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Shipping Basses To Kazakhstan?

#61
NO PERL, IT'S NOT RISK FREE! CLEARLY COMING FROM A NON-US COUNTRY AND BEING ENTIRELY REASONABLE MEANS HE'S SCAMMING THEM.

I love it when people have basses for sale that have been sitting there for months and still won't accept an international buyer. They probably don't realise the "extra hassle" is writing another line of address on the label and waiting an extra day for the money to arrive in their bank account.

You probably get it worse in Indonesia than I get in Australia, I'd think. More people are comfortable with English speaking nations than Bhasa ones.
 
#62
PerlNinja said:
Personally if I had the money for it, I'd be sending out 40 PM's to see if I could load up on 30 used basses that I can resell here for a little profit, and I'm thinking the guy is doing just that.
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In fact, you could be right. Only a few years ago, Fenders and MMs could bring up to 100% interest, Lakland maybe 50-70% interest in Russia. Buying on behalf of musicians and shipping services cost 4 times that much than they cost now.
At that time, in just two transactions I got a US Lakland for the price of the Korean Ibanez SR905 that I'd sold. Now that this new sphere of service blooms, the prices went more reasonable, but this business may still be of high interest in republics like Kazakhstan.
Oh yeah, the Ibby went to Kazakhstan too :) The guy later sold it and got a regular used MM SR for about $1600 (not from me tho).
 
#63
theNoseBleedKid said:
NO PERL, IT'S NOT RISK FREE! CLEARLY COMING FROM A NON-US COUNTRY AND BEING ENTIRELY REASONABLE MEANS HE'S SCAMMING THEM.

I love it when people have basses for sale that have been sitting there for months and still won't accept an international buyer. They probably don't realise the "extra hassle" is writing another line of address on the label and waiting an extra day for the money to arrive in their bank account.

You probably get it worse in Indonesia than I get in Australia, I'd think. More people are comfortable with English speaking nations than Bhasa ones.
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I'm luckier than most since I'm yet another foreigner in Indonesia, I'm Dutch by origin so it gives me a little leg up. Mostly the reason why my Indonesian bassist buddies have at times asked if I could be the "intermediary" between them and a seller they wished to buy from; I did once ask a seller why he didn't have a problem selling to me and wouldn't sell to the "real" buyer, even though the real buyer paid me cash for a $500 bass (and believe me in Indonesian money, that's physically quite a stack of bills), and was willing to send money via western union - the same way I did. The answer to this date is still one of the silliest ones I've heard... "well they don't speak proper English". No ****, sherlock...

But I guess people are going to find an excuse not to sell to a supposed "scammer haven" national.

Seriously folks: if the buyer ponies up the cash via a Western Union money order, and you have the cash *in hand* - then there is no risk. What, you think the guy is going to come to your house to take his money back? Now *if* they don't want to pay via WU, that's their problem at that point, but if this guy is willing to pay what amounts to cash up front (meaning he has to trust you, a foreigner, to not rip him off... let's turn the tables here for a minute hmm?), then I honestly don't see what the big deal is.

:hiding:
 
#65
denchiq said:
In fact, you could be right. Only a few years ago, Fenders and MMs could bring up to 100% interest, Lakland maybe 50-70% interest in Russia. Buying on behalf of musicians and shipping services cost 4 times that much than they cost now.
At that time, in just two transactions I got a US Lakland for the price of the Korean Ibanez SR905 that I'd sold. Now that this new sphere of service blooms, the prices went more reasonable, but this business may still be of high interest in republics like Kazakhstan.
Oh yeah, the Ibby went to Kazakhstan too :) The guy later sold it and got a regular used MM SR for about $1600 (not from me tho).
Click to expand...

Same here. Finding any medium to high-end basses here is next to impossible at any music store, so the way to get them is to buy them abroad. There's one or two guys around here that buy up used instruments, get them shipped over, then give them a full setup, maybe do some repairs if needed, and sell them for reasonable prices - and they still clean up about 25% profit on it.

From my point of view, if a buyer is willing to put up what amounts to cash up front, I don't care where they live.
 
#66
so then it explains his "eclectic taste", as someone humorously put it above. If this is the case, the guy probably gathers orders and money from willing people around, intending to have profit on them. He gets more deals, he gets his name, therefore he gets more potential cutomers.
 
