International Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Online Shopping - International Shipping
Hey there - I'm a fairly new "International Nestie" (just 3 weeks) and am shocked by how many state side companies won't ship internationally. Even Costco, which is a few miles away from my house, won't ship warehouse to warehouse...! I know Overstock, Sears and Amazon will ship (and don't even mention IKEA to me - ugh - so frustrated with their quality vs price!) but if you can recommend any others, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks!
P.S. > I truly have tried to shop locally.
Re: Online Shopping - International Shipping
It would help to know where you're located.
Old Navy shipped to me in Korea but that was 8 years ago, not sure if they still do it. In the Middle East a lot of people use Aramex Shop & Ship, although that's too expensive for me to find it worth it.
You are right that a lot of stores in the States don't offer international shipping, but there was a website (and I'm sorry, I don't remember which one) that offered international shipping for a great number of stores. Maybe one of the ladies here will remember.
I think most INs just either stock up when they are stateside or have family members ship them the items they need. For myself, I've just learned to live with what is available here.
What types of things are you looking for?
Unfortunately, I need furniture (I'll probably get curtains and rugs here). My dilemna is that prices here are so expensive, even Ikea is $1k+ and let's face it, it's Ikea....I've even looked to refurbish pieces from a goodwill-esque sort of store. Although I worry about not seeing furniture in person, I sort of feel online shopping is the best option. I can't eat/work/live off of my couch. I'm going a little nutty about it.
Are you planning to be in Japan for a long time? If it's only a couple of years, a lot of IKEA furniture really is fine, especially if you don't buy the lowest-priced stuff (i.e. the table for $7).
Do you have access to an APO address (someone in the US military)?
If not, sorry, but furniture is likely to be prohibitively expensive to ship from the US to Japan. It's barely worth paying shipping on furniture within the US IMO. It's just too big and heavy. :-/
Look around for Craigslist-type classified sites or places where a lot of expats hang out. There is often high turnover amongst expats and you might find folks needing to part with their furniture in a hurry.
SHOPBOP...?
We actually have access to an FPO...
I don't know... I might have to do a weekend trip to Tokyo and shop 'til I drop. The delivery fee might be just as much to ship though. uh...the search continues.
If you have your own APO/FPO address, then you can easily buy a lot of things from US companies and have them shipped, but unfortunately furniture isn't one of them. I'm in kind of the same boat as you....I've been looking for a few specific pieces of furniture and have found some awesome stuff on Overstock, but the few things I really like cannot be shipped internationally OR to APO/FPO. I've considered having them sent to family in the states, then mailed over to the UK, but I'm sure I'd end up having to pay customs fees.....which sucks.
Also, for all INs, please realize that military members are not supposed to let other people use our APO/FPO address to get around international shipping and customs fees. For one-time things it's not a big deal -- mainly they want to make sure we're not abusing the system. That doesn't mean you won't find someone who will do it for you, just realize that we could technically get in trouble for allowing a non-military member or local national to have stuff shipped to our APO address.
There's a service that, for a fee, will resend items to FPO/APOs. For example, if say, Target wouldn't ship to an APO, you can set up an account with this company, have the product sent to them, and they'll resend it to you. http://apobox.com/
Dovetailing on pp's point, I wouldn't use it to try to import anything that your not allowed to import into Japan (rationed goods, controlled substances, etc), but for routine stuff it's pretty handy and not too expensive (obviously you do pay double shipping, but if you've got a coupon/code for the free shipping on the original purchase, it's not bad at all). HTHs!
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If you're not moving there permanently or VERY long term, don't ship and just deal with the fact that the furniture you live with might not be exactly what you'd want in your permanent home.
Shipping furniture internationally is ridiculously expensive, worse than paying 1K for IKEA, seriously.
I was looking for a baker's rack and found one on overstock for about 50 bucks, it wasn't big, it wasn't heavy, (it honestly was probably pretty flimsy, worse than IKEA) and shipping international was 200 dollars. I don't even want to know what something big/heavy would cost.
Go to IKEA, get something somewhat reasonable and just deal with the fact that it's not perfect.
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