YouShop by NZ Post product reviews

I buy my glasses from Spex4less in the UK. They post them quickly and it has been a wonderful service over the past five years. But due to Covid, they no longer ship directly to NZ, so I decided to make use of YouShop. Yes, I should have checked reviews first!

Firstly they lost my package and it was my job to get all of the details (which were already available to them) and send them pictures. This included the delivery acceptance signature at the YouShop warehouse. I got a brief email saying that my item had been found, 15 days after it was delivered. Then they incorrectly charged me GST. There aren't any FAQs about taxes and the contact number wouldn't connect me to someone because I didn't have an NZ tracking number.

I am sure that I will get this sorted out sooner or (more likely) later. But in the meantime, I am waiting for my prescription glasses. Items have previously arrived within 10 days of my order. This has been 3 weeks and the item hasn't left the UK yet. I wonder what the chances of them being delivered correctly and in one, useable, piece are?

I won't be holding my breath and will certainly find another shipping method before trying YouShop ever again.

I think YouShop is a great service. Well...They did damage an item and not own up to it. If you've already used YouShop: Get a refund for some of your GST

Online it says that up until 12 July 2020, that they didn't charge GST on international postage. If you have been charged GST for YouShop international postage between 1 December 2019, and 12 July 2020, then I would think perhaps they owe you the GST back on that.

Other issues
- Not every tracking number entered by them has been correct, which can make it difficult to match and upload invoices so items can be sent.
- Their tracking system does not always work I have had a lost parcel since October 2018, and it still shows as being in their local depot. That makes it extremely difficult to claim a refund on. NZ Post says that they cannot change the tracking information to make it correct.
- I posted some items costing more than $10 in postage which never arrived at their destination at YouShop. The items were addressed to YouShop, and NZ Post was both the carrier and recipient of the items. They refused to refund postage.
- They do not know enough about dangerous goods exclusions. E.g. I spent 3 weeks trying to get them to process an item that was not prohibited. They kept saying it was prohibited, but then finally agreed that it wasn't prohibited. Unfortunately, this delayed my whole consolidated shipment

Delivery times are acceptable, but the customer support via email is not that great. The confirmation email for your request does not include the question you asked, so a reply can be difficult to make sense of if you have more than one query open at a time. Hint: email yourself the question after you submit it by their web page.

Summary:
I still use them because there is no other competition in NZ.

I used YouShop to get some PC Hardware that wouldn't ship direct to NZ via Amazon but was possible for me to get to NZ through Amazon via a service such as YouShop. I had previously used another similar service - YouShop competitor known as ShopUSA - that was based overseas. From a cost perspective the YouShop service is reasonable and it's good they provide all the updates about your goods on the website and it's nice that it's a NZ provided service.

I would look at using them again but since these kind of things can change quickly over a short period of time would also look at what alternatives were available when I next did need this service. These days there are more global-delivering sites popping up so the need for this kind of site will likely fade with time.

In my case comparing YouShop with ShopUSA I found the YouShop service via NZ Post to be cheaper. The products were not identical but you can usually get a quote if you enter in the dimensions and weight of your product you intend to ship to NZ. I recommend comparing costs against at least 1 competitior if you are trying to save money on delivery.

Conclusion: I'd use YouShop again if I was just making a one-off delivery. I'd also recommend it to NZ users that might not be so tech-savvy and want to just get something to NZ delivered via a NZ-trusted brand (NZPost) and a service offering they provide. The interface on the website could be better but it's not terrible and does enough to be useable.

Astonishingly poor. Just awful. Among other problems, which I'll get to, this is clearly being used to extort customs duty out of people who don't owe it: it deliberately places you in the position of having to pay customs duties on things you shouldn't owe customs duties on because Customs considers YouShop to be a merchant, so even if you have two separate boxes from two different sellers, neither of which you'd owe duty on if they were shipped any other way, Customs can decide it's all one purchase if YouShop holds them together and ships them at the same time, which it loves to do, even though you'd paid to have them shipped days apart. Totally defeats the purpose.

If you must use this service be sure to only send one parcel per week so as to avoid being unfairly gouged for customs duty you don't actually owe. I will deliberately avoid ever importing anything I might have to pay customs on from now on; they're not getting me again.

I suppose I should also mention that their warehouse staff like to do things like slice their way through unsealed bubble mailers to get to books they could have just pulled out, in the process slicing into the books themselves. They also have a totally ludicrous complaint process whereby a seller from the US would have to make an international long-distance call to assure them that the enormous case cutter marks on your books that exactly match in shape and size the huge, crude slashes through two layers of bubble mailer which are sealed with tape that says "Opened at U.S. Warehouse" weren't there when the item was shipped.

Just pay whatever usurious shipping rates international sellers want to charge or go without. It's less aggravating than being a regular customer of this 'service.' I would reiterate 'dumb,' and add 'lazy' and 'unaccountable.'

As an Ice Hockey player I have the dilemma of not being able to get the equipment I need from New Zealand stores. Further adding to my dilemma is the fact that a lot of brands cannot be shipped to NZ from online retailers in the USA. This has previously created huge headaches with having to find someone in the USA to send these to and then having them forward them on to me.

Along came NZ Post's new venture called YouShop. YouShop was created by NZ Post to fill this exact problem allowing you to place an order from any online store in USA or the UK and have it sent to their shipping depot where they then send it on to you, Hassle free right?

When you sign up to YouShop (100% free to sign up and no monthly fee like some other companies offering similar options) you are given a unique address that you can use to have your items shipped to.

Over the last two months I have used YouShop on 6 separate occasions purchasing from 4 different companies that wouldn't allow shipping to NZ. Firstly Amazon, ordered a couple of presents for my son, Skylanders to be precise. Now these are normally available in NZ however the set I wanted, we couldn't find anywhere and I even had Mightyape unsuccessfully try and source it for me for nearly a month. So onto Amazon I went, purchased and had them shipped to my YouShop address in Oregon. Utilising a free 20 day trial of Amazon prime the items turned up to YouShop the next day. YouShop then emails you (usually about 8 hours after receiving the goods) with the shipping cost to get the good to NZ.

The best thing I found on this shipment was on arrival YouShop open the package, firstly to make sure you aren't trying to ship prohibited items but secondly to see if they can repackage the goods to make shipping cheaper. In this case they cut the box down about an inch in height and it saved me $14.50 in shipping costs after the repacking fee. This is quite a significant saving on shipping and they will only repack if the saving is more than their repacking fee.

After you have paid for the shipping you get updates every step of the way, if you download the NZ post app on your phone it will give you the updates direct to your phone as well, including when the item is picked up, arrives in NZ, clears customs and is on the courier for delivery. Usually about 5-7 days later.

I ordered some hockey gear as well from a couple of sites. Due to being sent in manufacturers boxes these were not repacked. However because they turned up at the same time I saved $6 per parcel with combined shipping which is a great bonus.

Due to the success with the shipment from Amazon I decided to order another item. I was able to have this item sent direct to me from Amazon but solely for price comparison reasons I had the item sent to YouShop. Amazon shipping was $12.04 and YouShop came to $22.00 so in the end it worked out twice as much for shipping due to YouShop's minimum charge. So a tip for small items, only use YouShop if you cannot have the item sent to NZ direct from the store.

As per that last shipment my biggest bugbear with the YouShop service is it is a guessing game as to how much shipping is going to cost. Unless you can get the shipping box dimensions from the company you are purchasing from you simply have to wait until the item gets to YouShop to find out how much it is going to cost to ship.

Secret Hint - YouShop quite often have a promotional code going. Check their twitter and the website before you pay for your order as you may find the odd 10-15% discount code.