RepArchive Blog

International shipping is a better experience with the best shipping service and the optimal haul split! This guide is based on dozens of successful parcels shipped to different countries with different shipping services. This is easily the most debated topic and the topic with most wide-spread misinformation so we are giving you the most detailed and in-depth guide!

Note: Our Shipping Calculator makes it easy to choose the right shopping agent and shipping service for your personal situation. Check it out!

Initiating shipping

Check all the items you want to ship on the warehouse page. On the bottom of the page you see the estimated weight.

Attention: The estimated weight is not just the sum of the individual estimates. They also add a few grams for packing material. Play around and add different items if you plan to stay in a certain range.

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Deciding the shipment weight

One decisive factor might be that your preferred shipping service is limited to a certain kilogram range. For example EU-SBZ is only available under 2kg.

Some buyers like to split hauls, this means shipping multiple small parcels instead of one big parcel.

When should you split hauls and why? The advantage of keeping the weight low is that customs won't get suspicious (more about customs soon). This is also because you are on the safe site legally (depending on your country), when you ship multiple small items under the legal exempt limit.

The advantage of shipping big parcels is that it is cheaper than shipping multiple parcels (price calculation below). This has two reasons; There is a base fee regardless of the weight that has to be paid twice and the parcel itself has a weight to it.

We recommend staying below 4kg. In the end it comes down to luck, but this weight is the best trade-off between risk and reward. It's the optimal weight in kg to most countries. Of course this is rule can be bent, if that leaves 1 item you should add it even if it weighs 4.1kg.

After you have decided which items you want to ship click submit. 

What's the best shipping service?

Disclaimer: Shipping service prices, attractivity, availability and duration mainly depends on your location.

Shipping services differ in shipping time, customs processing and pricing. There is no simple best shipping service for reps.

It turns out that shipping services that appear as cheap and more expensive express cost about the same. Many buyers confirmed this through our Shipping Calculator. This is due to refunds (read more below).

Recommendation:
Generally for every country outside of Asia a price of $20/kg can be assumed, regardless of the service chosen.
We suggest you take a premium Express line such as DHL.

Price Calculation

Sadly, as mentioned before price calculation is something even experienced buyers don't understand. They act like Superbuy bills you whatever they feel like for international shipping.

What's true is that we get little insight in the weighing process used by Superbuy and the shipping service. Some shipping companies use volumetric weight (taking dimensions into effect), this matters when shipping big but light/heavy but small items, for example a blanket. When you think about it makes the prices fairer for everyone.

What buyers miss is that you can easily calculate the price once you have the weight. Except for the weighing, which you can check at home, it's absolutely transparent. You can get fairly close with the estimated weight. What's more important than knowing the cost in advance is to make an educated decision whether to split a haul or not.

This link we prepared for you gives you a good basis for your calculation. For this calculation the dimensions of the parcel don't matter, it's just used to show/hide light duty and heavy duty shipping service. Just change the country to your actual country. Then you can expand the tab of a shipping service.

On the right hand side you can see the price for the the first 500g and each additional 500g. The first 500g are always more expensive, which explains the savings for big parcels. Customs Clearance is a fixed expense that you have to pay for each parcel.

The numbers you see on this page and in the example don't consider the refund described below.

Refunds

Since wegobuy and superbuy want to process your parcels fast they ask you for a down payment that's higher. They use that money to send your parcel on it's way without complications. Then they refund you the excess money. You can use that money for your next haul or actually withdraw it to your bank account / paypal.

Turns out instead of $154 we only had to pay $60, we got ~$96 back!

The alternative would be to take your parcel to the shipping service, for instance DHL, and have them give the agent a quotation. Then they have to ask you for that exact amounts. Then they could finally send it to international shipping. It would take a few days.

Price Calculation (Example)

We are using the screenshot above (114rmb/1st 500g, 37 rmb / add. 500g / 8 rmb base) for an example calculation for 4kg that you consider splitting in 2 hauls:

First you should calculated the true base price. Everything above the price for each additional 500g is a fixed price that you have to pay for the first 1g.

True Base Price ~ $12.75 | 114-37+8 = 85 rmb

After this it's easy to calculated the cost for any weight. The price per 500g is 37 rmb (~ $5.50)

2kg = 4 x $5.50 + $12.75 = $34.75 ( x 2 = $69.50)
4kg = 8 x $5.50 + $12.75 = $56.75

As you can see there is a noteworthy premium you have to pay for splitting a haul. The final decision depends on your budget and country, but we personally would not split this haul.

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