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Where to buy iPods with PayPal

C

Cybernanga

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 27, 2004
201
0
Essex, United Kingdom
Hiya,

I'm planning to run a competition on my website, (to revive interest, as well as being a thank-you for my loyal members).

The prize will most probably be a 6GB iPod Mini, and there may be more than one competition.

Here's the problem, I am a UK resident, but many of my members are from the US, Canada and Australia and other countries. The US Apple Store won't let me use my UK credit card to buy an iPod to be delivered to the US, and so on for AU and CA, basically I can only use the UK Apple Store and have it delivered to the UK.

If any of my NON-UK members were to win, I'd have problems geting their prize to them, (I'd have to buy it here, then FedEx or DHL it to them in the states, which would probably end up with them incurring import duty/taxes, which I don't want.)

I have discovered that http://www.buy.com will let me buy iPods for delivery to the US using PayPal. Has anybody had any experience with them? (Good or Bad).

Also can anyone tell me of similar online stores that will accept PayPal, for delivery to Australia and Canada? Information on other countries would be usefull too, even the UK, though I can probably find a UK PayPal Accepting store myself.
 
Cybernanga said:
Hiya,

I'm planning to run a competition on my website, (to revive interest, as well as being a thank-you for my loyal members).

The prize will most probably be a 6GB iPod Mini, and there may be more than one competition.

Here's the problem, I am a UK resident, but many of my members are from the US, Canada and Australia and other countries. The US Apple Store won't let me use my UK credit card to buy an iPod to be delivered to the US, and so on for AU and CA, basically I can only use the UK Apple Store and have it delivered to the UK.

If any of my NON-UK members were to win, I'd have problems geting their prize to them, (I'd have to buy it here, then FedEx or DHL it to them in the states, which would probably end up with them incurring import duty/taxes, which I don't want.)

I have discovered that http://www.buy.com will let me buy iPods for delivery to the US using PayPal. Has anybody had any experience with them? (Good or Bad).

Also can anyone tell me of similar online stores that will accept PayPal, for delivery to Australia and Canada? Information on other countries would be usefull too, even the UK, though I can probably find a UK PayPal Accepting store myself.
Click to expand...

I have heard mix reviews for buy.com. I tried to buy a iPod Mini through Paypal and I didn't get very far, so I just bought it at the store.
 
macbaseball said:
I have heard mix reviews for buy.com. I tried to buy a iPod Mini through Paypal and I didn't get very far, so I just bought it at the store.
Click to expand...

What went wrong? Did you pay and they didn't deliver? or did they refuse to accept payment? If you did pay, did you manage to get a refund?
 
Cybernanga said:
What went wrong? Did you pay and they didn't deliver? or did they refuse to accept payment? If you did pay, did you manage to get a refund?
Click to expand...

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I didn't try to buy an iPod through buy.com. I just looked at the major sites, and they didn't accept Paypal so I went to the Apple Store.

As for buy.com:

I have looked for miscellanous items and come across many reviews of buy.com. They usually have the lowst price on a lot of stuff so they come up in sites like bizrate.com etc. Usually their reviews look like this or this. A 3.38 out of 10 user rating doesn't make me want to buy from someone. I'm sure they make some customers happy, it jsut seems like over half were upset. Why can't you just buy the iPod at a local store, and then ship it. Are there taxes or something. I've never shipped anything over seas so I wouldn't know ...
 
Cool, Thanks for the clarification. I checked out the links you gave and that gives me some food for thought.

Regarding buying here and shipping them myself, I could do that, but it would be much easier to do everything online ;)

I think some people might end up having to pay import taxes if I ship from here, I know I 'd be charged import tax if someone sent me something like that from the states.

Also iPods in the UK are more expensive than anywhere else in the world, and I'm naturally trying to save money, so that I can give out more prizes ;)

Thanks for the info though :)
 
UPDATE:

I've just been reading Buy.com's help section, and while they accept PayPal, there terms of service state:

"The Ship-To address on your order must be a PayPal 'verified address.' Please make sure your account with PayPal lists your Ship-To address as a verified address. If it is not, your order will be cancelled automatically and you will be notified by email."

Naturally, I can't use them if I'm shipping to a third-party.

Anyone else got any ideas?
 
