Cotswold Outdoors delivery to US question

Can't speak to your question directly as I've only bought from their central London stores, but they seem to be a established UK retailer of outdoor gear. Must have some big money behind them to pay these sky high high street rents! What are you buying?

Not to the US, but I have bought online for delivery to the UK and to Turkey with no problems. They are a big company – one of the biggest outdoor retailers in Britain.

I ordered some Buffalo clothing. Not a very good experience at all, but I think mainly due to who they use to ship to the U.S. Jackson Sports uses (or at least used to use) Royal Mail International, and I never had any issues at all. As much as I really want the order, I'll probably end up having their shipping company return to sender without ever getting it to me and do without.

That's bad news, Doug. I'm pretty sure they shipped with Royal Mail to Turkey, but that was a couple of years ago. I'll be in the UK in January if you want me to pick anything up from Cotswold Outdoor and post it to the States. It will mean you have to pay the VAT on it, i.e. the full website price, which includes the sales tax, though.

Not sure about shipping to US, but they are a fairly reputable company in UK with good customer service. Why do you want to return the order, was the shipping price high?

"Not sure about shipping to US, but they are a fairly reputable company in UK with good customer service. Why do you want to return the order, was the shipping price high?" Placed my order, knew it would take a bit more than a month before the order would ship. No problem. Got an email with a tracking number when it shipped, using DPD. Tracking showed it getting to the US gateway, then clearing customs, then arriving at my local delivery depot. Next entry was "Unable to deliver as no one was present to sign for delivery". In Jordan. That's not a city in Washington. No delivery attempt was made to me in the U.S. Next day I got an email from a company called Aramex asking me to fax or email my credit card info to their NY office to pay customs charges and an administrative fee before they'd release the package to me. Still doesn't say anything about this on the DPD site. I sent a note to Cotswold customer service asking what was up and who Aramex was. They didn't answer the Aramex part, just said that it looked like I owed customs fees and that I'd have to pay those fees when it was delivered. I said no problem, but still wanted to know who Aramex was (I did Google them, read about the company). Cotswold then replied and said Aramex worked with DPD, and I should give DPD a call. I emailed DPD and asked what was up, they replied that they had tried to deliver the package and there was nobody here to sign for it. I replied that no delivery attempt was made, and that actually some company called Aramex said they were holding my package in NY and wanted credit card info. I wanted to know if the Aramex email was legit. DPD then replied with an "Oops, you're not in the UK, sorry, we'll have someone from our international department contact you." That was last week. No more contact from DPD. So my confidence in actually getting something delivered to me, whether or not I email my credit card info to Aramex (which I'm not going to do) is pretty low. Therefore I'll just have the parcel returned to sender. But before I did that I was hoping someone else on BPL in the US had ordered from Cotswold so I could find out if they went through a similar incident or if a different shipping company was used. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem so.

The following information my explain a few things and help a little, or it might not. If the latter, I apologise in advance for wasting your time. When packages to Turkey arrive at the local office (both courier services and the national mail carrier), tracking usually shows them as handed to the deliverer, or similar terminology. However, this is usually in the afternoon while the deliverer is out delivering and just means it's put in his/her next day load. Then at the end of the day, when it hasn't left the delivery office, tracking switches to "delivery attempt made, unable to deliver." Aramex may have a similar tracking system, and no delivery attempt has actually been made. One time I had a package coming with UPS but it got held at customs. UPS want me to pay a small fortune in brokerage fees, id addition to the customs fees, and give them a wide-ranging power of attorney in order to bring it through customs. I refused and after some negotiation they agreed to transfer it to the nearest customs office, where I paid the duty and cleared it through customs myself, saving a lot of money. It could be worth trying to get Aramex to transfer the package to a Washington customs office. Edited to add: Aramex appears to be based in Jordan, which presumably has a connection to the message that they attempted a delivery in Jordan.

No help Doug, but someone from the post office Told me recently that any item sent to the US via courier has a very High likelihood of getting handed over to the Customs, allegedly using post it is far less likely to get intercepted.