Shopping the World Online from Argentina

[syngirl]

Thank you all very much for your knowledge and info! Oh my. It’s back to the drawing board for my husband and me planning where we’ll retire.

If not being able to shop online is going to play such a huge part in deciding whether or not to retire in Argentina, I would strongly suggest that you are really not ready to retire ANYWHERE outside of the first world. You're going to have to look at places in the USA, maybe some of the Caribbean islands (Bahamas, Bermuda), or places in Europe because most companies do not ship anywhere outside of USA without huge charges accrued. Half the time it's a pain to get them to ship to Canada, so you can't imagine the trouble of getting things shipped elsewhere. And once you get things shipped you are going to end up paying 3 or 4 times what the items cost in shipping and duty to most places anyway.

Retiring abroad has it's appeal but you have to be willing to let go of a lot of the conveniences that you might have in your permanent home. Living in Argentina involves giving up a lot more than just shopping online -- ie say goodbye to being able to pick up prepared foods at the supermarket for the most part, say goodbye to pasta sauces in a jar -- in fact say goodbye to most prepared foods, you're going to have to cook pretty much everything from scratch.

Say goodbye to most of the brands that you're used to -- most have left the country or are going to be leaving in the next couple of years due to CFKs ridiculous import laws.

I think you and your husband need to sit down and write a list of your priorities / wishlist / necessities for what you need in a place to retire and then try to find some countries that match up with that -- you might end up deciding that Arizona or Florida have a lot more appeal than you previously realised, or that you'd like to be in a place that is a less than 12 hrs flight home to Canada.

Another thing to note is that cost of living in Buenos Aires is really on the rise, so although buying a place is still relatively cheap compared to other places that may have interested you, the basic costs of living are more and more on par with North America these days (and private health insurance is more expensive than Canada for sure).

 

[Sockhopper]

We’ve been examining our priorities for 3 years and don’t want to retire in North America. We’re after access to plenty of cultural opportunities around us without needing a car. We need a vibrant but affordable city where everyone walks lots every day because being part of a public scene doing ordinary things is natural and important to locals. (Where we live, walking is treated as a sport needing riverside walkways and its own gear! On a 2-hour urban walk here, we might pass 4 people at most which feels surreal especially after returning from Europe or BA.)


The only food we’ll miss in BA is French and Italian cheese we but think we can adapt to that since some Argentine cheese is really good. We’ve never wanted or eaten bottled pasta sauces or factory-processed meals. And if we’re in a hurry the odd time and so can’t cook, there’s the freshly made dishes we can pick up at places like “El Juvenil”. We can get around the absence of spiced food without having to spend at Lotus Neo Tai and Sudestada. We cook from scratch including Asian and Mexican meals. Pine nuts are now more expensive in BA than here. Recently, these have dropped 1/3 in price here (for Chinese ones).

We are heeding the most helpful reports given us by all of you about what happens when you try to shop online abroad from Argentina. For 6 years solid and with hundreds of suppliers across the US and Europe, we’ve saved 50-75% after paying all duties (18%) and taxes (13%) by importing into Canada goods completely unavailable here. (All we buy in Canada is food, prescription eyeglasses, paint, incidentals and bus passes.) Clearly, that’s impossible in BA. Canada is the worst place in the West to shop due to a 50-year-old system of “exlusive distributorships” that hamstring the few retailers who’d like to provide us goods that are desirable to people around the world. Even “Zappos” had to terminate its Canadian operations due to this inbuilt trap. It had the courage to publish why on its US website. Canadian retailers would never do that. It’s ironical that we happen to be considering moving from one bad shopping country to another – bad for completely different reasons.

As a result of your shipping experiences, we have been looking into living for 9 months a year in a vibrant, reasonable, mid-sized city in Europe where we can shop on foot or by bus for quality goods and dance tango and swing; and living for 3 months in BA as tourists, not as temporary residents. We have dual nationality. The airfare from Europe to BA is identical to what we pay now from Canada. This would let us work with our BA tango instructor 12 times/trip rather than just 5. And we’d be able to settle into a Castellano course and not be so rushed trying to fit in every ‘city thing’ we love doing. More time to make more new friends.

I suppose the next things for us to check out are travel/medical insurance rates for European retirees spending 3 months/yr in South America, and the possibility of ‘apartment home exchanges’ with residents of BA. How much easier moving was when we were 24 and just threw on a backpack to travel for a year before returning to an English speaking country!

 

[sam3g]

I only have one experience - one that made me decide to never do it again. I had a used macbook air with charger sent to me from the US. Took 5 hours of my day to go to the DHL office in Microcentro to pay (something, I can't remember) then go to the AIRPORT (which is not close) then spend over an hour in the absolute bureaucracy that is the cutoms office. Better to just make due with what you have until you can bring it back in your luggage the next trip out of the country.

 

[scotttswan]

Just had a replacement kindle sent from amazon in the states.

Customs charged 100% tax to DHL but after some complaining to amazon they credited the money to me in the form of gift vouchers.... no idea when i'll ever use these though as i'd end up having to pay 100% tax again.