gamarjoba This is the Tbilisi podcast covering life, travel and more in the country of Georgia. Brought to you by foodfuntravel.com expathub.ge and eat this tours.com in this episode we are talking about online shopping and how to get your parcels from abroad to your doorstep in Georgia. We talk about the different companies that you can use. We also talk about some of the things you need to look out for before you make your purchase. So take a listen and enjoy. Hello, hello, Hello. Welcome to another episode of the Tbilisi Podcast, a show about life and travel in Tbilisi and Georgia. I am your host, Meg. I run a website called foodfuntravel.com and I am here with my husband Tom. He has some websites too.

I do have websites. Experthub.ge and eatthisthistores.com.

You do do stuff on food, fun travel as well. You're a very busy man.

Yes, very busy. All the.

All right, so in this episode we are talking about online shopping and ways that you can get stuff in Georgia because there are some things that you'll discover when you turn up here in Tbilisi and you'll be like, where's that? And people go, not here.

Yeah, you just thought, of course I'll be able to get that. They have that everywhere. Oh, no, they don't have it here.

No. What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of something that you can't get here?

Halloumi was always the first thing that came to mind, but it literally just started appearing in Nakora, which is one of the corner store type places that.

Are all over the city. It could disappear again. We don't know if it's a permanent fixture.

These things, they suddenly appear like sweet basil suddenly appeared, Italian basil, and then it was gone as quickly as it first appeared and then hardly anywhere sells it. And Halloumi also. But I mean, people aren't really ordering cold food products off Amazon or whatever or off online shopping. We're talking about more electronics and sort of things. I think one of the other things is that, like, there may be a version of the thing that you want here, like a certain type of cable or electronics or whatever, but it might not be a very good version of it and it might be about double the price of just buying it on online.

True.

So that's the other thing here. It's not that nothing is available, but it's just that certain things you think might be available just aren't.

I have to say, I actually have Been really impressed with how much stuff has become available in Tbilisi in the last couple of years since we've been, you know, visiting and living here. Basically in the beginning I would have been like, no, a lot of those sort of foreign products and stuff like that. No, you can't get that here, you'd have to order it in. But more and more I'm finding that if you do ask around in the Facebook groups either some locals have started to do like for example, previously to get peanut butter you had to buy like there was some like really expensive, not so good American brand that you could occasionally find in Agro Hub, I think.

Yeah.

And now there's like local people making pictures. Peanut butter. You can get peanut butter from Bagel Inn in particular. They do a nice crunchy peanut butter. So foreigners and locals have actually started to be like, what do we actually need in Tbilisi and can we actually make it here? So some of these things you'd be very intrigued to find out you actually can get here.

But those sorts of products are one thing because food stuff, you know, you can just get the food and you can make it, but you can't make replacement parts for your laptop that easily. Unless you are some crazy electronics factory that's licensed to do whatever they're supposed to make.

Or if you're after a particular brand of things. For example, like for Isaac, I like to get, you know, there's certain brand.

Son because I'm sure a lot of listeners don't know him personally.

For our two year old, you know, like I like to order in maybe like some Wiggles or bluey stuff which is a bit more obscure. I actually have bought bluey stuff here, but it was very random find.

Yeah.

So it's all sorts of things.

Either way you're not going to have full access to everything in Georgia and that is going to be solved by some of the stuff that we're talking about today.

Yes. So what you can do is you can do your online shopping and then you can use a third party company that will send to. You can send the product to this address. So when you sign up with these companies, you will be given an address in that country and then the product will be sent there and then they will forward it to you here in Georgia. That's how it basically works.

Yep. So forget all of this stuff where you're paying huge, huge fees by putting in your actual address on Amazon and then them trying to figure out how to get it to you. You just put in a U.S. address on Amazon.com, comma, and it goes to the U.S. address and the local shipping company figures it out.

Yeah, because online shopping is becoming more of a popular thing as us, you know, millennials in particular don't doing any face to face exchanges with anyone in any possible way.

Well, yeah, I think it was a popular thing 10 years ago. So we're sounding like we're massively out of date even saying phrasing it like that. Have you heard of online shopping?

I'm just saying how much millennials don't want to deal with people has made online shopping expand quite dramatically.

I think it's also significantly convenient. I went out to try and get someone a birthday present here a month ago and I walked around the mall for, I don't know, hours, for literally like two hours, and I found nothing. If I'd gone online and I'd been able to go online and do it in advance, it's convenient. I would have just found something in like 20 minutes and then it would be delivered to my door.

Maybe you wouldn't have burnt off those walking calories.

I don't think it was worth it. The mall is not that exciting that I want to spend that long walking around finding nothing and achieving nothing with my time.

Yes.

Come on.

