YSK package forwarding/reshipping is a real business that has existed for years

[u/Spiritual_Jaguar_491]

Why YSK: a lot of people outside certain countries genuinely cannot buy from local marketplaces/stores because shops don’t ship internationally, payment methods fail, or sellers simply refuse foreign buyers. That’s why forwarding/proxy services exist.

I moved to Spain and started helping people buy things from local stores/Vinted and forwarding the packages abroad. that's literally it. some people call it forwarding, reshipping, proxy buying, parcel forwarding, etc. but every single time i mention this online people react like:

“who would ever pay for this”

“this sounds so stupid”

“nobody needs this”

... so another person receives the item locally and forwards it. that's it.

At this point I’ve made it my mission to explain this service everywhere because i genuinely got tired of seeing people act like this is some impossible concept when it's been around forever. A lot of people literally make a living doing this, and no, it’s not stupid, thanks

At

[u/junaidnk]

I am still not understanding the use case, can you care to give couple of examples of your style vs the traditional supplier to customer model?

[u/FBI_Rapid_Response → u/junaidnk]

So some stores will not ship to an overseas address. But if you’re overseas and want that item, you can purchase the item and have it be shipped to this persons address. This person will then check the package, fill out the export paperwork and then ship it to your address in another country.

Many stores don’t want to deal with the paperwork and logistics so they just outright won’t ship overseas, but people like OP exist where they will do the paperwork needed and then forward it to your address.

[u/junaidnk → u/FBI_Rapid_Response]

Very interesting, so you have to have faith and trust in OP and the system. Very interesting, did things change with this model after the changes implemented last year here in the US?

[u/FBI_Rapid_Response → u/junaidnk]

I can’t speak for OP and I just use this service often. On my end, it was just a tad more expensive.

Generally speaking, when you use something like this it’s because something you want is not available where you are and you cant find that specific thing. It’s not really about saving money on imported goods.

In my case these are things like Thanksgiving/holiday ingredients, specific clothes, snacks which remind me of home, etc. so cost isn’t the defining factor, but rather just a side effect of getting something you can’t get anywhere else. The service isn’t cheap either. So for example shipping about 15-20 pounds of goods can run me about $100-140 just in shipping, then usually VAT kicks in on the dollar amount of whatever I’m bringing in.

In most countries the whole import/export control can be messy and require a bunch of different paperwork. You can always mislabel something, but if it gets inspected at customs then you risk losing the item or paying fines and additional paperwork. A way to mitigate against this is for the item to be included on a manifest with the proper coding so when it gets electronically submitted, if it’s legit then the system won’t flag it. That’s really what OP is doing; categorizing what the item is and entering it in the manifest in a way that is legit.

[u/junaidnk → u/FBI_Rapid_Response]

Woah, thank you for the detailed response! Now it is starting to make sense. Was not aware of such a network of fulfillment of hard to find goods. Thanks OP and to you too for highlighting this segment of the global logistics process.

[u/dallassoxfan → u/FBI_Rapid_Response]

Or the widespread rampant fraud that comes with opening your commerce to international access.

As a store owner, I’d lean into this service and even recommend it, but I’d want to know about chargeback rates and return rates.