Shipping guitars from overseas

cherubrock

New member
Does anyone know how much is the shipping fee if you were to ship from the US through an online website, lets say musiciansfriend, to Singapore?

Anyone has experience in this field?

I am devastated that the Fender 50th anniversary American series Strat has been snatched up at sweelee. The only solution is to get direct from US. Any opinions? besides understanding the risks involved.
 
Re: US Shipping Fee for guitars

Hi, I have read from the website before, that they do not ship most of the major brand names outside US, due to distribution rights control by the respective company, so no luck even if you want to get squire let alone fender or gibson. Not likely you can order from any US based webstore to send direct.

Standard courier shipping itself should cost you about S$120+/- on one guitar. Afterwhich you also have to pay the gst on the converted value of the guitar. If the selling party have their regular agent contracts, you can save more than 50% on the shipping.

So everything here is highly dependent on situation. Best if you have a friend in US coming back and you can ask to get for you, is the best. Only downside is he can carry less of his own baggage.

It's still better choice to go thru sweelee, at least you can try out the guitar first and reject it if it's not to your liking or have any flaws.
 
Re: US Shipping Fee for guitars

Yea i did some scouting around and you are right. musiciansfriend does not ship major brand guitars.
But however i came upon music123 (http://www.music123.com), a similar online music shop in the US, and they do ship internationally. What is the catch in this?
Additionally, I do know that the japanese webshop ishibashi also do international shipping and they ship fenders and gibsons.
 
Re: US Shipping Fee for guitars

Yea i did some scouting around and you are right. musiciansfriend does not ship major brand guitars.
But however i came upon music123 (http://www.music123.com), a similar online music shop in the US, and they do ship internationally. What is the catch in this?
Additionally, I do know that the japanese webshop ishibashi also do international shipping and they ship fenders and gibsons.[/quote]

Well, there could be some loopholes out there......heehee I've not tried any yet. Maybe if you did try them out, dun mind let me know about your experience......my email mikemann@pacific.net.sg

I think not likely will suceed the whole transaction, else sweelee will be sending more legal letters to locals trying to sell unauthorised goods. Maybe you can consider going there for vacation this year and do some shopping along the way...heehee :lol:
 
If you wanna grab any instrument from the states maybe you could try using Vpost USA by SingPost. They allow US merchants to ship to the US address provided.
 
But I guess the main problem is that the merchant must accept a non US billing address. Most retailers I know that do not ship out of the US, also does not accept non US billing addresses.
 
Various manufacturers request their retailers to restrict their sales activities to geographical territory that has been identified and allotted to them.

However, this is primarily form over substance as the retailers are still willing to make the extra buck by selling overseas whilst their website mentions US sales only.

Maybe they consider each sales request as they come in; whether the chance of fraud is present i.e. they might agree to ship for Singapore or UK but might reject sales into Nigeria.

However, as long as the sale is not solicited and the retailer can show that the request was initiated to the retailer, the argument is that the sale had been done within US domicile.

Personally, I have been lucky not to encounter any problems in my purchases from US retailers. However, I tend to shop at smaller guitar speciality stores like Wildwood Guitars and IndoorStorm for my products. I highly recommend the service of these 2 retailers.

Never liked dealing with the full-online shops as I don’t know exactly which salesperson is servicing me and it always feels like shopping at K-Mart.
 
hey dere guys,
how bout ebay man? you guys tried buying anything from the ebay from the net...stuff act can be cheaper den buying in singapore
 
there are some fraud cases in ebay and some US shops don't ship specifically to Singapore and Indonesia.. it's best that you buy from shops than individuals or you can check their feedback ratings, usually those with higher ratings are much more reliable, not that those who havent sold much are cheats but you'll feel more secured buying from those with good ratings..

ebay is place where GAS is rampant.. don stay there for too long!!
 
hao_ran said:
hey dere guys,
how bout ebay man? you guys tried buying anything from the ebay from the net...stuff act can be cheaper den buying in singapore

The 2nd hand price is attractive for many items, however, be prepared to pay USD 160 shipping for an electric guitar/hardcase or USD 250 for a 1x12 amp.

Plus, don't forget 5% GST (no GST though if shipment is via USPS).

Finally, don't forget the TT remittance fees (about SGD 40) if the buyer wants a TT and doesnt take Paypal.

Before considering a purchase, its wise to account for these cost.
 
when i was studying in the uk, i ebayed on ebay uk alot... managed to get vintage old pedals that were abit spoilt, but could be fixed......at really cheap prices.

I also got shammed there. bought a epiphone sg when i was there, and when i was leaving there, i sold it on ebay. Sadly it arrived broken in transit, then i proceeded to refund the buyer. the buyer was uspposed to return me the guitar, so perhaps i could at least try to repair it. However that evil-person-who'll-have-retribution just disappeared.

ohwell... the point of it is not to be too trusting.

Han
 
musicians friend does not ship to singapore. i bought an epiphone sg from music123.com. did not buy case, it came with the box properly bubble-packed, and took just 4 days by UPS. paid US100 for the shipping and GST on arrival. last i checked, the shipping was cheaper now, at about US80+.

the experience was overall good. just don't buy from them if they're backordered coz the stock replenishment dates are never accurate. other than that, all good.
 
Thanks guys for the fine advice, especially momorockstar. I need some kind of assurance that this shipping thing works fine.

By the way question for momorockstar : When you convert US dollars to SGD using the latest currency rates, is it accurate on exactly how much you have to pay?
 
Cherubrock,

I hope you dont mind if I help answer this.

The rates you see on websites/TV are indicative of inter-bank spreads.

The bid/offer spreads are normally firm for USD 100k to USD 5mil. That equates to 0.0050 to 0.0200 on the uSD/SGD exchange rate.

The rate that you are likely to get is 50 to 200 pips off the bid or offer as the banks/Paypal earn big money this way.

Nevertheless, even if they charge you 100pips (0.0100) more than inter-bank, you are only paying USD 10 more for every USD1,000 exchanged.
 
cherubrock,

as far as i've experienced, the amount is usually quite accurate so it's not likely that you'll get a shock when the bill comes. expect the bank to make some money off you of course though. if you pay attention to exchange rates, you could probably time your purchase when USD weakens, might save you enough to buy some strings :) it would still depend on when the bank actually charges the transaction to your credit card account (which i'm assuming you're using).

just my 2 cents, hope it helps.
 
well i decided to make this thread alive again.
Need feedback from experienced buyers, maybe JMguitar.

Does anyone know whether there is another fee to be levied at the Singapore Customs if you ship a guitar lets say from the US or Japan?

I am in the midst of closing a deal on a Gibson Les Paul from a webshop and want to estimate the total costs involved.
 
Hmmz any big web shop tt allows u to order and pay for e guitar when u recieve it ? no credit card :( can debit cards work ? do any of e guitar shops here offer an import service ( they handle all e details for u for a small fee)
 
Most overseas guitar shops online either accept credit cards or money orders. Usually you have to pay first before they deliver, or you have people getting free guitars. COD doesn't work as there are costs involved upfront with the seller in delivering the guitar overseas to you.

No, debit cards are not accepted.

For an ordering service, most guitar shops do not have such a service. But now that there is more competition around, I would not be surprised if the smaller shops can do a special ordering service for a fee.

8)
 
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