Two users of PacMe in Singapore tell us how the shipping provider won their hearts with reduced shipping costs and excellent customer service.
Don’t get us wrong, we love Singapore for its amazing shopping, but it’s no secret that America is the place of plenty when it comes to value shopping. So bless the shopping gods for the shipping companies that provide us with US mailing addresses and then deliver our purchases right to our doorstep. There are lots of package forwarders out there: vPost, comGateway, 65daigou, and borderlinx, are just a few that target Singapore shoppers. “I think I’ve used them all,” laughed Michelle, a fellow online shopping aficionado, “but now I have found PacMe and am totally hooked.”
PacMe was launched a few years ago by longtime Singapore resident Ken Crouse and his uncle Randy Wilson in sales-tax free Portland, Oregon. “We launched our business into a crowded field of over 100 competitors,” says Ken. “I had been a customer of many of them over the years, and found that they all lacked two things: a true consolidation/repacking service, which is really how you save money, and customer service that can work from 10,000km away.”
It’s not uncommon that the PacMe repacking wizards can cut the billable weight in half, as you can see in the photo below. “Dimensional weight is the bugaboo of our industry,” says Randy, “and it is not very well understood. Simply put, if there is empty space in your box, you are probably paying for it!”
“I learned about dimensional weight the hard way,” says Michelle. “I once tried one of the competitors that advertised the lowest per-kg shipping rate to Singapore, but they didn’t repack properly, and I paid way more overall than what I would have at PacMe. I won’t fall for that again.”
Ken and Randy handle customer service themselves. The PacMe.com website design is efficient: every package has its own web page with photos of your items and a dedicated chat box to discuss any issues – that it frees up the owners to do what they really want to do. “The only reason to launch a business is to make customers happy,” says Ken. “It’s a boring day when we don’t delight at least one of them.”
Michelle, who was longing for her favorite comfort food from back home, can attest to that. “The customer service is ridiculously good. I mean, they bought me extra donuts on their account just because there was room in my shipment. Now who does that?”
Adds Vivien, another PacMe customer: “I was doing a renovation project and needed some odd-shaped items. Randy went to the store to check out how an item was packaged and advised me what sorts of things we could do to reduce the overall shipping cost. There were some items that just wouldn’t fit so PacMe’s owner Ken hand-carried those items for me on his flight back to Singapore. I was astounded!”
SPECIAL!
Sold? Good news: the wonderful people at PacMe are offering all Honeycombers readers a free account when you register with the promo code HONEYCOMBERS!
For more info, visit PacMe or email Ken directly at [email protected].
This article is sponsored by PacMe.
