Category: Daily Living
Just looked into buying replacemnt canes for my partner from NFB in the States. I was also going to get one from there too. they're very light weight telescopic canes and far superior to anything we can get over here.
The canes are $35 each which is very reasonable. The shipping is around $38 which is also a good price. however, on top of that, they want to charge an extra $40 for international processing.
I'm so disappointed as this will mean that we probably won't be able to have the canes. I'd love to know why they charge this as i've bought many other things in the States before now and not encountered this type of extra charge.
protectionism for their products so they only go to US citizens maybe? do the rnib have the same policy when shippinhg to the US?
Hmmmm. I have no idea why they'd charge this. I have a friend who works out at the National Center, I can ask him about their reasons for this, see if he knows, and post back to this topic later.
Well, I don't really know the answer to that question, but i can say this happened to my mom before. She was sending stuff over to Vietnam for my family and they charged her extra for international processing as well. lol. So maybe that's what they're doing now? charging extra for that kind of stuff?
I can see why they perhaps need to charge for international processing because customs forms need to be filled in. but $40 seems incredibly expensive, its more than the cost of a cane!
have found the same canes at www.dailyliving.com and am awaiting finding out what their shipping costs are. My partner bought me a watch from them for christmas and he said the cost of shipping was very small.
Pity the products for blind people in the UK are so bad that we have to go abroad for anything decent.
Oh wow! Have never heard of this, but then again, haven't had to send anything internationally. Wow, interesting! But I can imagine that the reasons are just as mentioned above, however, I agree $40 is too much!
most of the canes available here in the UK already come from America, and have used at least 3 makes either from the US or Canada, and personally love my california slimline 7 peace cane, that fold so small it goes in my inside jacket pocket.
the slimline canes are no longer stocked byRNIB, as far as I know anyway, and i found it was like waving a sherbert straw in front of me. horrid. heeheh
Pay someone in the US an extra $10 to get the cane for you and ship it to the UK?
Good idea, Chris. I hadn't thought of that.
paypal is beautiful and make a friend in the U.S. as someone else said. much easier that way. Probibly cheeper too.
good idea, it might come to that.