Try B+H Photo in NYC, they carry a full line of Apple products. They accept Paypal, but you most likely will have the same issue with ship to address.

Give them a call or email, the customer service is great, they may have had an issue like this before.

I have purchased a couple of new and used lenses from them, and would not hesitate to buy my next mac (G5 pbook :rolleyes: ) from them also.
 
I would recommend buy.com ONLY if you have plenty of time to wait for an item. They took 3 weeks to get ship out an in-stock item. 4 days to process, and if you use the "free shipping", another 2 weeks... USPS standard or the cheapest way possible!
 
Cybernanga said:
Anyone else got any ideas?
Click to expand...
Sure. Find a few people here to act as proxies, one in each country (US, Canada, Australia, NZ, etc.). The appropriate proxy will buy the iPod for you and then be reimbursed by you through PayPal. For example, if the winner of your contest is Canadian, then your Canadian proxy would order the iPod for you and pay for it. You'd then reimburse them via PayPal (or any other prearranged means).
 
wait till someone has won it and the buy in the country they live in, anywhere but the uk is cheaper so you would save money

also wouldn't it make more sense to offer an accessory as a prize as the chances are the winner will have an ipod already, like some kick ass speakers.
 
Amazon

How about Amazon.co.uk? I have bought some books from Amazon.com in the US and had them shipped to friends in the UK as gifts. The cost was under $20 and it was only books so there were no import/export duties. I do not know if there will be any difference with an iPod.

:( Oops... n/m... just checked:
Electronics, camera and photo items, kitchen and housewares items, outdoor living items, software (including games), jewelry, and tools and hardware can be shipped within the U.S. only. Some can also be shipped to U.S. protectorates and APO/FPO addresses. You'll be notified while placing your order if we're unable to ship specific items to the address you've selected.
 
imac9556 said:
I would recommend buy.com ONLY if you have plenty of time to wait for an item. They took 3 weeks to get ship out an in-stock item. 4 days to process, and if you use the "free shipping", another 2 weeks... USPS standard or the cheapest way possible!
Click to expand...


HAHAH, i've had the EXACT opposite experience, but I think buy.com has a distro center in Illinois because with free shipping which is usually UPS ground, then I get items the next day typically, two days max. I've really had good experiences with buy.com and my boss uses them all the time ... equaling probably 10 orders a week
 
clayj, that's a brilliant plan! I'll have to do some calculations to see what I can afford to offer the proxies as an incentive, but This seems like the best plan so far. Thanks a million :D
 
Hector said:
also wouldn't it make more sense to offer an accessory as a prize as the chances are the winner will have an ipod already, like some kick ass speakers.
Click to expand...

I like that idea, Hector, it's pretty cool, I can see I have some thinking to do ;)

Although, one can never have too many iPods ;)
 
Cybernanga said:
clayj, that's a brilliant plan! I'll have to do some calculations to see what I can afford to offer the proxies as an incentive, but This seems like the best plan so far. Thanks a million :D
Click to expand...
You're certainly welcome! I should be a business consultant... I've got common sense solutions to all sorts of problems. :cool:
 
Hiya all,

Just wanted to say thanks again for all the great suggestions. I've found a proxy for the US, but I'm still looking for proxies for Canada and Australia.

I've been forced to delay the launch of the competition as I want it to coincide with the next release of alterPod. Unfortunately I've hit a few serious bugs with alterPod, and the new version won't be out for a week or two.

In the meantime however, seeing as I've seen several similar posts on the web, but no effective solution. I've created another website that I hope may help people to overcome the purchasing problem that I had.

The new site is http://www.buy-proxy.com and is basically a board where you can post a Request for help with an online transaction, and Proxies will bid as to how much they will charge you for the service.

I'm more of a coder than a designer or marketer so any help suggestions and comments would be greatly appreciated.

(The site works, but is not yet final as I'd like to add some more features like RSS, improve the layout and include some other payment options. But the main thing is that it works.)

If anyone checks it out, I'd be gratefull for comments.
 
I've bought stuff before online with my credit card in the US, to be shipped to a US address for me to pick up when I fly over from the UK.

If you've got an Amex, phone them up and they can usually do something for you. I can't remember the exact details, but they added an authorised US address to my Amex UK account, so when I ordered online in the US it was accepted to be shipped to a USA address.
 
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