So there is the convenience. So if you are ordering something. So basically we're mostly going to focus on USA Today. I will explain USA Today Today. I am talking about USA Today space. Pause, pause, pause Today. USA Pause, pause, pause. Today. The day. I am recording.

You're running your words because you're an Australian. It just. I thought you're talking about the magazine US State Today. And I was like, how are you getting them to deliver stuff here?

No. Oh, magazines is a whole.

We're just gonna be talking about the USA Today in this podcast subscription.

Magazines Today. That's not a thing. I'm just guessing today, but the majority of people will probably be ordering stuff from usa. I will discuss some of the other countries as we get into the particular companies that I'm focusing on today.

But there we go. Long enough. Pause, insert that comma, let people hear the comma.

Sorry. But yeah, that mostly in the whole process I will be referring to getting stuff from the United States and sent here. And if you want to look deeper into some of the other countries, then you can look at the terms and conditions.

Yeah, we can mention some stuff though as we go along. Let's see how we go.

So how does it work? What you do is you choose your preferred carrier and set up an online account. Either Via, you know, your desktop. They have, like, you know, websites, or some of them do actually have apps that you can install and you can log in.

God, we really are getting futuristic now. We're talking about online shopping apps, by the way. We're not 60 years old or something here. I don't know what's going on with this. We're talking about this stuff as if it's just been invented.

All I said was that millennials don't like dealing in person. Person contact. So we're more up for online shopping than any other generation.

Sure, sure, I'll accept.

I can't even get your parents to, like, do anything online because they're scared that the criminals are gonna steal their credit card information. They won't even put their card information into the computer.

We're joking about this. On the day that my Facebook ad account was hacked.

So, you know, don't tell your parents.

That no bad stuff happens online.

Okay. Anyway, yes. So you catch up with the modern folk, and you install the dog, the young people. The people, and you install an app or you use a computer on your desktop and you register for an account. Okay.

With the. With the slappy buttons that you press with your fingertips and they make the words appear on. On the flashy bit.

Something like that.

Yeah. I think that's how laptops work.

Yep. So once you set up an account, then you will be given a local address, and this will include a code that is specific to you. So this is how they track your packages. So it'll usually be located at the end of, like, address line one. Or maybe code will be your address line, too. So you need to make sure that this code is definitely a part of your address. Otherwise they won't know how that is yours, because it is one big place. They have a. You know, just a shop front in a place. All these packages get delivered to the one place, and if that code is not there, they have a really hard time finding you, and it can just disappear.

The warehouse has a U.S. address. You put your code into that U.S. address. When you put that into Amazon, so.

You use your name. You'll have a US Address with the code. They'll even have, like, a contact phone number if you like. Some places you have to put that in. Everything is sent to Delaware, which we will discuss shortly. Pretty much every address you will get will be Delaware in the United States. But anyway, once it's shipped and you receive your tracking number from the store that you purchased from online, you log into the carrier's website, add in the tracking number to their system, you declare the package as well. So what is it, how much does it cost, in what currency? That sort of thing. This is actually really important. You have to actually declare everything that comes into the country. Also, I do have to be really specific with this. If you do purchase something that is 300 gel or higher or of a weight of 30 kilos or higher, you will be subject to customs fees. So we've got customs duty tax and we've got VAT tax. So it depends on what you're purchasing, depends on what additional taxes will be attributed to your parcel. Fun times, huh?

VAT is 18% and that's pretty straightforward. That's basically applied to everything that's over the customs limit. That's it. But then other sorts of customs duties. It depends on where you're importing from and what sort of actual item it is. Certain items are exempt. I believe electronics is one of the main ones that has 0% customs duty, but some other items are not. And there is a list online, but I don't know off the top of the head.

Yeah. So this is why with certain stuff like this, you do need to just jump online and have a look for yourself. Because we are not.

Weird list. It's like a weird list of like, you know, this exact type of something has duty and then the next thing that's very similar, but isn't that doesn't. There's like a website portal for this. But whatever.

But let's say, you know, you're ordering some multivitamin pills or you're ordering some, you know, keep everything small and light and cheap and we'll be fine.

That's what we want. Just. Yeah, we just order loads of stuff that's under 300 gel. And don't order in the same consignment if don't order 10 items at once that all come in the same package, because they will be taxed as one item and you will definitely pay tax on all of it.

Yeah. If you just buy a whole bunch of little items and think, oh, but they were only like $10 each. If they all turn up to Georgia in the same consignment and they're over 300 del, you pay tax on the.

Total value of everything.

Yes. The transportation fees and the cost of the items.

Yeah.

