Team-BHP - The Online Shopping Thread

^^ Duty is applicable on Item cost+Shipping Cost.

If your item is cleared by UPS/FedEx etc then haggling will not work, their prime concern is to deliver to you the items well within the estimated delivery date.

If you want to clear the package on your own, as soon as you get your AWB number you should inform your local UPS/FedEx office that you will clear the items by self. Then you should go and clear them yourself or authorise a clearing agency to do it on your behalf.

Thanks for the info.

Shall try atleast one direct purchase from amazon.com after comparing the prices on ebay, U.S.A. and Global Easy buy. Most probably it will be the USD 99.99 Plextor PX-B120U External BDROM drive I had indicated in my thread on Cute Mini-HTPC.

An update to my 20North fiasco.

They have arranged for the pickup of the bottle opener from my house and will trace where the GPS shipment went. They believe that it got shipped to some other person and in that case will get it from him and send it to me.

Let's see what happens next :-)

While buying online at amazon or any other reputed online store in US is easy and fun (the range, the prices etc are unbeatable), there is one fly in the ointment. The Indian CC will mean a huge markup and related taxes (service, edu cess) on your purchase value. Recently I picked up a DSLR from US. The price was too good but the bank charged me over 1800 rupees in all these additional heads. So beware of that.

My calculation says that unless the price difference between India and US is not over 5% it makes sense to buy the thing locally.

Have purchased many items from Ebay.com thru china sellers, one lesson learned is pay approx 2usd more for your package to get it by registered mail with tracking number and the item reaches you easily, Else Indian post office guys would take it home and you will always be waiting for it to reach you.

I am about to order a color/IR night vision ready cctv camera, which looks cheap and seller is ready to ship via registered post with same 2usd extra method.

Edit: Zappo, the Indian Bank Markup thing is a CRUEL act, they already bill us almost Rs.1 more than actual dollar rate, and many banks say, the dollar value is updated only once or twice a billing cycle, so they already make a lot of money this way, the Mark-up fee is pure BS and they are just ripping us off with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sankar (Post 2008848)

^^ Duty is applicable on Item cost+Shipping Cost.

Just an update.

Assessable amount of duty is:-
FOB (freight on board) invoice value + Freight cost + Insurance cost + Landing charges

Apart from applicalble % duty, there is an additional 2% EduCess and 1% SHECess on most imports.

Bitter experience with online booking. I booked 3 flight tickets for the price of 15984. All went well and the money was debited.Finally the ticket was not booked.Now looking for the reversal of the amount debited and the correspondence is going on with the Customer relations of the airlines. Now worried whether to take the risk of another 16k or not to book online.

I need to send flowers to a Bombay address, and am out of town.

While I have used Florista in the past, it was always via a email order and a person comes to pick up the tab after delivery of the flowers. This is not possible right now; and the Florista site looks a little suspect.

Any other recommendations (or any positive recos for Florista orders through their website)?

For my part, I have bought mainly books online and I can swear by Flipkart.com. Professional packing, and stunning delivery time (sometimes the even the next morning, though they are based in Blore and the delivery is to Bombay). And I have seen other people in office manage refunds fairly easily if the book's cover is slightly skewed (happens in transit).

And for tickets of course - the ubiquitous cleartrip and makemytrip, especially now with the booking train tickets option.

If any one could revert on the flowers business, its a little urgent. Thanks

I prefer to buy online from reputed sources preferably those that have brick and mortar establishments of repute like Adorama/B&H camera, Amazon (an exception but the only stuff I buy here are books), LL Bean (again an old, pre-internet catalog reatiler), etc... for the rest I say "you pays your moeny, you take your chances"

Quote:

Originally Posted by manolin (Post 2033161)

If any one could revert on the flowers business, its a little urgent. Thanks

Hi,

I need to buy and ship a cordless phone to my in laws in India and when checking online, couple of websites pop up. I have no idea who these guys are and if they are good with timely shipping and shipping correct products.

e.g. one is gadgetsguru.com and the other is letsbuy.com

GadgetsGuru claims that the items sold are with manufacturer's warranty - something thats important to me.

Anyone dealt with these (or any other good sites) and have any feedback?

Mohit, thanks for giving info on this site. I didn't know about it.

I was browsing Samsung Epic 4G and found the specs are mixed up. In network they say its CDMA/EVDO and in data they mention GPRS, EDGE (which are GSM) and Rev A (again EVDO) and then add HSDPA which is GSM. Hope they know what they are selling.