How To Shop From The USA - myMallBox To The Rescue

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

How To Shop From The USA - myMallBox To The Rescue

You have this huge wish list of makeup, gadgets, food, and other nick nacks that you want to buy from stores in the USA. You ask all your friends if anyone is going there and could do you a favor of bringing the products for you. Sometimes you are lucky and a friend would agree, at other times, well you keep adding to that wish list of yours.

A lot of products are much cheaper in the USA than in India and other countries. Hence we all have our little wishlists that we keep sitting on. myMallBox.com is a website I came across a couple of months ago. They say "You Shop from a U.S. retailer and we ship to anywhere in the world".

This post is about my experience of using myMallBox to get hold of a few products I really needed. So let's dive straight in.

How To Shop From The USA - myMallBox To The Rescue

myMallBox.com is an online website which requires you to register before using their services. Upon registration you are allotted your own U.S. address. This is the address where all your products from U.S. retailers are shipped to. Basically it is a suite number that you get allotted in their warehouse. One big advantage of shopping with myMallBox is that their warehouse is located in a tax free zone - which means you don't pay any taxes when you provide the U.S. address allotted to you!

[When you sign up you can use my link to get $5 store credit instantly - register HERE]

You also need to enter the address in your own country where the items will be shipped to finally once you checkout. This would be your Indian address or U.K. address etc based on where you live.

How To Shop From The USA - why ship with myMallBox


Once you have registered, you have two buying options. The first option is simple. Buy products from any online retailer that ships in the U.S. and during checkout give the U.S. address that was assigned to you. This is like any other online purchase with the only difference being that now you have a U.S. address even though you may be sitting in a country far off. Your purchase is being directed to the myMallBox warehouse.

The other option is to ask the team at myMallBox to buy the products for you. This is very useful if you have an item that you wish to buy from a retailer who does not have online shopping options.
This option is called the 'Buy For Me' option. In this option you have to give precise details as to what is the product, which shop should this be bought from, and a picture if you have one. This option does have a small charge ($4.50 and 3% transaction fee). The good part is that if you are ordering several items from the same store you can create a single order for all of them so that the overall charge for the order still remains $4.50. Basically you are clubbing all your items in a single 'buy for me' order.


How To Shop From The USA to India

Once your products arrive at the warehouse you can checkout to get it shipped to your country. They currently have two shipping partners. DHL and USPS Priority. DHL has a lower shipping rate (at least for India) - one pound package costs $31.65 to a Delhi address and ships in 1-3 days. USPS Priority on the other hand costs $56.52 for the same package and ships in 6-10 business days. Since DHL was faster and cheaper I chose DHL. They do have a comparison chart on their website that shows you that it is still cheaper as compared to using other international shipping options and warehouses.

Now if you have shopped for many small things, shipping them out individually would be too costly. This is where the feature of 'consolidate' and 'repack' comes to our rescue. Once your items arrive at the warehouse you will be notified. This is when you can check the individual item dimensions and weight, check the shipping costs and do some math to decide if consolidation helps. Usually combining multiple smaller items into one big package through consolidation helps lower the overall  shipping charges.

Another option is to repack one single order. Sometimes when orders are shipped by merchants they will use big boxes and lots of wrapping making the package size very big. Repack option is used to tell the warehouse to repack the items in that single order, into a smaller packet. Their packers ensure that the items are still safely wrapped but in the smallest size possible to reduce shipping costs.

Shop from US to India With Low Shipping

One other nice feature that I found on the website is the ability to declare the customs value of the product. Higher valued products can cost you a huge customs duty when they land in your country. You can decide to declare a lower value of the product if you wish. Customs duty is completely your ownership and you are liable to the value you declare. I tried using a very low value of the products I ordered and was lucky to get through customs without any charges at all.

The customer support at myMallBox is extremely helpful. I would take this opportunity to actually thank Mary Flanegan from their support team who answered my umpteen questions and helped resolve so many issues that I landed with because of silly mistakes I made. Like I consolidated my package with two items when I knew another one was on its way. While the rules clearly state that you cannot repackage a consolidated parcel, she helped sort things out since this was my first time on their website. Their FAQ section is actually quite self explanatory so do read through it before placing your order so that you don't end up making any mistakes.

Here is a summary of how you can shop from myMallBox to shop from the US and get it delivered to anywhere in the world.

how to ship products from the US to India


My package weighed over 3 pounds and the shipping charged was $49.
My package reached me in a week's time as it went for custom clearance. They were doing extra scrutiny as I had an electric toothbrush in my package. My products reached me in a well packaged, safe state.

Overall I am quite happy that this option is open for us to buy products from the US.

Don't forget to register on myMallBox to get your first $5 in your account and begin your shopping!

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18 comments:

  1. It's really awesome that this company is available to provide a much-needed resource to international customers! I'm not a business, but I do ship internationally several times a year, and while I don't object to doing it, all the steps slowly start to add up, especially if I need to compare shipping costs as well. This sounds like a convenient service all around!

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    1. Yes, we can finally get the much coveted US only products to India :)

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  2. Such a great service!! Definitely going to recommend this to my international friends.

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  3. This is an awesome service, I'm glad there are good options available for US purchases!

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    1. oh yes, finally US only products are available to us

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  4. Thanks for this post! I might use this for sending gifts to my inlaws.

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  5. Ugh, international shipping is always so expensive. It's definitely good to know this service is there so you can at least get the products, though.

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  6. Awesome service for those who need it!

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    1. true, a lot of people across the world now have a way to access new launches in the US

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  7. This is genius! I just sent a box off to a friend in India who could use a service like this. It sounds like a big relief when shipping options let you down.

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    1. Yes for all us US product crazy fans in India this is a huge boon

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  8. Definitely great for those with international addresses!

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  9. This sounds really good, do they allow you to ship polish? I'm always tempted to go for one of these so I can grab indies I wouldnt be able to buy due to them not shipping to the UK x

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    Replies
    1. unfortunately IATA bans nail polish - classified as a dangerous product - hence they won't ship nail polish because all these parcels are sent by air

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