So keep that in mind. This is something really important to actually take note of in busy times like Christmas, because luckily we actually didn't get hit with customs and I thought we were going to, but flights got delayed and things didn't come. And so if things all come at once, then they all come at once and there's no fighting that. It is what it is. So just, just be wary of the space you have between sending parcels with these companies.

And then you have to pay that tax. If you get caught with that before they'll release your items. And you can do that through the websites that are running this. Right. They allow you to do that. But you have to have a tax id.

You do have to have a tax id.

If you've just turned up here and you haven't registered yourself with the revenue service, you will not be able to import goods over 300 Larry. And the second you import something that is over 300 Lari, that you'll never get that until you've registered. So that is a thing. And then you've got to pay the tax.

Super fun. Anyway, keep it, keep it on to 300 and you're super good. So once your parcel has been sent from its origin from, you know, whatever country on its way here, you'll be advised of the cost for the delivery. So you'll generally either you'll find this online where you'll be like, this was weighed and this is how much you have to pay us in order for us to give you your parcel once it arrives in Georgia. You can pay for this online using a Georgian bank card. So you can do it online or in the app. If you just put your card into the system and just top up your balance, you can also pay using the pay machines around the city. So if you don't have a Bank of Georgia or TBC or Liberty or whatever bank card, you can use the pay machines around town. If you haven't spotted them yet or you haven't actually been to Georgia yet, There are pay machines around town where you can pay for your. You can pay for your electricity bill, or you can pay for your phone bill, or you can pay for your parcel delivery bills.

Loads of other random stuff. They're just these big machines that look a bit like ATMs, but they're like freestanding ATMs with big touchscreens and all the different banks have them. So if you go to the one that's orange, that's the bank of Georgia one, the blue ones, the TBC one, things like that.

Yep.

So pretty straightforward. They have them at the banks as well. So inside the banks where the ATMs are, they normally have a couple of these pay machines.

Yeah. So if you just want to get something sent over and you're not really set up yet. Then it's just really easy. You just go put in cash and you put in the details and then bada boom. You've paid for whatever you need to pay for. Some banks also do have setups in their online applications that you can pay through that. So, for example, I pay for camex and USA to Georgia through my bank of Georgia app. It basically just tells me when I have a. It's like, you owe this amount to blah, blah, blah. And it goes, would you like to pay now? And I'm like, yes, please. And then it pays the bill for.

Me and I do that with utilities. That's great. So, I mean, yeah, people still use these pay boxes to pay utilities and things. And we did when we first got here initially, but now everything's set up through the bank. It literally just tells you you have like 100 lari debt on the electricity. Can you pay it, please? And you just click a button saying yes, please and put the amount in and then it does it. It's great. Very convenient.

Yeah. So I think Kiwi post and we're going to talk about all the different companies in a little bit. Kiwi post, I think is tbc. So certain ones are with certain banks. So you can't necessarily pay for all. All of these different companies through your particular bank. So it's. You might want to think about that and have a look at the different details if that's something you're wanting to do. Because if you use a company that doesn't work with your bank, then you can't pay that way.

Yep.

All right, what happens next? So your happy little parcel arrives in Georgia and you will be advised by SMS and email once your parcel is here. This will also include instructions on how to claim your parcels. So this is often like a code that you get. So a couple of them will be like, this is your post box code here and you go. And that's your very specific code here in Georgia. And you go and can put that code in and it'll be like, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot. Finding your packagesa to Georgia has a barcode that you can easily scan, which I love. It feels very futuristic. You go up and you're like, beep and it scans and it's like you have 20 packages. Because it was prime day, Meg, and you spent a fortune.

The USA to Georgia office near our apartment is actually very, very, very facility. You walk in there and everything's like smooth surfaces and there's just, yeah. Computer screens and you just scan your thing and then something happens in the background. I mean, we all know that there's just a person running around back there, but it seems like there's a magical robot powered system going on behind the scenes.

It does seem very futuristic.

Yeah, yeah. And then suddenly this drawer just pops open by itself magically and all your stuff's there. Yeah, no, it's one of those things where, yeah, the head's above the water and it looks like it's normal, but underneath the feet are scrabbling around like crazy and you just don't know what's going on. It's like a duck.

So, yeah, you can pick up your parcel in person using the codes that you're given at your chosen location. So you should have chosen which branch you want your parcel sent to when you set up your account. So a few of the places have different branches around the city and there might be one that is closer to your home that you want to choose rather than having to schlep your way up to the other side of town to go and get your parcels. Yeah, you can also choose to have your parcel delivered to your door, which I like to do when I'm really lazy. Every company has a courier service and it'll take. You have to pay an additional charge to have it sent to you and that generally takes one to two business days, depending on how busy they are and whatnot. And then the courier will come and give you a call and say, I'm can you come and meet me, I have your parcels. And you'll go and get your parcels at your house.

