Every question, answered straight.

We are a bridge between US stores and your front door. With Personal Shopping we buy the item for you when your card or address will not work on a US site, inspect it at our Austin hub, and ship it at discounted FedEx Express rates. Package Forwarding, where you get your own US address and we forward what arrives, is coming soon.

Today, Personal Shopping: send us the product links and we buy, inspect and ship it, whether or not your own card works on the US site. Package Forwarding is coming soon. Once it launches, it will suit shoppers whose card already works and who just need a US address, and it will skip the purchasing fee.

Yes, that is exactly what Personal Shopping is for. Send the product links, we quote item cost plus sales tax plus our fee plus shipping, and once you approve we buy it on our own US card at our own US address. You are never charged before we have actually purchased the item.

No. Personal Shopping and envelope labels work with just an email address: your quote arrives as a private link where you approve it and see inspection photos. An account is optional and keeps every order in one place. Package Forwarding, coming soon, will need one, since the account is what generates your own US suite number.

Our dedicated corridors are Australia, Saudi Arabia, India, Singapore, Brazil and the Philippines, each with its own shipping page. The calculator also prices most other countries FedEx Express reaches. Rates are set per destination country from the real FedEx zone chart, so the discount you see is the one for your country, not an average. If your country is not in the calculator list, message us and we will price it by hand.

If something goes wrong with your order, tell me directly and I'll fix it, and make it worth your while. No tickets, no runaround. Message me on WhatsApp at +1 (512) 527-3773 or email hello@shipbird.io and you will hear back from me, not a ticket queue. (Rahul, Founder)

Card through Stripe or bank transfer through Wise, you choose at checkout. By card, we authorise it when you approve the quote and only capture it once we've actually purchased the item from the merchant; if we can't buy it, the hold is released and nothing is captured. By bank transfer, you'll get instructions and a reference number right away and we confirm receipt before buying anything. Either way, you're never charged twice.

Yes. Add as many links as you like to a single Personal Shopping request. We buy them all, inspect each one, and consolidate everything into one shipment wherever the boxes allow it. One shipment means one freight charge instead of three.

We tell you before we buy. A price move up gets re-quoted for your approval, a price move down is passed back to you, and an out-of-stock item is either swapped for a variant you approve or dropped from the order with its share of the hold released.

Your FedEx shipping is quoted on an estimated weight and box, because nobody can weigh the item until it reaches our hub. When it arrives we weigh the packed parcel and price shipping again at the same discount. If that costs $5 or more extra, we email you first and charge the difference to the card you paid with a day later, or you can pay on your order page, or cancel instead. If it costs $5 or more less, we refund the difference. Anything under $5 either way, we absorb.

Yes. Texas sales tax is a real cost on the purchase, so it is passed through at the exact amount on your invoice rather than buried in a markup. You will see it as its own line on the quote alongside any domestic shipping the store charged us.

That is what the inspection is for. A person opens the box at the hub, checks it against your order, photographs it, and flags anything wrong before it leaves Texas. If it is wrong, we deal with the US retailer at our address, which is far easier than a return from overseas.

Usually not. Most US manufacturer warranties only apply in the US. We inspect every item before it ships so problems are caught here, not at your door. If a problem does show up in transit, insured orders can report it from the order page for 14 days after delivery.

Yes, as long as the store still accepts the return. You'd send it back to our Austin hub and we return it to the store for you. Before you decide, a few honest caveats. You pay the shipping back to the US, and our discounted FedEx rates only apply to shipments leaving the US, so the return trip usually costs a lot more than the trip out. The store's return window keeps running while the parcel travels, and final-sale items can't go back at all. When the store refunds us, we pass on everything it refunds, less any restocking fee it keeps and the card processing fee on that amount. The Personal Shopping fee, the original shipping and any duty or tax you paid on arrival aren't refunded. Message us before you send anything and we'll quote the return and tell you how to pack and label it. If an item arrived damaged or isn't what you ordered, that's different: tell us and we'll make it right.

Almost. If the site sells to the public and takes a normal US card, we can usually buy it. The exceptions are stores that require in-person ID, marketplaces where the seller will not ship to a forwarding address, and anything on the prohibited list further down this page.

Thirty days of free storage on every parcel, counted from the day it arrives at the Austin hub. Need longer while you finish a haul? Message us and we will extend it. Most customers never pay a storage cent.

No limit on the number of packages, and consolidation is free and unlimited. We open everything, strip the excess retail packaging, and repack into the smallest safe carton. Five boxes from five retailers routinely leave as one.

Every time, by hand, at no charge. Air freight bills on the greater of actual weight and dimensional weight, so a shoebox full of air can cost more than the shoes. Cutting the carton down is usually the single biggest saving on the invoice.

Yes. Each parcel is opened, checked and photographed on arrival, and the photos sit on the shipment page in your account. You choose what goes in the outbound box and what waits for the rest of the haul.

Usually yes, while the item is still at the hub and inside the retailer window. Send us the return label and we will drop it off. Returns after a shipment has already flown are between you and the retailer, though we will help with paperwork.

One flat fee per order, based on your order total before sales tax and shipping: $15 up to $99.99, $25 from $100.00 to $250.00, $40 from $250.01 to $1,000.00, and $50 flat over $1,000.00. It is never charged per item, so five things in one order still means one fee. That sits on top of the item cost and shipping, and it is the only service fee we charge: no per-item handling, no membership.

