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has anyone tried ordering from computeruniverse, Lebanon is among the list of countries they deliver to.
but regardless of what I end up adding to the cart, I get:
Delivery to your chosen country is not possible for the following products:
and a list of everything I added..
7 days later
Hello everyone,
Quick question:
What is the minimum value above which we have to pay customs and VAT?
And is there a limit on the number of items, i.e if someone is ordering 500 socks or 500 hats, would i pay any extra charges?
If yes how to calculate them?
Thank you.
Supposedly i read arround this forum that 120 dollars for personal items, however it's a hit and miss with the local customs, sometimes they tax, sometimes they dont.
14 days later
Hello again,
One quick question...
If i need to ship a light weight item no more than 2-3 kilos to say KSA...
What are my options...
This would be my first so I would like to know the following:
-name of the company and reliability (I know for example that aramex has that service but i have bad experience with them with deliveries in lebanon from pcandparts, other names that i hear, here and there, are Libanpost UPS DHL FedEx, but i kniw nothing about their services)

-average fees: how much should i expect to pay

- and finally how much time will it take for the package to arrive...

Thank you :).
10 days later
Hello everyone,

I've been recently looking into online shopping (besides aliexpress) and assessing my risk to benefit ratio. I have several questions and if anyone can help, I'd be grateful.

Firstly, borderlinx or shop and ship, and why? I've already created an account on borderlinx because it's free, and creating one on shop and ship feels too much of a commitment. Also, are there alternatives to these two?

2. Can borderlinx ship with libanpost? Maybe that could make prices cheaper?

3. Eve Concierge is a cool idea, but I wanna know how expensive it is compared to the other services? It costs 21$/kg.. How much do the others cost? I tried using the borderlinx calculator but it doesn't just consider the weight, it also considers the dimensions of the box

4. Who here has tried buying stuff on ebay auction, releasing them and shipping them all together? Did that save you money? Do you think its more of a benefit than a risk?

5. From what I understand of the borderlinx website, it calculates customs with the estimated price, right? Like, you don't have to pay for customs when they arrive here? (I read people saying different customs rates like 11$ + 4$?) I don't really understand... These are what borderlinx takes or are fees besides those that we pay to borderlinx?

Thank you so much to anyone who can help, I'm really excited to further investigate the world of online shopping
@Lighteningbulb

Borderlinx | Free Account -> High Shipping fees
ShopandShip | 40$ Lifetime Account -> Lower Shipping Fees (It seems ShopandShip is better according to the feedback in this thread)

2- No | Borderlinx is a service provided by DHL

3- Most of those services rip you off, and the shipping calculator is never accurate, you should add as well Customs fees, Stamps, Fuel Surcharge, and such suff

4- I bought an item from Ebay, then to submit payment, i asked a guy to pay for me and i paid him via WesternUnion (Optimum-lb if i remember well), then shipping was via DHL and i paid customs fees as well.

5- No one can estimate customs fees except God.

Good luck
a month later
Hi everyone!
My friend wants to send me a gift from abroad, will I still pay customs for it?
well according to customs website (which is so bad btw), there are tariffs for virtually everything. http://www.customs.gov.lb/customs/tariffs/national/tariff1.asp

I think the problem is them not properly identifying this stuff. And really digging through personal things in the first place is kinda stupid.

I guess maybe the next time someone gets taxed high, he can refer to their own stupid tariffs page?
But then again if I order an ekwb waterblock for my gpu, how exactly am I supposed to categoriese that ?! should fall under "other" which as you can see isn't taxed.

Seriously this is too frustrating... I have never ordered anything online without having someone coming from Europe or such. How come if a friend of mine has the product for me in his bag just passes. But if I order it online I have to pay about 30% in taxes, shipping etc... it's ridiculous!!