They love to turn up at the most inconvenient moments though, so, you know, going to pick it up yourself if you want to walk is probably better normally.

But you can also choose to use a Glovo courier service. So if you can't wait the couple of days to get your parcel through the company's courier service, you can jump on your Glovo app, which is a.

Food and delivery app, by the way, for those people who haven't lived here before. I mean, I know it's in Spain and a few other places, but it's not everywhere.

Yeah, it's like a doordash sort of thing or, you know, wherever you come from, people understand doordash. Right.

I've never heard that said ever, so I've got no idea.

Pick stuff up for you and bring it to you.

I've never heard it phrase as a door dash. Is this an Australianism?

No, it's an American thing. I think it's called Doordash.

All right, well, so, yeah, there you go. I'm out of touch. As I said, I still think a laptop's a flashy screen with a slappy board.

With a slappy board.

So I don't know really what anything is.

So, yeah, you can send a courier. If you want to get it, like, faster, you can send a courier to go and pick it up, give them your details, they'll go and collect it and then they'll bring it to your door. So you can use Glovo for that. I think also Yandex Delivery does that as well, but I don't use the Yandex app, but that is also an option. And then you have your parcels and you feel like it's Christmas and you open them up and you're all happy for that little bit of dopamine that buying new things gives you. And then you feel, you know, lost inside once again and you turn back to your screen to go and buy yourself new, happy things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Consumerism is terrible.

Yeah.

We're promoting it for some reason, but, you know, sometimes you need some of the stuff that we buy. Maybe 20% of the stuff we buy is important.

The rest are just my little dopamine hits.

Oh, we just got a bunch of Mary Sharp's hot sauces delivered and I've already had some today. Brilliant.

Oh, did you have some without me?

Habanero mango hot sauce was really good. You know, you went out for brunch and I stayed at home, so I got hot sauce club, Ladies brunch club. There you go. There's an ad for you. It's not really an ad. It's just Meg's girls group that turn up together. It's not. Not a commercial thing.

No, no.

Just for fun.

Yeah. The last Friday of every month, we have brunch club together where a group of ladies get together. Everyone's invited, as long as you.

As long as you're a lady.

As long as you're a lady. Yeah, yeah. So that's. I was at brunch club and I missed out on Mary Sharps. So as I mentioned before, all of the addresses in the USA are based in Delaware. This is because there are no state or local sales taxes in Delaware, and as such, sales tax exemption certificates and reseller certificates are not applicable. So they're all there in one happy family.

I mean, it basically means you can get stuff cheaper in Georgia to Georgia. Then you can buy the same product in the US to your house in the Us. Unless you happen to live in Delaware.

Exactly.

Because as long as it's under 300 jail, you're paying zero percent tax to get it here. Zero percent tax in the US and you're paying about $8 per kilo or $7 per kilo to get it here.

Yep.

So if it's like less than 1 kilo and all of that other stuff, you're probably paying less.

These are some of the things you need to weigh up when you look at using these companies. Because, yeah, sometimes you can get, as we said, it's like, it's good for getting products that we can't get here. But also there's just like, is it just maybe cheaper to get exactly what I want, the brand I want, rather than the kind of version they have here?

Yeah. So how long does it take? Because we've described the whole process, but how long does that process actually take in reality?

Okay, so generally they like to say that it will take one to two weeks to arrive. Now it does depend on the company that you use. So for example, let's, let's just list the major companies that we're gonna talk about today. So of course we are going to talk about USA to Georgia. I am going to leave USA to Georgia last because they're currently speaking, you know, January 2023, they're a little bit of a complicated matter. There's a little bit of litigation going on. I'm leaving them till last. Basically read the fine print when it comes to USA to Georgia. But they're a very popular one people use. Another one is Kiwi Post, another one is Camex. You can also use Getit. G Inex is another one, Postalon. There's quite a few that are popping up now. But the major ones, if you ask any foreigner living here, they probably use Camex, Kiwi Post and USA to Georgia the most. So USA to Georgia, their delivery from the United States, they actually have daily flights. So this is why they tend to be a little bit more popular because you get your stuff a bit faster. So they have five flights per week. So the average terms of delivery, they say it ranges from 7 to 10 days maximum to get your stuff with USA to Georgia.

And of course, if you've got a, like an Amazon prime account or something. Although I know we're sort of. Everyone wants to boycott Amazon a bit more these days.

But Bezos is a hazar explicit language to insert here.

Yeah, but let's say you are using that. You've got Amazon prime, you've got like fast Delivery to Delaware, blah blah, blah. And then fast delivery with USA to Georgia. I think we've had stuff get here in less than a week or about a week before. That's probably the record.

