4th of July Sales
The combination of opposite seasons, limited clothing choices, and long shipping times means that every few months - when the US is having a holiday and all of the subsequent clothing sales - I go on a mini shopping spree and load up on American brands that either don’t ship to New Zealand or have crazy expensive shipping costs and have them all sent to YouShop. (I keep a running list of sites that will and won’t ship to New Zealand here.) There are a few places that I frequented for kids clothing in particular that don’t ship here, and while there are kids clothing options in New Zealand (I’ve gone through the big ones in this post) I like the variety and quality of familiar US brands, especially when they’re on sale.
So this is your friendly reminder to hit up those US sales RIGHT NOW. Go visit the Gap and stock up on $5 shirts and $15 shorts for the kids. Load up on Tea Collection dresses. Get some of Hanna Andersson’s awesome swimwear for the upcoming summer and a set of matching family PJs while you’re at it. And all of those Etsy shops that are only in the US? Now is the time to order a custom super hero cape.
If you place your order now, there will be plenty of time to get your orders to YouShop and choose the cheaper slow boat option for shipping before you need any of these warm weather clothing items. There are a few things to anticipate if you plan on doing this:
There is no way to know exactly what your shipping costs will be. There are guidelines on costs here, but until your packages are at YouShop, you won’t know exactly what you’re going to pay.
Try to take advantage of free US shipping whenever possible. You will get taxed on US shipping charges by New Zealand so keeping those down will help with the overall bill.
Gap clothing will arrive in multiple packages. And that means you’ll have to pay for things to be consolidated. It is so annoying.
Keep track of all of your shipping notices in PDF form. You’ll need to upload notifications to YouShop so they can verify how much you spent and tax you accordingly.
Sea freight takes about three months but is around half the cost of air shipments. Don’t ship anything this way if you need it sooner than that.
If you are hitting up the US shops this weekend, are you finding any that don’t ship to New Zealand affordably? If so, please let me know so I can add that information to my running shopping list.
