Cult of Tarot Forum

Because of the increase in the cost and hassle of shipping internationally, since the advent of COVID, there seems to be an increasing number of sellers who are restricting the number of countries they are willing to ship to.

I had an experience recently in which a deck that has been on my wish list for almost three years sold on eBay for just under $30.00 (USD). Based on the deck's rarity and its condition, I would have gladly paid 3 times that amount for it (plus shipping), but I could not do so or even contact the seller to request an exception to their shipping policy because their eBay listing was set to block all bids and communication from outside their country.

This most recent event has motivated me to begin educating myself about proxy services. So far, I have found three services that appear to have somewhat decent reviews. Those three services are Buyee, White Rabbit, and Korean Buddy.

Buyee and White Rabbit offer a proxy service to buy goods sold online in Japan (including auction sites).
Korean Buddy does the same for goods sold in Korea, but I do not believe they will purchase used items from auction sites like eBay (only new items).

All these services charge a basic fee for their proxy service (a flat rate and / or a percentage based on the item's value). Some charge an addition fee if Paypal is used. Although Korean Buddy's basic fee is higher, it is my understanding that they repackage the item to ensure that it is protected for shipping, whereas Buyee (for example) will reship the item in the seller's original package, unless the customer pays an additional fee for their repackaging service. If anyone has had experience dealing with any of these proxy services, please feel free to share your experience (good or bad).

If anyone knows of other reputable proxy services that I can add to my list, please post them here.

I am particularly interested in finding a proxy service that is able to buy from eBay sellers located in Western European countries such as Italy, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. (I did find one seller on eBay advertising to act as a proxy buyer, but they were only able to do so for eBay listings in Taiwan).

I'm really not tech savvy and this is based just on youtuber sponsorship schpleels I've heard -- do you think a VPN might work? Instead of separate proxies with just one VPN you can make it like you're in different cities and countries while online? I am not sure!

@prescottarot

Thanks for the suggestion! A VPN service might provide access in certain situations, but when it comes time to ship, the seller will reject the order if the shipping address provided is not on their list of approved countries.

In the case of eBay, the seller can set their listing to reject bids from certain countries (and also block communication). eBay's settings will take precedent over VPN status. I use a VPN, and yet when I tried to contact an eBay seller in France to request an exception to their shipping policy, I received the following message: "We are sorry, but the seller is not able to respond to your question. Please return to the listing page for details about shipping..."

The only way around such shipping restrictions is to find a third-party proxy service in an approved country that will purchase the item on your behalf and then reship it to its final destination after they have received it.

Because of COVID and all the shipping restrictions it has caused, I can see the potential for such proxy-buyer services to be a good business opportunity, especially for higher priced items. After all, if someone is willing to pay hundreds (or thousands) of dollars for a rare item online, then paying an extra 12% to a proxy service to ensure that they can acquire it would not be out of the question.

i think these are called shipping provider?:)

their service usually provide you your own mailbox address in specific country you can use to shop & ship to and extra service such as taking photos of incoming parcels and personal shipping agent in case you don’t know language or need pick up etc I used several and here is my mini review:

https://www.myus.com/ think it’s something like that & had free 30days trial? I used it few years back to buy my refurbished surface 3 directly from us microsoft!:D shipping was expensive but even with all extra fees i had with import fees and all it was still saver compared to price in my country!;) lol

I used tbfocus agent to get 1deck from asia taobao it was before covid and shipping (&service!:) cost was around 3x of deck! so it’s always good idea to check with costumer service if it’s possible to ship to your country and expected cost total with shipping and all connected service?(: packaging material export form handling fees etc it all adds up!:)

had much better experience with Germany based https://www.mailboxde.com/ and https://mygermany.com/ full review on my blog here http://creativenlight.blogspot.com/2021 ... decom.html )

i used to shop on ebay.de for auctions most of these also allows you to combine several parcels into 1big box you can then ship to your own country idea is to save you shipping cost!:) but with shipping rates and all going up it’s still good to check all in advance also import limit your country may have for specific item (as some countries forbid tarot or occult item!x,x) or over specific value you may need to pay extra tax & fees or even employ import company service!;)
as these will usually ask you to upload bill screenshot for exact value and declaration of goods you are shipping!:) Note think most EU based shipping address will not let you sent them parcel coming from outside EU (Czech may be exception?) as new regulation require extra form for that!:// and uk address will only let you shop in uk!? but most will ship worldwide!:)

also find this one recently shipgerman.com and https://www.tiptrans.com/ ( this one looks best and it get you several address in Germany Czech Uk China and Hong Kong!:)


i did not use these yet so let me know your review if you decide to test it!;)

All Best!
reall/Irena

thanks for the suggestion

you are welcome!