Yeah, you just got to catch it like just before that flight takes out.

Yeah.

And if it's at the right time, you get it pretty speedy.

If it's not super busy and there's not a massive backlog of whatever are going on.

Yeah.

Then yeah, within a week is possible with USA to Georgia. I've never really had it that fast with any of the other companies.

I don't think Kiwi Post didn't specifically say how long their postage takes except for from Turkey where they say three to four days for Turkey. They didn't want to explicitly say from the other countries because Kiwi Post in my experience are consistently delayed.

But we mainly use them for England.

Yeah. I'm gonna do the breakdown of all the companies and where we get stuff from. Camex, they send every Tuesday and Friday and get. It sends parcels. So parcels received Monday through Wednesday will be sent on Thursday. Thursday to Sunday will be sent on Monday. So they send parcels on Monday and Thursday. So that's the difference between a lot of the companies. Most of them generally only send once or twice a week. USA to Georgia sends five times a week. So they're just a little bit more speedy. Speedy on that.

Yeah. As you said, different countries that we're going to discuss. USA to Georgia only does USA to Georgia, which is useful if you want certain things, but if you want other things, maybe not. For example, if you're buying certain types of electronics that are not multi regional.

Then they won't work here voltage.

So I mean it's fine for things like laptop stuff because obviously that's all multi voltage everywhere now. But like let's say you're buying some nice lamp, a nice lamp for your house and it turns up from the US and it's 110v.

I think someone bought themselves recently like a nice new hair straightener or something and ordered it over and basically almost blew up their socket.

Yep. At which point. Yeah, you need to order from Germany. If you want it with an EU socket on it, we order from Germany. Normally if you don't care about the socket and you just want 240 volts, then order from the UK is normally easy.

Yeah. Electronics from the United States have to have a converter in order to use them. Here the voltage is different so you also need to have the watts.

Is it the watts converter Step up converter.

Yeah, yeah.

Voltage.

1.21 gigawatts.

Yeah, yeah. It's a gigawatt thing. Sure.

Yeah, sure.

Why not the uk, though, of course. I think the VAT rates, they're like 20% now, so you're paying stupid amounts of tax. So that's the other annoying part is with us, there's no tax. Uk, you're paying tax and you can't really get that tax back.

So much to consider.

Yeah. So many options. And then we haven't even started talking about China yet, so, you know, and.

All we're just trying to talk about when it comes down to it, is you've had a bit too much wine, you get on Amazon, you do a little drunky shopping and you just want to get some fun things delivered and you don't want to have to think about all this stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So many things to consider.

Beds and whatnot. Cat beds. Bed the shape of a burrito.

You want a cat. Bed the shape of a burrito.

Who wouldn't?

Oh, I mean, I don't have a cat at the moment.

Yeah. But we could.

Yeah. So we better get it in advance, just in case.

If it's Prime Day special. Yeah, well, it could never be that price again.

Yeah, yeah, yep. Never until the next special.

All right. So, yes, as we said, USA to Georgia Do. USA to Georgia. Kiwi Post. If you're wanting to purchase things from usa, uk, China and Turkey, you can use Kiwi Post for camex. They are usa, Germany, Turkey and England as well. Get it. Which is the new one people are talking about. Us, China, England and uae.

Dubai, which is good because Dubai has zero percent sales tax, I think. Although I think they're changing that soon or have recently changed.

There's been discussions about that.

So, yeah, low taxes currently, that might have just changed or be changing soon. But yeah, and it's close. It's quite close to here, so that's also very convenient.

Yeah, yeah. And postal on usa, Germany, Turkey and China. So these are the major places that you're looking at ordering stuff in from. I heard today that apparently inex, you can order stuff from Greece. I didn't know this. I haven't looked into it.

I mean, basically there's about five things that I can get from Greece that I can't get from anywhere else. Mainly fancy olive oil and halloumi.

Yeah.

And dried oregano. Fresh, proper dried oregano, rather than the crappy stuff you get in packets. So who knows, Maybe our Greek listeners can call in and Tell us some other things that we should order from Greece. Yeah, say call in, but obviously we don't have a phone number. Please don't call us. Send us a Facebook message or something.

Yeah. So also based on. I know this is like called the Tbilisi Podcast, but people living in regional areas of Tbilisi or in different cities because it's, you know, we talk about Tbilisi and Georgia might want to consider the company that they use because not all of them do regional delivery, nor do all of them do like delivery outside of Tbilisi. So USA to Georgia, you get eight locations within Tbilisi. I think this is a mixture of locker boxes and actual Tbilisi locations. So I think they actually have a few major branches where, as we said, you go up there.

Futuristic farcode scanning. Fun.

