This year at Christmas my family will be split between Brisbane, Australia and Tauranga, New Zealand. Since I was going to have to send presents to at least one location, I thought it was time I dipped my toe into the waters of christmas gift buying online. Traditionally I’ve shied away from it, mainly because all the problems of buying online are multiplied when shopping for someone else. I have to worry about whether an item of clothing will fit, delays in shipping in case it is going to arrive after the 25th of December, gift wrapping. There are just so many things to screw up. But, taking a deep breath, I started taking a look around…

The first thing I tried was a boardgame that I’d heard about called Carcassonne. I had been recommended the site www.kumquat.com (now offline).

Adding to cart was easy enough, and I once I clicked on the Checkout button I was taken to the shipping details page. There were four options I could choose from: Standard, Fast, Faster or Fastest. What’s the difference between Faster and Fastest? I wasn’t even sure whether these even applied to international orders. I scrolled down the page to the billing section where it had a small International Shipping link. I figured that clicking on this link would tell me whether I could ship overseas and (hopefully) indicative costs.

I clicked and went to a page headed Policies. OK, great, where’d my International Shipping go? Had a look at the table of contents for the page, but the closest thing was Shipping Information. I looked at that and underneath was International Shipping. OK, cool, now I know – I can ship to NZ, and it will take 2 – 3 days. Still no idea of cost though. This is what it said:

“Shipping and handling charges vary according to weight and destination. PLEASE NOTE: Quoted shipping costs on the Shopping Cart, Checkout and Receipt pages are for delivery within the United States – International shipping costs will likely be higher and will be confirmed prior to final processing of the order.”

I placed the order anyway, and anxiously awaited news of my shipping cost.

The email came 6 days later (!). It was going to be US$43.26. For a US$15 gift. Hmmmm… didn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Frustrated at the wasted time, I cancelled the order. Grrrr – online shopping.

Trent