Advertorial Review: Aramex Global Shopper

Aramex Global Shopper is an international shipping service that allows you to shop from countries and online stores that would normally not ship to South Africa or where the online retailers shipping charges are prohibitive. They will then deliver your parcel to your doorstep and take care of customs in the process. That means more online shopping options, hassle-free.

With the advent of online shopping and the ease with which we can buy from just about anywhere in the world, shipping to South Africa has always been a challenge. In the early years, I mostly bought books and CD’s (remember those) from Amazon, but when my wife bought me a GoPro 4 for my birthday last year I realized for the first time just how little is shipped to South Africa. That meant that quite a few of the really want accessories were reserved for the lucky people who live abroad.

The same goes for direct to public bike brands like Canyon and YT Industries. Enter Aramex Global Shopper. What you need to know about Aramex Global Shopper:

• This service is available to anyone who lives in South Africa, Botswana or Kenya.
• Orders are automatically shipped to your South African address as soon as they arrive in your Aramex Global Shopper account. You won’t be able to combine orders to all be sent at one time
• There is a once-off $45 lifetime membership fee (Pricing is in dollars as they are an international shipping company)
• Aramex Global Shopper offers a money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with their service within the first 12 months
• You can pay using your credit card or Paypal
• As part of the service they offer, Aramex Global Shopper insures shipments up to the value of $100 for free. If a shipment is lost or damaged, they will fully compensate you equal to the package’s invoice value. You can opt to pay $1 per additional $100 value for parcels that are worth more than $100, but it isn’t mandatory.
• Their service includes paying any customs charges on your behalf, taking the frustration of delays and dealing with customs out of your hands completely. They will simply upload the charges to your account for you to pay before they make your delivery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6MfYKun6uA
To make use of their service you will need to follow these steps:

1. Set up an Account
The usual online account details apply here. Name, surname, email address, shipping address and preferred payment method. This can be edited at any stage giving you the option to ship to an alternative address or using a different payment method for a specific order if you’d like.

And that’s it! All that’s left to do is shop.

Once you have registered with Aramex Global Shopper, you will receive personalized physical addresses in 14 locations, New York, London, Shanghai, Istanbul, Dubai, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Milan, Barcelona, Paris, Singapore, Ontario and Malaysia. You can use these addresses to shop from the US, UK / EU, China, Turkey, UAE, India, Hong Kong, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Singapore, Canada and Malaysia. These are used as a forwarding address and you can select which one to use based on who and where you are shopping from.

For my first order I used the New York address as I shopped from Amazon’s US Store. In doing so I qualified for free 2 day shipping in the US and only had to pay for the shipping costs from NY to Cape Town.

The website is easy to navigate with nifty online tools like a ‘Rate Calculator’, ‘Currency Converter’ and a ‘Track Your Shipment’ tool. With the aid of these tools you can calculate the shipping rates etc. before you place your online order. Email updates are sent to keep you informed as your parcel makes its way through the system. Should you wish to not receive these, or missed one, their online tools help a great deal. Each and every parcel is assigned its own Aramex tracking number with reference to the shipper’s tracking number, thereby making it easy to track your shipments. Click on the tracking number and it opens a page showing full details and status. To write about my experience with them, I kept an eye on their turn-around and it was nothing short of impressive with virtually no delay their side.

My order did hit one snag, though. Instead of shipping my order in 3 shipments, Amazon sent 2 each with its own invoice and another 4 sharing 1 invoice. This caused a bit of confusion at customs as those 4 parcels needed to be totalled to calculate the import duties and not be charged for the full amount for each parcel. Thankfully Aramex Global Shopper’s local customer services got in touch with me and sorted the issue out with customs directly with no real effort on my part. Their communication was very good – the experience left me impressed and confident that they will be able to tackle any hurdle along the way. Obviously this won’t be an issue with many other online shops as they ship from their own warehouses.

Barring any unforeseen delays, you can expect your parcel to reach your doorstep in 3 – 6 working days which is very impressive considering the extra stop.

Aramex Global Shopper’s shipping rates to South Africa:

Zone 1 Countries – Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Malaysia, Spain, Singapore, US, UK

• Shipping Rate for first half kg: R 175
• Shipping Rate per additional half kg thereafter: R 99

Zone 2 Countries – Turkey, UAE, India

• Shipping Rate for first half kg: R 131.31
• Shipping Rate per additional half kg thereafter: R 74.30

Duties, clearance and customs fees:

• If the parcel’s value is over R500 – a clearance fee of R 50.00 per shipment is charged
• If Customs & Duties exceed R 1000 (not the value of the parcel) – a 2.5% disbursement fee will be charged

Verdict

I feel that the success of any service lies in how they deal with the odd challenge. This usually reflects well-trained staff who understand the system and environment they work in, and have an understanding of good customer service. In this case I can say that my experience with their customer service department was top-notch and their team is only a joy to talk to. With their Global Shopper offering, Aramex has opened several doors and markets that have been closed to date with an easy to use platform. That new Canyon or YT you’ve been dreaming about can now become a reality.