Shipping from abroad (share your experience)

The items (watch leather strap) is with the customs for more than 3 weeks, I called Libanpost, they told me it's normal and that nowadays customs can take up to 1 month and a half to release aliexpress items!

Is that true?

infiniteloop wroteI have an item from aliexpress for a month in the Beirut airport "arrived at line haul"
Is that normal?
Is libanpost on strike?

did you manage to get the item?
I have a ~20$ item that has been at "arrived at line haul" since 21/7/2023 (~20 days), I contacted liban post they told me that it didn't arrive yet, and the tracking on their website is still at "Item departed to final destination". I checked the tracking data on Singapore Post website and it also states that the product had arrived to Lebanon

It took 35 days to get out of customs
Guess what?
they only have 1 person in the customs for all couriers

Politicians desperately need to steal from us, nothing will change without a true revolution

zizo99 wroteHey everyone, how are you all doing?

I wanted to ask if anyone has been using Shop&Ship or any other courier service to ship items to Lebanon lately.
I've noticed that the customs charges are very exaggerated.

For instance, I bought some sleeves from Amazon for only $3, but I had to pay 900000 LBP, which is three times the actual price of the item.
Similarly, I purchased a keyboard for $23 but ended up paying 2,000,000 LBP just for customs. ironically they valued the keyboard "by themself" at 14,000,000 LBP ($157)
"chabeb ta7et arraro min rason ino ysa3ruwa hal2ad?!"

Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a solution?

If there is a big discrepancy, try emailing them and sending them a copy of your invoice and see if you can get that reconciled. I have had them make errors before in my favor and against me but not to that extent.

Anyhow good luck and let us know how that goes.

On my experience in many countries, express shipment of items like Aramex, DHL, Fedex is good for items $100-$1000. Point is _express_, it means you need item urgently and ready to pay very premium (cross-border trade) for that.
Anything above or below it becomes headache.
If you are not ready to pay premium - better to search for alternative means of shipping (i didnt found anything in Lebanon :( , outside we was doing "group buying" for cheap items ).

i once. shipped a watch they valued it at 400 it qas way cheaper.
ai paid customs but not only that, there's also a special fee to be paid to allow them to clear expensive items on your behlaf so i also paid 50$ ... I stopped using shop and ship, was good during 3900 days but now its too expensive.
on another note, i've had multiple items shipped from china
all arrived on Nov 8, presented to customs. some cleared after 1 week, some after 20days, but i still have 4 that didn't clear
i'm also paying 200, 000 lbp minimum for each item, some items even cost less rhan that
At least if they're gonna charge us, they should process our packages within consitent time frame.

zizo99 wrote

NuclearVision wrotei once. shipped a watch they valued it at 400 it qas way cheaper.
ai paid customs but not only that, there's also a special fee to be paid to allow them to clear expensive items on your behlaf so i also paid 50$ ... I stopped using shop and ship, was good during 3900 days but now its too expensive.
on another note, i've had multiple items shipped from china
all arrived on Nov 8, presented to customs. some cleared after 1 week, some after 20days, but i still have 4 that didn't clear
i'm also paying 200, 000 lbp minimum for each item, some items even cost less rhan that
At least if they're gonna charge us, they should process our packages within consitent time frame.

I have never had any issues with Shop and Ship. I found them to be the fastest and cheapest among others (I am a Flex user); But, the customs prices are crazy.

What are you currently using as an alternative to Shop and Ship?
I'm planning to try shipping directly from Amazon to Lebanon in the future (many recommend doing that)

I'm trying to limit my imports really, my old crocs died so i had to order one today, I used shopandship because i'm sure all together it will be cheaper than greedy mikesport who charges 100$ for 20$ slippers. So yeah, just the necessities.
shopandship are fast and reliable, about the delays i was talking about airmail from aliexpress.

how. long do packages take to showup in 'my packages', i bought something it was delievered 4 days ago to florida address and haven't showed up yet, usually they used to showup same day in NY address. i'm afraid it might have been delivered ro the wrong address

Which credit card do you use for your online shopping?
I currently use a card from Audi, but I've just realized they charge an annual fee of $35.
I've come across other cards like OMT or Wish that also provide online shopping capabilities. Has anyone tried them before? Maybe they have lower fees, not sure.

i recently got the touch card, it works for 3 years but they have 3% fee on each transaction

Has anyone heard of or tried "suyool.com" I'm curious to know more about it

stay away from digital wallets in lebanon, i had some money and some people had a lot of money a few years back in a wallet named cashu, suddenly they don't have the money anymore and they got away withit just like our banks did.
i'd stay eith fresh accounts for now and use small amounts on-demand

zizo99 wroteHas anyone heard of or tried "suyool.com" I'm curious to know more about it

I have been using it for two month now. I saved so much from fees from the omt card. Suyool takes no money to put money and no money to withdraw. You can exchange currency in the app. You cannot purchase goods online with lbp must be in dollars. However you can pay in stores with lbp. Suyool is a better alternative