#67
denchiq said:
there is this company Music Outlet / Dostavka USA, they buy and send musical stuff on request from the US to Russia and former USSR republics. They have offices in Russia and Arizona. I used their services plenty a time, find them reliable enough. They will pay you whithin the States on behalf of the buyer AFTER they have his money, you only ship to Arizona, and they take care of everything else.

They can be reached at dostavkausa.com or here:
Invalid Link Removed
you may want to advise the other party to contact them
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+1

Last year I was looking for a new bass. And I was considering buying some bass from US. In the place where I live, there are very limited choice of the instruments and they're really overpriced (Ibanez GSR costs 400$ here, for example), so buying foreign instrument is often a good choice: even with shipping costs it will be about the same price as local.

If I would buy something from US, I personally would use the mentioned company, because it's real PITA to organize shipping myself plus most of the Americans won't ship abroad, which is totally understandable (when it's just not wanting to deal with foreign shipping rather than xenophobia). I ended up buying bass from St Petersburg, there happened nice deal and it was easier for me then.

So I completely understand people from countries like Russia or Kazakhstan wanting to buy nice bass (or buy and resell it, okay) and all the xenophobic comments make me kinda sad. Looks like shipping to Kazakhstan looks to some people more suspicious than shipping to other foreign countries.

You just need to find a secure way of transferring the money, just like with any other sale.
 
#70
schmig said:
PerlNinja, Jakarta kota gila nga? Tapi makanan enaaaak gitu!!!

(Worked in Singapore for 3 years and often went to Indonesia to eat!!)
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Iya, masih gila dong :D (okay so my Indonesian sucks badly... sort of) ... and yes, main reason for going to Jakarta is to hang out and eat. Favorite haunt is a little warung on Jl. Jaksa, good soto ayam, nice sop ceker, and knowing the owner means I get to hang around until 4am sleeping on a chair and nobody will bug me :D
 
#71
Chilli squid from a warung at 2am with dirty tempe and greasy rice....for what, 1 euro? I'd drop 800 euro just to taste it again..Indonesia is a whole other universe..so beautiful and so ugly...enjoy!
 
#72
theNoseBleedKid said:
Perl, how'd you end up in Jakarta?
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Long story but here goes: about 4.5 years ago I used to play me some sci-fi MMO's, and ran into a french guy who lived in Indonesia, he ran an IT security company. Since that's what I tend to do for a living, we got to talking shop. Soon after he offers me a job, and I declined since I already had a nice job.

Took about 6 months and him asking me another 2 times before I figured what the heck, let's see how this goes and told him I'd come work for him if I'd get the same salary as I already had, and he'd provide the tickets and housing for me.

And so it happened, and so I found myself in Jakarta. Was a fun time really getting into the IT security thing down here, it's a reason I still keep my money around in cash instead of in the bank (read: you do not ever want to use SMS banking around here... really..). Then there was a slightly bad argument between said french guy and me (it nearly got physical, from his end anyway), so I decided to quit and did so on the spot. That sort of left me wondering whether I oughta go back to the Netherlands or to stay, and since I did (and do, regardless of the bitching I do) still like this place, I stayed.

I met my now-wife 2.5 years ago, and am now married, and supposedly all respectable :) (at least, I have to try to be.. 6 month old son and all that).

So yeah, there I am.
 
#73
schmig said:
Chilli squid from a warung at 2am with dirty tempe and greasy rice....for what, 1 euro? I'd drop 800 euro just to taste it again..Indonesia is a whole other universe..so beautiful and so ugly...enjoy!
Click to expand...

Well, inflation has struck so make it 1 euro and 10 cents :) And yep, Indonesia is a country of polar opposites but that's probably what makes it such a damn interesting place to live.
 
#78
All's well that ends well, Sold, paid through Paypal, shipped in 2 packages, USPS, for $150.00, To ZARZUELA my man in KAZAKHSTAN! Did some runnig around to figure out the shipping, but having done that, I would be less hesitant, next go round, Great Buyer!
 
#79
it may be hard to get good new 'brand' basses in KZ - certainly harder than in the UK or US, i would have thought.

if he's a small businessman who wants to buy up 30+ used instruments and sell them on to eager local bassists, i'm not sure i see the problem?
 

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