How do I get stuff delivered when Amazon will not ship to my address in South Africa? [Solved]

Have you also been disappointed by Amazon when you decided to place that order and then found out that your great deal could not be shipped to your address in South Africa? 
The error/important message goes something like this: “Important Message: <<Your item name>> cannot be shipped to the selected address.  This item cannot be shipped to the address you selected. (Learn more.) You may either change the shipping address or remove the item by clicking Delete.”If you were like me, I screamed some loud swear words into the Universe… it didn’t help my shipping problem. but it did make me feel a little better :)

In my example, the original price direct from Amazon was the equivalent of R710 – I estimated about R100 to get it delivered to South Africa… plus unknown import duties and VAT.  As it turned out, my article didn’t attract any SARS import duty – just 14% VAT. 
So, if I was able to get it from Amazon, then my bill would have been R710+R100 (delivery) + R99 (14% VAT) = R909.

I then went on the hunt for alternative solutions which could bypass this problem.

I had heard of other sites that I could tell Amazon to ship to, then they would redirect the parcel to my South African address. 
One of these is MyUS.com.  There’s an initial membership fee of $10 (see here to compare membership options).  They take 10% (min $10) for the service fee (if paying by credit card).  Plus you pay for shipping to South Africa – I have heard their shipping rates are quite pricey – but fast.  Don’t ignore the SARS duties and taxes when it arrives in South Africa. 
So, if I was to get it from Amazon and ship it to MyUS.com, then my bill would have been R710+R100 (delivery to MyUS.com) + R93 (=$10 service fee) +R93 (=$10 account setup) + say R250 (shipping to SA) + R99 (14% VAT) = R1,345 (which is R436 more than getting it directly from Amazon.com).

Another local site is ImportItAll.co.za where you can search for the product in the USA and UK.  This site is run by the well trusted NGR computers team.  I was lucky enough to find my product listed on the web site and the price was R1,141 = R59 (delivery to Cape Town) = R1,200 which includes all SARS duties and VAT (which is R291 more more than getting it directly from Amazon.com).  Delivery takes 10 to 20 working days though  This beats MyUS.com in price.


Another local site is Have2Have.co.za which allows you to request any product – my product wasn’t listed on their web site, so I decided to ask them to source it and provide me a quote for the item. 
I used this page to request the item: http://www.have2have.co.za/getmethis.php?store=amazon and within 2 hours, the item was listed and ready to be ordered.
The price was R1,060 = R70 (delivery to Cape Town) = R1,130 which includes all SARS duties and VAT (which is R221 more more than getting it directly from Amazon.com). 

So, there you have it – 2 great options to getting items imported into South Africa – even when Amazon refuses to do so… and without bothering your family or friends abroad.

Note: when purchasing items outside of South Africa you will probably not be able to use the warranties from agents in South Africa – they will probably say that these are “grey imports”.

Installing Waze on an Android 2.1 phone [Solved]

So, I found an old Android phone and wanted to set it up with all my favourite apps, but I was upset when Waze wouldn’t install from the Google Play store – the app store told me that the app was “not compatible with your device” :(
Now, if my sense of direction was good then I wouldn’t need this awesome all to help me get around… so, I tried a bit harder and after a bit of Googling I found a link which mentioned a download for my specific phone: Freeware4Android:

I opened the browser on my phone and clicked on the link and the file download started.  When it was complete I clicked on it and (to my surprise) it started to install :)  After the celebrations I started the app and it installed fine!

 


Click here to download Waze for Android version 2.1: http://www.freeware4android.net/vodafone-845-device-1569/waze-get-15899.html

Blackberry Desktop Manager hangs in “conflict resolution” window [Solved!]

Further to my post “Blackberry Desktop Manager Sync Error 0x80040fb3 and 0x8004fceb [Solved!]”, I have found another workaround for a problem when the Blackberry Desktop Manager (version 7) hangs after syncing with MS Outlook - when the "conflict resolution" window is displayed but no actions can be taken – all mouse clicks are locked and do nothing.
The problem occurs when conflicts are found and the BDM app asks the user to decide which data to use for each conflict.  The user needs to click on each conflicting entry and tell the app which is the correct data to keep.  However, sometimes (no, most times) the app hangs (application is not responding) and no items can be selected – no further action is possible, except to kill the BDM app from the task manager :( 

This is very frustrating and luckily I think I stumbled on a simple workaround: close MS Outlook before launching the Blackberry Desktop Manager app – then launch the BDM app and start the sync process.  It should then work fine.  BTW, I also decided to sync calendar then contacts – not both at the same time.  Once your sync has been successful, you can then reopen MS Outlook again.

Let me know if this works for you!