Disturbing news regarding Medications Ordering from India, Price Increases, Parcels Stopped

You can expect better from some, but not most Indian vendors. A refund may be out of question, but getting reship is fair.

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Not his responsibility as to what the U.S. customs does. Sorry, if I were a seller, I would feel no obligation to reship or refund. Having said that, if you are a regular and valued customer, the seller might reship. Actually getting a refund is problematic.

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Depends on what your agreement is with your seller. Some provide reships, most don’t. I just prefer ones that reship.

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Some of these guys are one- or two-man operations. I wouldn’t expect a refund from them. We have the obscene luxury of thinking about longevity, while they are just trying to get by. I usually add a gratuity of 25%.

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You know, I get the feeling (given the prices we see on products out of India) that the gross margins these online pharmacies are getting on the product are pretty low. I really doubt that they are making 50% gross margins when they sell a generic drug like rapamycin / sirolimus to us at $1.00 per mg. So if they have to reship, they’re losing money, and these are already very poor people.

So, as much as I would like to have a reshipped product - I’m not sure its reasonable to expect these guys to eat the cost of our customs agents seizing a product.

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Not sure what to tell you, the source I use reships :man_shrugging:t2:

I’m sure there are ones that do it, but those resellers are going to have to bake the cost of a certain percent of reshipments into the cost of the products for everyone then. It would suggest that the ones that do reshipments when a product is lost or seized probably have to have higher prices… have you looked at that?

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100% this. My DTC ecommerce company ships 25,000+ packages per year. If I refunded every customer whose delivery was mishandled by the USPS, I would go out of business.

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Priced were reasonable for the stuff I wanted to buy.

Yes, I know of 6 that will reship, and they all charge significantly more for the mandatory "insurance "

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I have a trip to India coming up soon. Are there certain pharmacies that carry Zydus, or is it common at all pharmacies there? Did you preorder it?

Or would they even carry Rapamune?

Sounds like a great opportunity to buy. I just don’t know if the local pharmacy would have it. Thx

You can contact some sellers here and arrange a meeting when you arrive. I am sure they would be happy to send the medicine to your hotel or meet you in person.

You can tell them what you want so that it is ready when you arrive. You can also negotiate a price and payment beforehand.

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I thought DHL required a prescription before shipping. I seem to recall reading such, and I think during COVID I tried using DHL and the shipment was seized/frozen/abandoned

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Don’t know, but I guess I’m about to find out…

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For shits and giggles, I just reminded myself what a month’s supply of Jardiance and Nexlizet would be at GoodRX prices (since there is no way insurance would cover for me). $550/month vs $30ish from India. So yeah, totally worth an occasional lost package risk (and I’ve had none to date).

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I just received a DHL customs duty invoice of $36.30 for a skin care product I ordered from France recently. I didn’t think I was going to have to pay anything until I opened my mailbox today. My purchase came to approximately $150 USD.:frowning:

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What % of the value is charged as customs fees?

I have friends in London and considered ordering from India to London, then shipping it to the US. Perhaps it’s not a good idea after all? Maybe London to Canada? US prices with GoodRx are really not bad after all the hassle. The problem is finding doctors willing to subscribe without forcing us to pay an annual membership fee for the service.

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It looks like around 15% of the actual product ordered which came to $121.16 USD. I paid about $30 in shipping. Here’s the breakdown on the invoice showing $17.99 of the total amount due as the import/export portion.

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That $17 processing fee is the internal DHL broker fee.

Had the vendor used DDP in the purchase process, that fee would have probably been $2 to $3. That is what our shipper charges and they move product through about 5 different transport companies, like DHL, USPS, UPS, etc.

One good reason to understand the difference between DDU and DDP.

The above example provided by @blsm is DDU

Logistics matters as more agencies look at the shipment, thanks to the shut down of de minimus.

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Thanks Steve! There’s so much to learn for everyone I suppose.

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