In our previous article, we talked about how you can buy from Indonesia, but we haven’t really explained in depth why you should use Indo4ward. Here are 5 reasons why you should use Indo4ward when you buy from Indonesia.

No-frills shopping experience in Indonesia

Shopping in Indonesia unfortunately only ships within Indonesia (most likely), and in order to buy something from Indonesia your only option is to work with a forwarding agent/warehousing solution.

While it gets the job done, it has a lot of hidden costs using such services. In our market research, we noticed that it is very often that forwarding solutions often only determine the cross-border shipping cost when your item arrives at their warehouse. While it sounds logical, it can have many issues (examples are only meant for a reference and does not reflect the actual costs of forwarding agents):

Unforeseen dimensions and cross border cost calculations

We’re not saying businesses are dishonest, but the process is made to operate this way.

For instance:

You just bought something from Indonesia, and shipped it straight to your forwarder. But because your forwarding agent doesn’t know how big the item is, the cost cannot be calculated prior to your purchase.

You can estimate the size of your purchase, but you CANNOT be sure of the shipping packaging’s dimensions.

You would argue that forwarding agents can repack it. But do you really trust them, or should you trust them? (conflict of interest here, isn’t it?)

The cost associated from your purchase can be:

• Product Cost and domestic shipping: $15.00
• Cross Border shipping: $4.00 – $32.00 (unknown cost)
• Categorical hidden cost → This is hugely determined based on what you’re shipping. It could be food, electronics and many other things, which we will cover in the next segment.
• Total $47.00 + Hidden Categorical cost

Categorical hidden costs

Categorical cost is the cost associated to ship your category of goods. This can be food, electronics, and many others. At times hidden costs are just an addendum on top of your cross border shipping cost that’s determined by the dimensions.

But in many cases, the shipping cost is reflected with a whole new schedule of rates for the category of goods. And this can be fussily handled by forwarding agents where they will regard the entire shipping package the same so long as there’s 1 of the item that qualifies the new rate. 

For example, you ordered 5x shirts & 1x pack of snacks. The forwarding agent will regard the entire package as food, even though it’s a small percentage of your package made up.

The cost associated from your purchase can be:

• Product Cost and domestic shipping: $15.00
• Cross Border shipping: $4.00 – $32.00 (unknown cost)
• Categorical hidden cost → This is hugely determined based on what you’re shipping. It could be food, electronics and many other things, which we will cover in the next segment.
• Total → $47.00 + $20.00 (Hidden Categorical cost)

Why use Indo4ward then?

We’re not like any forwarder, we ensure and guarantee rates prior to your purchase of your order. In fact, we integrate your shopping experiences with cross-border shipping, making it a no-frills shopping experience in Indonesia anywhere in the world. 

Buying from Indonesia shouldn’t be scary or difficult.

– Indo4ward

Not forgetting that we provide an assurance and safe environment for your shopping experience in Indonesia. No concerns such as:

1. Is the product correct?
2. Is it the correct variation or colour?
3. Is the item damaged?

At every order, we take snaps of the product on arrival to ensure and keep a record to be certain it is matching to what our customer has ordered with us. In short, we keep the shopping safe and secure in Indonesia from anywhere in the world!

If you’re still worried on how you can buy from Indonesia, look no further than Indo4ward!