[How To] Use a mail forwarding service to have electronics shipped to you anywhere in the world

Strep throat sucks. Especially man-strep throat. I couldn't get to sleep because of a fever, so I thought I would post something. Fingers crossed what follows is coherent, and not just febrile raving.

I know this piece is really only peripherally Android related, but I thought a guide on how to circumvent US shipping restrictions by online retailers might be appreciated by our readership, given that those restrictions most often apply to electronics. 

I tend to do this quite a bit, for example it's how I got my Sandisk 64GB micro SDXC card from their US online store. It's also how I made a tidy profit selling an N900 that I'd purchased from Amazon at a crazily cheap pre-order price. Bottom line: sometimes it's cheaper to get things from the States, and sometimes you can only get things from the States. When either of these circumstances is the case, it's nice to have the option.

Everything you need to know is past the break.

It's all rather simple at the end of the day - use a mail forwarding service. I use Shipito, and I'm comfortable recommending their service, having had uniformly good experiences using it. Here is the process:

1. Sign up to Shipito - you'll get given your shipito address, and you can set your account defaults, for example default postal method
2. Add money to your Shipito account - they suggest at least the deposit $8.50 (cost of any single transaction). Doesn't really matter how much to be honest, you can always add money later (of course its worth adding enough to cover the shipping for your item, that way it'll be sent straight away instead of waiting for you to add funds). You can enter the dimensions of your item in their website to get a quote for shipping costs, many sellers like Amazon have the dimensions of things listed on their website.
3. Some online retailers require your billing and shipping addresses to match, Amazon being a prime example of this. To get around this call your credit card company, ask them to change your billing address to match your Shipito address. I've not had any issues doing this, and neither have any of a number of others using my guide, so I don't expect this will be a stumbling block.
4. Make your purchase.
5. When it arrives to your shipito address you'll be notified via email to complete your customs declaration, finalise shipping method etc. Providing you have enough funds loaded to your account it'll be sent once they have the customs declaration details from you. You can even have all of this set up prior to the package arriving with the handy "expected packages" option.

    6.  Regarding customs declarations - you are able to declare the item at whatever value you
         like, or even declare them as a gift. Obviously you don't need me to spell it out for you that
         this means you can potentially evade import duties to reduce cost. Before you run out and
         start declaring everything as a gift you need to be aware that there are considerable risks
         involved in doing this. If it is lost or damaged in the post you can only claim back its
         declared value, if customs know or find out the real value you can still be stung for tax, and
         you run a very real risk that customs could hit you up for tax avoidance. My advice: stick to
         the straight and narrow.
    7.  Select your shipping method.

    8.  Wait for your item to arrive in the post!

A couple more considerations worth bearing in mind:

• The warranty will be a US one, so should you have any problems, you would have to post the device back to the USA at your own cost and this will mean delays
• The power plug will be a US one, so to work in your country you may need to purchase an adapter and/or step down transformer

Anyways, it's late and my fever has subsided, so that's all for now. If you're lucky Nick will be along shortly to tell you all about a UK mail forwarding service. Happy shopping everyone.