timmmay:

 

All in all this was my worst youshop experience. Losing the parcel, taking around two weeks to find it, notable poor and apathetic service from NZPost. From the date it arrived at the US warehouse to arriving at my house, using the economy option, was one month. From the date I paid youshop it took 7 days to get to me in Wellington, which is pretty good.

 

Given I've had 20 good experiences and one poor experience I'll keep using youshop. I'll probably consider using ShipItTo for higher value parcels or things I want more quickly - I used them once and found their service and processes to be exceptional, particularly around photographing everything, and with great tracking and progress indicators. They cost a bit more though, and will only send small things via the US Postal Service, but otherwise use all the big courier companies.

 

I avoid YS where possible. Too slow, too unfriendly, and most of all far too expensive. A lot of Amazon stuff is shippable to NZ now and when this is available, much cheaper. A lot of eBay also shippable to NZ and ex China stuff often free shipping. I recently ordered a ski helmet from eBay Germany which is somewhat bulky in it's box. Shipped to NZ *fast* for about 12 euro.