Yes. A few of the mothers are like lock boxes where it gets sent to this particular lockbox and it's a similar thing. You put in your code and you can get it out of a particular locker. So that's why they have eight branches around town, because I think they also include the lockboxes in that they express courier. And also you've got to look at the prices of the couriers. Yeah, I'm not getting into that.

I mean, but really, like, let's not nickel and dime everything because what we're talking about is a few, a few dollars here or there. We're not talking about like one of them's very expensive.

Six of Angel. Depends on how much your parcel.

Yeah, it doesn't matter. They're all moderately affordable and whatever.

But USA to Georgia do offer regional courier services in almost all cities and villages of Georgia. And it is available Monday through Friday. So you can order from USA to Georgia. And no matter pretty much where most places you live, you can get it actually couriered to you for a price. Kiwi Post, they deliver in Tbilisi from 7 gel and regions from 10 jel. But they're not really specific on the regions that they actually deliver to. So you'd have to ask them Camex deliver all over Georgia. But you need to see what zone you're in based on the price and it's all zoneage. Jump on the website to find out. But yeah, so just because you don't live in Tbilisi doesn't mean you can't necessarily use these services. So that's something to remember. You don't have to be like, oh, next time I'm in Tbilisi, I can pick this stuff up. You can actually figure out from them if you can get it delivered to you. If you live in Kutaisi for Example.

Yeah.

So the benefits of using the different companies now, as we said, Kiwi post is a really good one because we can actually get stuff from the UK and they've recently started including Turkey in that as well. If someone's a bit of a Ikea fan, there's Ikea in Turkey. There's also a lot of like really cool stores that you can get stuff and. Oh, we found that when we were in Turkey the other month there was that Turkish delight place that made the really tasty sweets.

Oh yeah. And they deliver, they deliver.

So you know, if you're hankering for some Turkish delight, you can get it delivered from Turkey. The real stuff, three, four days and it's here. So, yeah, Kiwi post. As I said, I have had issues with Kiwi posts getting stuff delayed. They are pretty good with their customer service but at Christmas time they did avoid my emails.

Yeah, yeah, overloaded.

Yeah, overloaded. And I know it's, it's not fair. And there was strikes happening in the UK and it was a little bit.

It was partly delayed on the UK and it was very bad at the UK as well.

So because it was the lead up to Christmas, I ordered at the end of November and I didn't get it until the end of December. I know Christmas is a unique time and generally I usually say Kiwi posts from the United States is always pretty good. Kiwi post from the uk. I always expect it to be delayed.

Yeah.

So don't, don't try and order anything in a hurry. But it is good that you can get stuff from the uk. Camex as I said, order from United States, Germany, Turkey and England as well. But the thing I would pay attention to this is I noticed that they have different things like, so some things they weigh according to actual like weight of it and some things they do by dimensions. And this is the thing you need to be really careful of actually with every single company because they can either change their mind and be like, oh, by the way. And this is what the big problem with USA to Georgia is currently is they just changed and they didn't really tell everyone that if you don't change to this specific way of doing things, then we're going to weigh everything dimensionally and it's not going to be about how much it weighs on the scale. Now we all know how big Amazon likes to put tiny little things in great big boxes with lots of airy, puffy things around them. So if you want to pay that entire dimensional weight. Yeah, you can get caught out and end Up. And so USA Georgia is in a lot of trouble about this at the moment. I think there is a class action going on. So this is why they're talking about their cut down package service. And you need to read the fine print about this. So I think basically what happened a couple of months ago was that USA to Georgia changed their mind and said we're no longer going to do the weight of things like the heavy weight, like scale weight, unless you use our cut down service. So the cut down service is a paid for service. You have to pay additional money for it and they will actually take your parcel, unpack it and then repackage it so that it's cut down in a smaller parcel and then they will weigh that and ship it to you. If you don't choose to use that service and you don't want to pay the additional money, they will use the dimensional weight of the parcel and send it on just as it is. So I don't think this was either A, it either wasn't explained at all to consumers or B, it was explained very poorly. And now a lot of people are boycotting USA to Georgia because of, of this.

It's a big thing going on. But anyway, that's topical and that could all be solved by the time you listen to this.

But it is still a very important thing that you need to pay attention. Depending on the country that you're ordering from and whether or not they do dimensional weight or is it gross weight.

Is that, let's just say size versus weight.

Size versus weight, whatever.

If it's a big package, you've got a problem. If it's a small package, none of this even matters. And there's no point even talking about.

Because I ordered something small from Germany and it came in a big package. I didn't realize it would come in a big package. And it did because Amazon is stupid that way. And I paid like 30 gel delivery for this tiny thing that weighed nothing because they did it dimensionally because that's how they do it. So this is the downside of using these, these companies. You've got to pay attention. But honestly, most of the time it costs like 7, 8, 9, 10 gel per kilo to get it for dollars.

