Planet Express

It's not easy to deal with international shipping; Planet Express will help fill the void.

I moved to Tokyo this year only to find that many of my favorite online services only/mostly ship domestically. This includes Amazon, outpost.com, etc.

Creating a "proxy" for your address in the United States and having it shipped overseas is relatively easy with Planet Express. The System is responsive although a bit tricky at times to understand. For instance, pricing on auto-generating customs forms happens "per item" instead of "per shipped package". Note that you can easily take this step yourself through the web interface... Just a word to the wise.

In addition, some items may be tricky to ship correctly and PlanetExpress may or may not know what is inside the box. Domestic Shipping may be much more forgiving than international shipping so it's wise to pay attention to your options such as "adding bubble wrap" when necessary. In my case, I shipped pasta shells that were hard to find over here but some arrived broken.

For the most part, having this service takes the worry away from the problems created by these other companies not facilitating international shipping. The service is friendly and they are very forgiving if you make a mistake. For example, the shipping on the broken pasta was refunded... as was my first mistake with customs. It's a "brave new world" using a proxy service, but Planet Express does a really good job helping newbies come up to speed and they understand when you make mistakes... thus the title of this review.

I wholly recommend them- they are lifesavers as you may soon find out being an expatriate in a strange land where many of the goods and services you are used to are not available.