Has Anyone Tried Alibaba?

[Gringo80]

Alibaba says they offer door to door shipping to Argentina including ' customs clearance, duties, and tariffs'. Has anyone tried it?

 

[Quilombo]

No, but it's important to keep in mind that Alibaba/AliExpress/Shein/Temu/etc. all enter Argentina via the Puerta a Puerta regime.

You have a franchise of 12 deliveries a year, and each one is tax exempt for the first $50 USD.

It's important to remember they take about a month to get here, and then once they do, they take 60 days generally to sit in Aduana/Correo's warehouses, being stolen, before you're able to receive them (you may or may not need to go to said warehouse, it varies, I've had books delivered directly to me without having to go, but they're exempt on basically every type of tax).

I personally only recommend this method if you're willing to wait up to 3 months to get the product AND it won't be a big deal if it's damaged or stolen.

If it's something more important/time sensitive you can use the Courier Regime to get stuff as quickly as in a week, and it's duty exempt for up to $400 (you'll pay the 21% IVA still)

 

[Johngwyn]

No, but it's important to keep in mind that Alibaba/AliExpress/Shein/Temu/etc. all enter Argentina via the Puerta a Puerta regime.

You have a franchise of 12 deliveries a year, and each one is tax exempt for the first $50 USD.

It's important to remember they take about a month to get here, and then once they do, they take 60 days generally to sit in Aduana/Correo's warehouses, being stolen, before you're able to receive them (you may or may not need to go to said warehouse, it varies, I've had books delivered directly to me without having to go, but they're exempt on basically every type of tax).

I personally only recommend this method if you're willing to wait up to 3 months to get the product AND it won't be a big deal if it's damaged or stolen.

If it's something more important/time sensitive you can use the Courier Regime to get stuff as quickly as in a week, and it's duty exempt for up to $400 (you'll pay the 21% IVA still)

And how do you pay for the 21% tax? Thinking about buying things too, but first time. Thanks.

 

[Quilombo]

And how do you pay for the 21% tax? Thinking about buying things too, but first time. Thanks.

It depends, with companies like UPS/FedEx it comes as an invoice like in most countries and you pay it when you pick up or online before hand, but I've only done it once with DHL and paid via credit card when picking it up. With Aerobox, I pay online via transferencia or when picking up (cash) otherwise there's a 7% fee for credit cards.

With Aerobox they have a calculator on their site, and using Friday's aduana exchange rate (huge jump coming Monday) it would be $66,864.69 ARS for 1KG of electronics valued at 100 USD if you pay cash/transferencia and pick up in their office downtown.