So you paid 30 US dollars in postage, not 30 gel?

No, no, no, I paid 30 US yeah.

Okay, now that's crazy. That's the problem.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

30 gel is like. Well, that's just a normal package really, because that's just any one kilo package is a replica.

To get this Tiny package here because it was in a big box, but it was really light. I was furious.

Yeah, that's quite crazy. But overall, I think aside from those annoying negative bits, we have to remember.

That I still use it all the time.

Most of the countries around the world and most countries we've lived in, unless stuff has changed significantly, you just use regular postage. They don't have these amazing sort of mail forwarding services. I don't know, maybe there are lots of other countries with this, but in the EU it's just like, you know, you order something and it comes direct to you via whatever the national postal service is or by a courier. And the actual couriers are super expensive. I mean, if you're using FedEx, oh.

My God, FedEx would cost a fortune. Insane. So I had to get like a new bank card sent from Australia or something like that. And so I asked my mom, one envelope, one tiny envelope with a bank card in it. And I asked mum to do it like FedEx or DHL because they've got like the extra levels of security of getting it here. And the prices were astonishing. Just something like 60 Australian dollars.

It was more. It was like $75. $75 to send one envelope from Australia to Georgia. So what we do now for everything, because there's no service direct from Australia is from Australia, they post it direct to the address in Delaware in the US and then the mail forwarder sends it from there. And this costs a fraction of the price. Cause it's just regular.

Although shipping from Australia to us is still a butt ton of money.

Well, in a big box and stuff. But if you're sending a letter, it's not a load of money and it's completely fine. And yeah, I mean it's the only reason you're getting packages from there is because it's Christmas presents and things. We're not ordering Australian products to get sent here. That would be completely ludicrous.

Disclaimer. We are just saying that it is an option. We're not suggesting that you should send your bank cards and private important documents through the USA to Georgia mail. You do that at your own risk. That's got nothing to do with us. But what are some of the things that you are allowed to ship? Because that's something that you might want to know.

Or more importantly, what are the things you can't ship?

Because, Well, I want to be just specific about certain things that you are allowed to ship. So you are allowed to ship, it says little amounts of food, I don't know what little is, but it just says little. Little amounts of food. And as we said, we've had Mary Shops delivered to us. I got a whole package of like, you know, skinny tortillas delivered to us.

This is just, I mean it's ridiculous. We're almost using this service just because we can at this point. When are you talking about this? Yeah, I got tortillas delivered.

Well, they're skinny ones.

Tortillas are actually relatively hard to get here and there's just a few brands of them and they're none of are corn, they're all wheat, which is fine, I don't mind wheat tortillas. But they're not good tortillas. No, we're getting sort of like the worst type of tortillas. It would be nice if someone opened up an artisan tortilla making shop here.

Yeah, people like to order like their favorite brand of cereal. I do order Cheerios to come over from the United States and they're light.

So you know, why not?

So yeah, some things like cereal, I do order Vegemite from the UK and Tim Tammy, that sort of stuff, you know, little amounts of food. Alcoholic beverages up to 4 liters. So you can't have any more than 4 liters. I don't know why you'd want to order alcoholic beverages.

They're heavy and there's loads of them here.

Yeah.

Apart from a few very specialist products, you can get almost everything you want here.

In that department you are allowed to ship non psychotropic medicines without prescriptions, up to 10 boxes.

That sounds like quite a lot of medicine.

It is, but that's apparently what you're allowed to send. And tobacco products of up to 250 grams. So I have seen people ask about getting particular ciggies here. Ciggies is cigarettes in Australian.

Is that spelling?

Yeah. Some people do ask about getting particular tobacco products here and you can ship up to 250 grams of that. The list of things that you can't ship is very extensive and it really is. Use your common sense. So you.

Guns. Can I get no guns. So frustrating.

No ammunition, no things like with a aerosol with compacted gas in them. There's a long list.

Explodey things, dangerous things, boom, boom out. Illegal things. Certain things are illegal here that maybe aren't in the U.S. so you know, consider that as well. Just because you can order it online in the US doesn't mean it's legal here. Maybe check that first if it's something a bit controversial.

Are you talking about gummies?

Talking about laced gummies, talking about certain types of illegal products that people ingest or smoke, I guess.

