Instead of pestering your friends to get your personalised Nike sneakers, or that coveted necklace from an overseas site that just doesn’t ship to Singapore, try this shopping service. We’re introducing you to something called ShopandBox, a local start-up that brands itself as a “peer-to-peer personal shopping service”, by pairing you up with a personal shopper who’s a local in your preferred country.
In the meantime, they’ve also put together a highly useful Valentine’s Day guide that shows off the rare items that you can, literally, buy with their service, in order to please your significant other. All trending stuff only, of course.
Rather than ordering from individual sites, where you have to pay pricey shipping fees for just one item, or a limited edition gift set that doesn’t even ship to Singapore, this feels like a better solution. Personally, I’ve added Kraft’s Star Wars mac & cheese sets, Kat Von D eyeliner, Glossier’s Face Moisturizer, and a pair of earrings from & Other Stories in my cart.
How the service works is that you add these to your cart, and the site will pair you up with their Personal Shoppers, known as Boxers, who are locals in the countries that you’re looking to shop from. You then pay the price of your item, the Shoppers collate your orders (either by shopping from a physical store, or by having it shipped to their place), and then have them checked, repackaged, boxed and shipped to your doorstep in three days.
Another advantage of this is that you’ll be able to buy items that are available here, but less expensive overseas. You might be inclined to think like our editor (“basically… we help you buy a chanel bag from paris and then charge a commission, but total price including shipping is still less than what you would pay for in singapore”), and that’s because Shopandbox charges a service fee of between 10 to 14 per cent of the total order, on top of the cost of items and shipping fee. Which, well, makes sense. But, you know, be smart about it too. We encourage you to do a bit of math if it’s a luxury item you’re getting – sometimes, that 5% makes all the difference. Of course, they’ve got other item categories as well, including, basically anything, from cosmetics and clothes, to toys, food, homeware and electronics.
Sure, you might also be used to vPost and comGateway, but what’s unique is that, here, you’re linked to real people, whom you can chat to in order to change your order, or to let them know how specific your item must be. This is especially useful if the item you want is sold out, so you get to re-negotiate for something similar. The service’s network includes shoppers from USA, UK, France, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia, and more, 20 countries in total. These Boxers go through a recruitment process where they have to be interviewed, and then complete an online training course, so maintain the integrity of the service, which then makes this service totally worth a shot!
Head to shopandbox.com for more.
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