The internet, as the name suggests, is international. Except for some authoritarian governments blocking access, you are mostly free to visit websites all over the world. Although I live in Belgium, I can go to the website of a US company. However, once we make the transition from the virtual space to the real world, things become a bit more complicated. If I want to order something from that US company, I might find that they aren't shipping internationally.

Today I started an experiment to overcome this problem. I opened an account at ColisExpat. They provided me with a US shipping address, which is basically a PO box at one of their warehouses. So now I can order a parcel from a US company shipped to that US PO box. When it arrives, I'll get an e-mail, and can then pay them for the international shipping of that parcel to Belgium. If I have several parcels, I can get them repacked into a single one to reduce shipping cost.

I assume there are other companies that do the same thing, but ColisExpat was the one I found when I was searching for shipping options for a particular US company. Of course international shipping is expensive and slow (or extremely expensive and not quite as slow), and adding the fees for one more company isn't helping. I used to fly to the USA for professional reasons or the occasional holiday at least once a year, and do some shopping there, but that isn't an option anymore. Let's see whether this service gets me the things I want to buy from the USA to Belgium.

- posted by Tobold @ 8:47 AM Permanent Link