Grabr, people-powered global shopping

a p2p way of buying things internationally

Disclaimer: This is NOT a sponsored post, however you can support me and use this referral link to get US$10 off your first shipment.

So I've been using a service called Grabr for a while, it's what some might say Uber-but-for international shipping. I know, I hate that lingo too, so let's just call it by what it is: a convenient solution to buy things from anywhere in the world, and get them shipped directly to you by a traveler.

It's just that easy:

  1. Find something that you'd like to buy, maybe from Amazon, eBay, or any online store.
  2. Go to Grabr and publish said item (you can just enter the URL and it'll try to fetch the details for you). You can indicate where and when you want to receive it.
  3. Wait for the travellers to send you their offers and accept the one that best suits you. Usually you'll be looking for the best rated traveller that will take the cheapest commission on the closest delivery date.
  4. Once you settle on an offer, you pay and wait for the item (the traveller is the one buying it)
  5. That's it, your delivery it's on its way! Just wait for the traveller to arrive and arrange to meet with him or her to finish the process.

So yeah, like any other middleman service you'll have to pay a commission to the traveller and a service fee to the website, but most of the time this is way cheaper than paying duty/import taxes, and that's assuming that direct international delivery is an option anyway.