Sorry for the rant :/
6 days later
so i have ordered whey protein powder and a vaporizer kit from the usa by using fedex, the vaporizer is being held by the customs and needs a permit for its release, and fedex needs 100$ for shipping it from the airport to my house besides their handling fee that is about 50$, the shipping that i also paid ~50$ and the customs that will also be charged.
what a terrible shipping system we have.
gamingindex wroteso i have ordered whey protein powder and a vaporizer kit from the usa by using fedex, the vaporizer is being held by the customs and needs a permit for its release, and fedex needs 100$ for shipping it from the airport to my house besides their handling fee that is about 50$, the shipping that i also paid ~50$ and the customs that will also be charged.
what a terrible shipping system we have.
When you ship with Fedex / DHL / Aramex you are definitely going to pay customs / VAT and handling fees, I personally get protein powder from the local market, I made the calculations many times before and always found that it is cheaper to get from here ... Unless you want a brand that's not available here ... however most top notch brands like MuscleTech, MusclePharm, Optimum Nutrition and Cellucor etc ... are widely available in the local market.
Aly wrote
gamingindex wroteso i have ordered whey protein powder and a vaporizer kit from the usa by using fedex, the vaporizer is being held by the customs and needs a permit for its release, and fedex needs 100$ for shipping it from the airport to my house besides their handling fee that is about 50$, the shipping that i also paid ~50$ and the customs that will also be charged.
what a terrible shipping system we have.
When you ship with Fedex / DHL / Aramex you are definitely going to pay customs / VAT and handling fees, I personally get protein powder from the local market, I made the calculations many times before and always found that it is cheaper to get from here ... Unless you want a brand that's not available here ... however most top notch brands like MuscleTech, MusclePharm, Optimum Nutrition and Cellucor etc ... are widely available in the local market.
The thing is, when products have high demand, they get sold for reasonable prices. For example PC hardware got hot lately in Lebanon which resulted in us paying reasonable prices for them. And same goes for the body building products, they are very demanded here.

But when you need something that we don't have here, things get bad. Customs tax you for stuff that we don't even produce or sell locally, and that ordering from abroad wouldn't damage the local market at all (we don't sell watercooling parts for example), which is really stupid, and very counter productive seeing as Lebanese people have great interest in technology.
gamingindex wroteso i have ordered whey protein powder and a vaporizer kit from the usa by using fedex, the vaporizer is being held by the customs and needs a permit for its release, and fedex needs 100$ for shipping it from the airport to my house besides their handling fee that is about 50$, the shipping that i also paid ~50$ and the customs that will also be charged.
what a terrible shipping system we have.
You vape?
chosen2k wrote
gamingindex wroteso i have ordered whey protein powder and a vaporizer kit from the usa by using fedex, the vaporizer is being held by the customs and needs a permit for its release, and fedex needs 100$ for shipping it from the airport to my house besides their handling fee that is about 50$, the shipping that i also paid ~50$ and the customs that will also be charged.
what a terrible shipping system we have.
You vape?
yes i vape, i have ordered the v2 pro series 7
Off topic!

What is vape?

i see it everywhere on olx!
gamingindex wrote
chosen2k wrote
gamingindex wroteso i have ordered whey protein powder and a vaporizer kit from the usa by using fedex, the vaporizer is being held by the customs and needs a permit for its release, and fedex needs 100$ for shipping it from the airport to my house besides their handling fee that is about 50$, the shipping that i also paid ~50$ and the customs that will also be charged.
what a terrible shipping system we have.
You vape?
yes i vape, i have ordered the v2 pro series 7
I have the Smok alien kit with baby beast. Do you have any experience with RBA's? I've been trying to build but it's a messy business and I'm not being able to wick correctly.

Anyways if you have a good e-liquid shop contact let me know about it.

@AVOlio it's electronic cigarettes.
so i did go and try to solve my shipments status at the customs today. at first, the manager was very strict that it is not allowed for an electronic cigarette to enter the country so his response was "nsiya", and he cannot give me the protein powder (5kg) before they get analyzed by the ministry of health, what a bummer. until he actually started pointing on something like the win win situation and he agreed on a bribe, around 50 000LL worth of goods for my shipments without any hassle. I'll keep you updated after i go again on Thursday.
8 days later
Anyone tried ''Libandirect'' ?
They have interesting rates to buy from amazon
8 days later
If a friend sends me a gaming rig via DHL as a gift from the US, do I have to pay customs?
(Note, gaming rig with 12 GPUs :) )
Definitely yes, as far as i know only case when you don't pay customs, if you was living abroad for long time and returning your goods to your country (or better to say there is small fees comparing with total cost of furniture, appliances and etc)