Yes, exactly. So there is a big list. Please use your common sense. And also if you are concerned about it, check the list that is on every single website of the company that you choose to use. You can also contact them. Most of these companies are actually really responsive through messenger on Facebook. Just shoot them a message and they might take a couple of hours to get back to you, but they will answer back in English. English is completely fine to contact them. You can also shoot them some emails and just ask any questions if you have any additional questions. And they are actually very responsive. So yeah, if there's anything you're concerned about, then just ask before getting it sent. Because I've got this one parcel sitting in the United States because I didn't read about the aerosol thing because I was pregnant and I was stupid and I didn't think about it. And now it's been sitting there for like three years just sitting there in the United States and they won't ship it.

So another top tip tip here actually is don't give your delivery address code to anybody because if people send you stuff, you will pay for it. And you don't realize they're sending you stuff and then they send you stupid stuff that you don't need or like massive packages that you don't want and then you pay like 30, $40 to get them in the country. Like. But I didn't want any of this stuff. Why did you send this to me?

Yeah, bless her. My mum once sent us a big in a care package. It was like a Christmas care package, but she put in a big chun of Nutella. I don't.

Which we could get here very easily.

Nutella store, it just sells Nutella. Bless her. Love you, mom. We didn't need you to ship us a giant jar of Nutella. So also ask if you are a friend or family of someone living or looking to live in Tbilisi and Georgia and you're listening to this podcast, ask them first what they can get here. Because a lot of people do assume there's a lot of things that we can't get here. There's a massive assumption that, oh, it's Tbilisi.

All we have here is cabbage and khinkali.

That's it.

That is not true. Definitely wine, but yes. So we have lots and lots of stuff here, but also lots of specialist things we can't get here. Like Mexican food, Mexican ingredients, very difficult to get. We have to order those. And Korean Ingredients a little bit tricky. So yeah. Anyway, we are hitting the 45 minute mark and I think we rambled on enough things that people can and can't get and enough ways to get them at this point.

Breaking it down. Breaking the episode down. Good news news. Yes, you can order stuff from abroad and you can get it here relatively easily.

Pretty much anything that's not huge and not too heavy and not too expensive is super easy to get here.

Yeah. Second note, make sure it's not too expensive, not too heavy and you'll be hunky dory. 3. Make sure that it's on the legal list of things that you can order in and. Oh yep. And make sure from the particular place that you're ordering from. Make sure with the company whether they do dimensional weight or weight Weight. Weight. I'm just going to call it weight weight.

Yes, actual weight.

Actual weight or dimensional weight. Check that before making your purchase. It doesn't make it fun when you're doing a, you know, a 3am I ordered some McDonald's on Glovo and I've had a bit too much to drink and I'm going to order that burrito bed shopping spree.

But don't order the burrito bed.

It's already.

We have too much stuff in our apartment. Stop ordering things. Don't order anything else ever. Unless I can eat it and then it's gone.

Oh, also a fun thing for people listening out there. It just doesn't have to be Amazon. There's lots and lots of different places that you can order from. I order from Etsy all the time. Pretty much any shop that has an online system you can order from. We say Amazon because it is the main one that a lot of people do happen to use to get stuff here. But you can basically order from any store and get it shipped here.

Yep, any store, anywhere. And as we said, including friends and family, just sending random stuff to the address for the warehouse in whichever country they are in.

It's just a bit more reliable than Georgia Post.

Oh, oh. We should have mentioned that right at the start.

Should have said that this.

The reason we're even talking about any of this is because sending anything with Georgia Post from abroad is completely insane. Don't do it.

What do they call it? A crapshoot. Is that a thing? Is it crap? Is the word crapshoot?

I mean that is definitely a phrase.

Okay, cool.

I'm not sure if a postal service should be described as a crapshoot.

No, but like sending something with it is a crapshoot like it's a. Like it might. I don't even.

Either way, you won't get it. It almost certainly won't turn up. It takes months. If it does turn up, it's very unreliable. Someone will leave a sticker on your door that you won't even see and then you won't even realise something's been delivered. And then two weeks later, they'll basically send it back to the person who sent it.

Literally. This is a way of tracking your package from the store all the way to your doorstep.

Yeah. Much better than using regular posts. So do that. All right.

Thank you for listening to this episode. I hope we didn't ramble too much.

Blah. We might have rambled a little bit.

We rambled a little, but yeah, just check the T's and C's and you should be all good. Yeah. Once again, thanks for listening. If you do have time, please leave us a five star review. That's it.

Yeah. And don't mention that we were just rambling too much.

No. Say we're succinct and informative.

Yeah. Yes. Very, very concise episode, this one. Definitely. No rambling or tangents. No weird stuff. Perfect. Five stars all round.

Love it. Love you. Thanks for listening. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Tbilisi Podcast. Connect with us@foodfuntravel.com TbilisiPodcast where you can find all relevant social media links, join our email newsletter and discover more about travel tours and expat services in Georgia. This show was brought to you by foodfuntravel.com, expathhub.ge and eat this tours dot com.