Noble have a per-order fee of US$4.99 (S$7) and US$7.49, respectively. Every additional item will cost extra but less than the order fee.
The per-item charge for a DVD is US$3.99 at Amazon and US$0.99 at Barnes & Noble.
For DVDs, for instance, choose boxsets to save on handling and shipping. A boxset is considered a single item even though there are a few DVDs inside.
4 Spend less than $400 per shipment to avoid paying goods and services tax (GST).
5 Look out for summer sales which start in August. A lot of US merchants will be clearing the current season's summer wear.
This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life on 3 September 2008.
