I agree with amazonfreak. I have been shipping stuff regularly since about 07 and so far Borderlinx has provided the best experience. I would switch permanently, but unfortunately Borderlinx can be a bit anal about restricted items (cleaning fluid, etc, although they have become more relaxed about batteries recently).
Comgateway is run by incompetent morons. They sent me someone else's spree package, then had the nerve to ask me to fill up the DHL airwaybill for them to rectify their mistake.
More recently, their server had some problem and kept giving me this stupid "We are unable to charge your card successfully" message, even with different credit cards. By the time I was able to make payment, storage charges were incurred. I contacted their customer service, and no explanation, no "sorry that our server is bull**** and you had to spend hours trying to pay us money for a service we provide", just "we will not be able to refund this amount incurred for storage fee back to you".
Vpost is even worse. Send them email explicitly stating which package is which also they can match wrongly. They can lose your packages
after recording delivery, then backpedal and say they never received it and tell you if there's no signature proof then they are not responsible so too bad. Charges are terrible also.
Comparing CGW and BL std rates, it seems that if I based a package solely based on 6kg (example), CGW will come to $11 + ($2.85 x 5) = USD$25.25 and BL will cost USD$42.42? In that case, does it mean that for bigger item, CGW is cheaper than BL? thx.
Your calculation is incorrect. CGW's pricing is very deceptive - it's per HALF kg, so for 6kg, first 0.5kg = $11, subsequent 5.5kg = 5.5x2.85*2 = $31.35. Total $42.35. Borderlinx is usually very slightly more expensive than CGW, but you must also take into account discount codes - Borderlinx has been giving 30% off for quite a while, whereas CGW has only been giving 5% discount for almost a year.
Do I key in the price before discount code or after?
You should key in the price after discount. That way if the discount code expires or something funny happens the order will be canceled. You should consider Borderlinx instead, though. Their concierge service is free for orders greater than US$50 and they currently have a 30% discount code (730317) for shipping. I've used both Comgateway and Borderlinx concierges, and in my experience they are generally slow and inefficient. Expect them to take about 4 days or more. (Or worse, wait 3 days, then cancel your order because the merchant's site happens to be under maintenance then ask you to re-enter the order, because they are fricking geniuses.)
