NZ Post Youshop – beware!!!

Earlier this year, I had cause to import a number of parts from the US. All fairly cheap small items: wheel bearings, drive belt, air filter, spark plugs, belt tensioner, and finally, very rashly, a paint touch-up pen, 12 fl oz.
Mostly from Rockauto who are my goto guys, but I thought this was a chance to use Youshop again to consolidate down some shipments and save cost. What worked fine on previous occasions tuned into a major drama that would have cost more to do it that way then ship each part down separately on DHL/Fedex.
When all the parts had arrived at the USA Youshop warehouse, I then tried to consolidate them, but it would only let me consolidate 3 items. When queried, I was advised that the rules have changed and now only 3 are possible.
Then, I was told the paint pen couldn’t be shipped because it was dangerous goods. So I had to return that to the supplier for credit. It seems now that no US based supplier will ship anything with the word paint in it by any means.
Then, I was advised that two of the items were declared fragile and couldn’t be consolidated. Of course, I assumed it was the air filter, but you can imagine my surprise to find out that one of them was the drive belt. When I tried to explain to NZ Post that the drive belt is pretty much indestructible even if you set out to damage it, but they would not be budged even after trying twice to get them to ship it including giving them a written declaration that it was not fragile.

This was about when I began to suspect that NZ Post didn’t have much influence over what the USA warehouse was doing, and when I queried this with them I was told that they are just a contractor – explains a lot.
By this time I had to also return the oldest part that arrived first for credit as I was about to run past the 3 week deadline to ship them before the item is disposed of, and I certainly didn’t want to take the chance that whilst I was arguing it out with NZ Post, that their contractor at the US warehouse would do just that.
So then I was left 2 separate shipping charges amounting to over NZ$300 to ship the drive belt, air filter, and wheel bearings separately – all because I had already used up my 3 items for consolidation already and had at least those one shipped.

The shipping charges for both these items were in excess of NZ$100 each, when I queried it they loaded photos of the items on the Youshop page. The wheel bearings were in two tiny boxes about 70mm square, sitting in one bottom corner or a large box about the size of a box that you get 5 reams of A4 paper in. So mostly I was being charged for shipping air, because of course I could not consolidate the items now having used up the 3 item limit.
So I ended up returning everything else to the suppliers for a credit, re-ordering them all individually again and paying for Fedex shipping individually, and even including the return and restocking fees was still way cheaper than what NZ Post were trying to charge for the freight.
So, what ‘s the moral of this sad story? You have absolutely no control over having any of your parts unilaterally declared as being fragile by some wonk in the US warehouse, that neither NZ Post or you have any further influence over, and that it can’t be consolidated because of that, so ends up attracting additional shipping costs accordingly.
 
When I asked NZ Post for compensation for my additional costs due to their US warehouse's decisions, I was invited to submit this for consideration, so I totted up all the costs of having the parts returned including the return fee form NZ Post, the restocking fees where charged, and the original USA freight component, it came to about NZ$112, not unreasonable I thought.
Well, it was point-blank steadfastly refused because of some obscure GST complication that I still don’t understand how or even why that is relevant in a compensation case, and even after several attempts to argue the point, including that I would bring the matter to the attention of our many members to help prevent them from falling into the same traps, it was just water off a ducks back – so, here it is.....

Caveat Emptor when using NZ Post Youshop!

My suggestion? Use the new MyUS service instead as per the link below, I’ve already heard some good reports about their service.
https://www.myus.com/welcome/new-zealand/?aid=1008096&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign={campaign}&utm_content={adgroup}&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA88a5BhDPARIsAFj595gPNG61C9PB0gi6dhHyTCcCvcF6dp0c8_ZgJiU_mau8BySorqrXeM0aAhc2EALw_wcB
Or alternatively, if you can get the parts you need from Rockauto just have then ship them direct you, as their freight prices are good compared with most others, and you have the parts within a week.
I'll certainly never be using Youshop again under any circumstances.