Understanding Customs (International Customers)
A common confusing topic for many of our international customers is understanding how customs works, including potential fees and delays caused by the nature of international commerce.
If you frequently order products from other countries you may be very familiar with your country’s customs regulations. But in case you are relatively new to ordering products from the USA and having them delivered to you in another country, here’s a short summary of what to expect.
When we package your order from our US-based office, we will affix an official "Customs Declaration Form" to the outside of the package declaring “merchandise” as the contents inside. We truthfully list the weight, names of the products, and the value of the shipment on this form to help you fully comply with your government’s rules and regulations. We do our best to adhere to each countries individual import policies, but it's ultimately up to you to double-check your country's import policies before ordering from us.
We then present your package to the US Postal Service. It will navigate its journey through the postal system until it finally reaches your home country where it most likely ends up in a regional Customs facility.
At this point, your local Customs office may assess duties, import taxes, value-added taxes, brokerage fees, or other fees based on the rules set by your government.
(Read about how VAT applies to United Kingdom and European Union orders)
Please understand that customs fees, taxes, and other charges are completely outside of our control; none of those fees come to us and we have no ability to impact what fees you might receive. Any additional fees charged by your country are separate from any shipping fees and are completely separate from your transaction with us.
Because every country is different, we strongly encourage you to become familiar with your country’s laws about ordering products like ours from the United States. Please contact your local customs office to learn about import regulations before placing your order. Not knowing the regulations may result in your order having high import duties, being delayed, or even being returned.
For more information about how customs are applied to packages from international locations, please refer to the following articles published by outside sources:
(If you live somewhere not listed above, we recommend you research your own country’s rules. If you find a good article that you think might be helpful for us to add to our list here, please contact us and share the link and we’ll be happy to add it to our resources list.)
Please note that we are not liable for an order that is refused or abandoned by the recipient, an order that is not delivered due to an error in the address given to us, or an order that is refused or seized by your local Customs. Orders seized by your local customs cannot be refunded.
Sometimes packages that have not cleared customs will ultimately be returned to us. We’ve seen this return process take weeks or months before it ends up back at our office. After we have received your returned package we will contact you and ask if you wish for a refund (minus shipping fees) or if you would like for us to send it again, at which point we will need to collect additional shipping costs to initiate a return journey for your package. We are not able to issue any refunds until the products have been returned to our office.
Many of our international customers have found the use of a Package Forwarding Service to be beneficial.
Package Forwarding companies allow you to shop from our website and have your purchases sent to a tax-free US-based address. From that point, they forward the package to your home address, calculating the correct customs and import duties on your behalf.
Due to the complexity of international shipping rules and regulations, this is often a better option than having us try to ship directly to you, especially to countries we don't ship to on a regular basis.
Learn about Package Forwarding Services here: https://www.worldwideshoppingguide.com/package-forwarding/