online shopping with Free shipping to STX

keep me updated about the shampoo.

It's too bad that shoppers have to think about what to put in the same cart because of incompetent packers. My wife ordered art supplies, and a tub a gesso (glue, basically) got squashed by other contents and the foil seal broke, oozing it onto everything else. The lid of the tub was not screwed on tight, which helped -- not. The seller covered the damage.

the sellers lose a lot of money for incompetent packagers, dont they

Ok, CVS.com had an artful packer on this box. There was a tiny bit of leakage from some conditioner, but the bottle was taped (as were all of them) and put in ziplock with the same product, so nothing was damaged. No one is getting fired today. And I got a killer deal at 30% off and ordering almost all CVS brand. Shipping on this box, with 5 huge body washes, 4 jars of peanut butter, 4 conditioners, 18k of TP, 4 30 pks of vitamins, 2 60 piece gum, bandaids, 5 bricks of coffee, 4 pairs of stocking, sunscreen, face wash, liquid kids allergy medicine, braun thermometer covers, came to $4.37. So not bad. Total order was $158 with shipping.
On St. John, the allergy medicine would have cost me $30. The coffee is $7 each. Body wash of similar size would run me $12. The peanut butter is $6 a jar. So it's kind of like getting the rest of the stuff for free 😀 And a lot of it I can't even find on St. John at all.

wow, you got great deals

The Walmart boxes showed up. They got lucky, I got lucky... the shampoo was thrown in the box with no tape on the top, not in a plastic bag. Both of the boxes were way over sized and filled mostly with filler paper. But everything did arrive undamaged, and shipped for free. Can't imagine they will hold the free shipping for long if they continue to be so wasteful with over sized packaging.

Glad it arrived undamaged. Agree on the wasteful packaging

Another tip I forgot to pass along.... I have gotten in the habit of logging in on various sites and putting items in my cart that I want. Then I just wait.... Pretty much every site will start sending me emails with discount codes trying to get me to purchase what is in my cart. Sometimes they send an obnoxious number of emails, but it does help me get the best deals.

That or retailmenot.com

Are customs duties collected on any of these online order shipments and if so how does that work?

nothing i have ordered online

If you shipment comes in the mail, no customs duties will be collected. If your shipment comes through Paradise Freight or VI Cargo, it may attract duties depending on where the item was manufactured.

Also if it comes UPS or FEDX, it can incur customs duty.

So what do UPS or FEDEX do, ask for payment before they deliver? I can't imagine they want the driver to show up at your door with the package and COD it.

So what do UPS or FEDEX do, ask for payment before they deliver? I can't imagine they want the driver to show up at your door with the package and COD it.

I may be wrong but believe you receive notification to go to their facility to pick up the delivery. You could always call them and ask.

So what do UPS or FEDEX do, ask for payment before they deliver? I can't imagine they want the driver to show up at your door with the package and COD it.

They usually deliver to my door and occasionally they charge (and I pay them) the customs duty at the same time. Last time they charged was about 3 years ago, but I assume they still do it. I'm not a frequent customer.

I can't imagine they want the driver to show up at your door with the package and COD it.

That's exactly what they do. UPS and Fedex make deliveries to my business regularly and always collect the duty charges right then. Why is that so hard to believe?

I can't imagine they want the driver to show up at your door with the package and COD it.

That's exactly what they do. UPS and Fedex make deliveries to my business regularly and always collect the duty charges right then. Why is that so hard to believe?

Thanks to you and STXBob for clarifying. I've only dealt with both infrequently and there's been no duty involved.

So what do UPS or FEDEX do, ask for payment before they deliver? I can't imagine they want the driver to show up at your door with the package and COD it.

I may be wrong but believe you receive notification to go to their facility to pick up the delivery. You could always call them and ask.

You have a choice.
You can either go to their location, to pay and pick up, yourself or they will deliver and you pay driver at time of delivery.

The drawback to having customs duty on your order shipped thru UPS or FEDX is that it can get hung up in customs and the delivery is delayed until item is released by customs. This can take days.
I waited 10 days once for an item to be released and delivered.
Duty on non US made items.

I can't imagine they want the driver to show up at your door with the package and COD it.

That's exactly what they do. UPS and Fedex make deliveries to my business regularly and always collect the duty charges right then. Why is that so hard to believe?

I imagine drivers are pressed for time to make deliveries and schedules, waiting for payments doesn't seem to help with that. Then there's the whole cash management thing unless they only take plastic which would seem like another not so reasonable constraint. Then there is the whole issue of having to be present at time of delivery.

And how is that any different from a UPS/FedEx stateside operation?

Do UPS and FEDEX collect COD in the states? Or maybe they do and charge extra for the extra time. In my experience in the states they often don't make it to the front door for regular deliveries, they drop packages in front of the garage and run away as fast as they can. Some times they don't even make it that far.

Do UPS and FEDEX collect COD in the states? .

These sorts of questions are so easily answered in seconds if you have internet access.

UPS does and I'm sure you can look up FEDEX policy.
https://www.ups.com/content/us/en/shipping/time/service/value_added/cod.html

From UPS's COD page: "UPS will not accept currency in any amount."

They've always (twice) accepted my cash in the USVI. It was about $10 each time.

Interesting that they accepted cash from you - maybe because it was such a tiny amount. But of course they do accept payment other than cash, viz:

"UPS will accept a business or personal check, or another negotiable form of payment.
At the shipper's request, UPS will accept a cashier's check or money order only."