None, forever. You pay when you ship and nothing when you do not, which is the main structural difference between us and the subscription forwarders.

Yes. Paying by card adds a 4% processing surcharge on your full order total: item cost, sales tax, domestic shipping, the Personal Shopping fee, any add-ons and FedEx shipping. It shows as its own line on your quote before you pay. Pay by bank transfer through Wise instead and there is no surcharge at all.

It depends on billable weight, carton size and destination country. We price off real FedEx list rates with a per-country discount applied, and show you Priority and Economy side by side. Put your weight and dimensions into the calculator for a number you can act on rather than a range.

Put everything you want into one Personal Shopping request instead of several. We buy it all, consolidate it into one box, repack it by hand to cut the dimensional weight, and ship it FedEx International Economy if you are not in a hurry. That means one Personal Shopping fee (it is charged per order, not per item) and one freight charge instead of several. Paying by bank transfer through Wise also skips the 4% card surcharge. Package Forwarding is coming soon, and it will be cheaper still for shoppers whose own card works at the US store, since there is no purchasing fee.

No, no, no and not for the first thirty days. Consolidation and repacking are free and unlimited, inspection photos come as standard on every item, and storage is free for thirty days with extensions on request.

Airlines charge for the space a box occupies as well as its mass. FedEx divides length by width by height in inches by 139 to get dimensional weight, then bills the greater of that and the actual weight. This is why we repack: shrinking the carton often drops the billable weight by several pounds.

Usually yes, and it is paid by you, not by us. Shipments go out on DAP terms, which means FedEx clears the parcel in your country and collects any duty, VAT, GST or local tax from the recipient before or at delivery. The amount is set by your customs authority based on the declared value and item category. We cannot quote it for you, but we can tell you the declared value we will use.

No. We declare the true value and an accurate description on every shipment. Undervaluing is fraud, it puts your parcel at risk of seizure and you at risk of a penalty, and it is the fastest way for a forwarder to lose the ability to ship at all. If duty is the concern, we will help you plan around thresholds legally.

A commercial invoice with itemised descriptions, quantities, values and country of origin, plus the electronic export data FedEx needs. Everything is generated from what we actually inspected at the hub, so the declaration matches the contents of the box.

Most countries have a de minimis value below which duty is waived, and it varies wildly. Some are generous, some are effectively zero, and several apply tax even when duty is waived. Tell us your destination before you consolidate and we will tell you whether splitting the haul into two boxes actually saves you money.

FedEx contacts the recipient for whatever is missing, usually an ID number, a tax identifier or a clarified description. Forward us the request and we will supply the hub-side documents the same day. Holds are uncommon and almost always clear within a couple of days once the paperwork lands.

FedEx Express transit typically runs 1 to 8 business days once the box leaves Austin, depending on your destination and whether you pick Priority or Economy. The calculator shows the typical window for your country. Add one to two business days for us to purchase on Personal Shopping orders, and another day or two for inspection and packing after arrival at the hub. Customs clearance in your country can add a day.

Yes. The FedEx tracking number appears on your shipment page and in your email the moment the label is created, and it tracks door to door on fedex.com. You will also see hub-side status before that: received, inspected, packed, shipped.

Priority is the fastest FedEx Express service; Economy trades a day or two of transit for a lower rate. The calculator shows both prices for your exact box so you can decide whether the speed is worth the difference on that particular shipment.

Message us with the tracking number and we open the case with FedEx from our side. As the shipper we can escalate in ways a recipient cannot. Our inspection photos double as the condition evidence a damage claim needs, which is why we take them on every item.

Yes. Each shipment has its own Recipient, so you can send a birthday parcel to your mother in Kathmandu while your own haul goes to Sydney. The Recipient name must match the ID that will be shown at delivery, because that is what customs checks.

Anything the airlines or your customs authority will not accept: lithium batteries shipped loose, aerosols, flammable liquids, perfume above allowance, weapons, perishables and counterfeit goods. Destination rules vary, so we check your country list before we buy or ship. If you are unsure about a specific item, ask before you send the link.

Yes, when the battery is installed in the device. That ships as a normal dangerous-goods-compliant item under FedEx rules. Spare or loose lithium batteries, power banks and battery-only shipments are the ones that cannot fly. A phone in its retail box is fine; a bag of replacement cells is not.

We stop and contact you before doing anything with it. Depending on the item we can return it to the retailer, hold it for someone in the US to collect, or dispose of it. That is your call, not ours. Nothing gets quietly binned.

Email hello@shipbird.io or message the number in the footer, and a named person on the Austin team answers, usually within a few hours during Texas business hours. There is no ticket queue and no bot in front of us.

By email, as a PDF, within 24 hours of paying. Print it on ordinary paper, tape it to your envelope, and drop it at any FedEx location. Nothing gets mailed to you and there is nothing to pick up.

Check your spam folder first. That's usually where it is. If it's genuinely not there, email hello@shipbird.io with your shipment reference and we'll get it sorted the same day.

Yes. The FedEx tracking number is printed on your label and included in the email, so you can follow the envelope on fedex.com from the first scan through to delivery.

No. Envelopes are the one service you can use start to finish without signing up. All we need is an email address to send the label to. An account only makes sense if you ship with us often and want your addresses saved.

Your envelope ships FedEx Express directly from the ship-from address you provide. There's no Shipbird handling in between. Destination customs clearance, duties, and local taxes are collected directly by FedEx from the recipient on delivery (DAP terms).