Well...here is the report on my shopping experience with ICCWorld
Pre-Sales Enquiry: The response to my email inquiry was prompt (within 24 hrs) and the final costs involved were cheaper than Borderlinx, Ebay Global Easy Buy or 20North. The forex exchange rate was a bit jacked up though. 1USD = 48INR.
Ordering: ICCWorld automatically sets up an Ebay India link for the international purchase which is good since you can pay in INR using debit card or credit card via PaisaPay. Just like any other Ebay purchase, you get to benefit from PaisaPay buyer protection. We can complete the purchase procedure just like any ebay India purchase.
Purchase from US Seller: After you confirm the order on Ebay India website, ICCWorld promtly orders the item from the US seller. I could see the status from the buyer listing on the US seller's ebay page. I also received a notification from ICCWorld regarding the purchase from the US seller and approximate timelines involved.
Quote:
Your order request number is: xxxxxxxx has been purchased and will be shipped to our U.S. warehouse within the next week. Once we receive the item in our U.S. warehouse, we will ship it to you through our courier service and you should receive the item within 3-5 business days from the date we receive the item in our U.S. warehouse.
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Shipping from US Seller to ICCWorld Warehouse (US): On further email inquiry, ICCWorld shared the AWB number of the US shipment from seller to ICCWorld warehouse in US. It took 6 days for the item to reach ICCWorld's warehouse in US which is normal for UPS Ground shipping.
Shipment from US to India: Shipment from US warehouse to India is done by ICCWorld's own courier service. This is were things started to get sour. Tracking via ICCWorld website simply didn't work for the first few days. After repeated follow up, it started showing up, but the tracking is very primitive and it felt like a manual update whenever you request for information/update via email...lol.
As per the tracker, the item was sent to India the same day it was received at US Warehouse (good) but it took a nice 4 days to reach Mumbai where I guess it was also customs cleared by ICCWorld. 4 days for international transit as well and customs clearance is quite OK even though I've seen DHL (Via Borderlinx) door delivering the item in 3 days flat from US. The tracker also shows it reached Bangalore the same day.
Delivery: The item reached Bangalore on 16th August and on 19th August also still no sign of it. Repeated emails sent to ICCWorld go unanswered and I finally contacted their corporate office in Mumbai via email. The response from Mumbai office was prompt and it appears that ICCWorld-US missed to add my contact number on the address slip and Bangalore office was sleeping on it...
. I've set the delivery address to my office but without any contact number mentioned, ICCWorld claims that the office security rejected the delivery of the courier on 19th August. I find this quite unusual since the security normally find the details from the corporate database.Such courier deliveries has happened many times before without any issues.
Now that the phone number problem is sorted out, ICCWorld delivers the item by 20th August.
Packaging: ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE - To my utter disbelief, the packaging was torn open at both places and held together by cellophane tape which was not stuck at the right places. This was for an item which is marked "Fragile". Possibly it was opened for customs clearance and not well packaged later.
The end result is one of the two load modules are missing and there are two non-significant breakages on the plastic assembly due to poor handling.
Since August 20th, I've send multiple emails to ICCWorld reporting the missing item and poor state of the packaging and as usual there is no response yet.
I'm filing for a refund claim with Ebay buyer protection.
Verdict: In short, services by ICCWorld is UNRELIABLE & NOT RECOMMENDED.
At the same time, I also think that mine was an isolated incident since they are the same people who does the work in the background for Ebay GEB. I doubt whether I'll use services from ICCWorld again...It highly depends on how fast they would like to settle the refund claim of deliver me the missing part/refund proportionately.Just too much headache for nothing IMHO.
Use at your own risk.