*Sponsored post collaboration with Shipito. Compensation was given for this post and towards using the service All thoughts and experiences my own.
I am an avid lover of online shopping; there is so much more range, and the prices generally work out a bit cheaper depending on the exchange rate. Don't get me wrong, I buy from stores here in NZ a lot, but for things that are hard to get here, or a lot cheaper overseas, I'll go online. The difficulty comes when they either don't ship to NZ at all (or your chosen country), have restrictions on what can be shipped, charge huge shipping prices, or don't accept NZ cards. This is where Shipito* comes into play. They reached out to me and asked if I wanted to try out their service and let you all know how I found it. I used the site exactly as a normal customer would, and here is how it all went.
Us beauty lovers all love Sephora, it is like our beauty haven and naturally, we all go a bit crazy for it. Lately, they have been cracking down on forwarding services, and don't accept foreign cards on their US online store. We have Sephora in NZ now and Australia, but we don't have the amazing range that they offer in the US, and the prices are higher (purely due to exchange rate and shipping costs). Along with allowing you to have a USA address to ship things to which they will forward on, Shipito offers the 'Assisted Purchases' feature where someone at Shipito literally goes out and purchases the items you want or orders them direct for you from whatever online store you would like. They then come back to you with a variety of shipping costs that vary in time frames for you to choose, then the items will be winging their way to you.
It's free and very straightforward to set up an account with them. They gave me two different US 'addresses' with one better for long-term storage of packages, the other offered cheaper shipping as it was for short-term storage. To use the 'assisted purchases' side of things, you first have to put a deposit into your account of how much your order will be, so they can then use this to get the items you require. I used PayPal to do this as it was secure and I prefer to pay with them for overseas transactions. The 'New Assisted Purchases' tab opens up a window where you can link to the store you want to order from, in my case it was Sephora.com. You then add in each individual item, including the product name, shade, size, quantity, price and a link to the product. Once you have added everything you want, it will bring up the total price in USD, plus a breakdown of the cost. My total for the three items was USD $91, the sales tax was USD $8.19, bank fees of 4.3% were $4.27, the Shipito commission fee was $7.94 and their fee to use the assisted purchase feature was $8.50. All up the order came to USD $119.89, not including shipping yet.
Along each step of the way, I received emails when they received my assisted purchases order, and when they completed the order on Sephora. Then when it arrived at their warehouse, I was emailed a confirmation as well as two images of the box. You can also get them to open the box and check it for a small extra fee. They can also repack the box if needed. My order arrived at their US warehouse 6 days later and then they offered the various shipping options. They charge $2 for each package on top of shipping, so if you just use the address and not the assisted purchases option, you only pay the $2 and whatever shipping you choose.
There were about 8 different shipping options, the quickest options were very expensive and upwards of $50. I went with one of the slower options of Airmail Economy for USD $19 and compared to other forwarding services this was close to what they charge. It took about 8 days to arrive at the Auckland depot and another 5 working days (if I recall correctly), to clear customs and get delivered to me. It arrived in its original Sephora box and even had products samples included inside.
Now all the technicalities are out of the way - let me show you what I purchased!
Sephora Favourites Give Me Some Lip 2016 | USD $28.00
These Sephora Favourite sets are ideal for trying out some amazing brands at a really cheap price. They offer a lot of different sets with all sort of deluxe mini-sized products and even full sized ones too. I went with this nude set (they also offer it in 'Bold') because these are all shades I knew I would love. The set came in this cutest lip shaped box with six products inside; Lancome Juicy Shaked in 313 Boom-Meringue, Fresh Sugar Rose Tinted Lip Treatment, Smashbox Always on Liquid Lipstik in Stepping Out, NARS Satin Lip Pencil in Rikugien, Kat Von D Studded Kiss Lipstick in Lovecraft, and Too Faced Melted Liquified Long Wear Lipstick in Chihuahua. The Lancome and Smashbox products are both full sizes, with the Lancome Juicy Shaker alone costing USD $21.00 - you don't get much better value than that!
Urban Decay All Nighter Makeup Setting Spray | USD $15.00 for 30ml
I have been wanting to try this setting spray for SO long, and keep in mind with this product and the Too Faced palette below, I made this order before it was announced that Mecca would be stocking both brands in NZ, and before they opened up the Mecca Maxima store in CHCH where you can now purchase both at competitive pricing. I went for the smaller size to try it out and really love it, so will likely upgrade to the full size when I get through this. It is super light on the skin and has a very fine mist compared to many others I have used, and it does definitely help with the longevity of my makeup. To buy this at Mecca Maxima now it is NZD $25.
Too Faced Chocolate Bon Bons Eyeshadow Collection | USD $49.00
Eyeshadow palettes are my vice and I knew I had to get this stunning one from Too Faced. It smells so chocolatey, the packaging is adorable and the shades are just gorgeous. Pigmentation has been amazing on all shades and I have been reaching for this loads since I got it. I will do a full swatch and review post on this soon so you can see all the gorgeous shades. You can now get this at Mecca as well for NZD $78.00.
The good thing about the Assisted Purchases option is you can also get the free samples included as well. These were chosen for me, and I am pretty happy with the three of them. How cool is that eyeshadow sample one? I've never seen a sample done like that before!
So overall my experience using Shipito was straightforward with no complications and I found the service easy to use and the people I dealt with to be very helpful and quick to respond. The beauty of the assisted purchases option is you can literally shop on any site, whether it be for clothing, shoes, toys (i.e. Lego!), electronics or cosmetics. Since the prices at Mecca are so good for Urban Decay and Too Faced etc in NZ now, I would still use it for Sephora but get things that aren't as easy to purchase here, like the Sephora Favourite kits, or from more obscure brands. I really want to try it for some clothing companies soon.
Have you used Shipito before? Would you consider using a forwarding service like this?
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