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Travel Bug Hell

Twthmoses

By Twthmoses
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Twthmoses

Twthmoses

Posted
Posted

I like the idea of a travel bugs very much, but I cant believe how hard it is to get hold of these in Europe.

 

First Groundspeak don’t ship international???!!? What the is up with that?? (btw why on earth does the billing info have all nations under billing countries, when they don’t ship to these anyway??????)

I’m not impressed at all by Groundspeak! In fact they are useless to me, as they don’t sell anything to me:)

 

They nicely list 14 other sources to buy the travel bug in 8 countries. Lets just break them down one by one.

 

Assuming that if Groundspeak shipped international you would add say $5 for shipping and handling. So a packed of 10 bugs would cost $47.50

 

As I am from Denmark, I of course first target the Swedish and German ones.

 

http://www.GeoShop.se (Sweden)

Though an easy site, want an outrages 555 kr (Swedish Kroner I assume – I danm well not hope its Danish Kroners!) for 10 bugs, which comes to roughly $74.15.

5000Km closer and $27 more…. No thank you!

On top of that they don’t have them in stock.

 

www.trekking2000.de (Germany)

Have them in stock, and there site seams a little more pro than the Swedish one. However any pro’s you might have about this place quickly vanish as the price comes up. No quantity discounts and at 6.99 EURO per piece and a staggering 10-EURO in shipping dooms this place right away.

79.90 Euro comes to $97 …………….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only in germany phuuffffff

More than double the piece of Groundspeak – be gone from my sight!

 

www.geocaching-onlineshop.de (Germany)

Good and easy site. Discount on a 10 pack, which will cost you 59.99 euro. Shipping and handling is 5.50 Euro. Making for 65.49 euro = $79.5. To expensive for me.

There order form, while at first seams rather lovely, becomes borderline close to stupid, cause once you filled in all the info, you are shipped off to Playpal just to fill in all the info one more time….

 

www.geoca ching.nl/shop.htm (Dutch)

???!? I have no clue what is going on, on this site?? You can tab in your quantity and some shipping info on the bottom, and it says thank you for you order??? No info or anything? Looking forward to seeing something in the mail B)

Anyway a 7-euro a piece and presumably some form of shipping add-on, we are looking at 70+ Euro. So at least $85 or more…. Hmm on to the next.

 

http://www.paravan.ch/geocaching/ (Swizerland)

I don’t know, just don’t feel ‘good’ on this site, don’t know what it is. Anyway at 11 CHF a piece and no quantity discount and 8.50 for shipping we are looking at 118.50 CHF = $93.5 … it does not really matter what I think about the site, as i’m not shopping here!

 

http://www.fingertech.co.uk/gps_geocaching.html (England)

Very messy site to order from. You have to tab in the order name yourself, including the price. Order form is stone age. Prices are listed with and without VAT, but how the devil do I know which one goes for me??

So the price is between 3.40 and 4 pounds, so for 10 it comes somewhere between $63-$74 + some form of shipping. I’d take the Swedish site over this any day!

My quest go on……..

 

www.geocacheuk.com/store.shtml (England)

A little heavy and confusing in the beginning, but very good order form and payment form. By far the best so far. If it weren’t for the 60.59 Euro ($73) total for 10 pieces it would be a winner. Even though there is discount for the 5 packs you buy them in and discount for two 5 packs, the 9-Euro shipping and handling weights heavy.

 

www.globalpositioningsystems.co.uk (England)

This looks very good. Very easy shopping and good order form. The first one that actually tries to resolve once email address. This is rarely done! Though some bugs also ex it requires a 5 cipher postal code. Well not all countries uses 5 cipher postal codes!!!

Beginning to look really good. Though no quantity discount, its only 3.14 pounds per piece (by European standards this seams to be cheap), making for 31.40 pounds ($57.5) for 10.

But… there is always a but. . a suicidal 16.5 pounds in shipping and handling kills this quickly.

Making for almost 48 pounds for 10 pieces = $87.5

Good site, bad price!

 

Out of European sites I go on to the rest listed on Groundspeak’s site.

 

www.sphere.net.au (Australien)

Ok site. You don’t feel so good about the order form however.

Anyway no discounted and $7.20 per piece ($8 for Australians) and an unknown shipping and handling, making for at least $72.

In the cheap end compared to all the sites I’ve looked at, but still completely out of whack compared to Groundspeaks own prices.

 

http://www.gpscentral.ca/ (Canada)

Little difficult. They sell in packs of 4. So I had to take 2 four packs and two single. Not really fair as the discount is surprisingly large in a 4 pack. You almost get 4 for the price of 3. So I only took 2 four packs = 8 pieces.

At $65.90 CAN ($50 US) for 8 this is not a bad deal. The best so far.

Whoever the shipping and handling is another deal. There is a horde of shipping ways here. Ex I would like to use the ‘Calgary pick up’ way (which is zero $) and the order form does not mind me doing so, whoever I doubt this will work. I guess I have to use the international way, which is small packet airmail for me (Western Europe), and that is $25 CAN or so (it is listed as estimates) which of course drives the price up quite a bit.

If you have to pay $25 CAN for shipping of 8 you might as well buy 10 from the Swedish site, as this is about the same price. However if you buy lots, like 100 or more this is by far the best price so far.

 

www.gpscitycanada.com (Canada)

Now we are getting somewhere!

Also sells in four pack, but give additional discount on 8 packs. An 8 pack for $47.95 CAN ($36.5US) is quite good I must say. Shipping and handling at $7.95 CAN rocks too.

Unfortunately, though I read on the site that they DO ship international, I was unable to change the Country for the billing address to anything other than Canada.

Site looks very good too. They sell a lot of stuff here, so do a search for the bugs in order to find them easy.

If I can manage to get it to understand ‘Denmark’ this site is the definitely best so far. Price, site, orderform everything!

 

www.gpscity.com/geocaching.com (USA)

This is the American equal of the above Canadian site. Equal good and I could enter Denmark as billing country. The price is even cheaper! $33.95 US for a pack of 8. This base price is actually cheaper then at Groundspeak themselves!!

However on top of this comes a $32.78 shipping and handling. Outrages … yes, but still this makes it the cheapest place overall so far to buy these suckers.

 

www.pboutdoor.com/index.php (USA)

Well this dies a quick death. $5.99 per piece and no discount. That is not even so bad compared to shipping. 109 US DOLLARS for shipping 10 pieces!!!!! (which they btw do not have in stock)

Goodnight!

 

www.steelcityhobbies.com/geocaching.shtml (USA)

Though they list that they sell bugs, I was unable to figure out where to actually buy them????

 

A sum up.

If you intent to buy a lot. Go with Gpcity (USA or Canada). They are cheap in price, and a nice site, and while there shipping is outrages it will level out the more you buy.

If you intent to buy a few, well you are out of luck, if you don’t live in the USA. ALL and I mean ALL are hugely more expensive than the price listed at Groundspeak. Borderline close to stupidity prices.

 

One could actually fittle with the idea of buying a 1000 of these at gpcity, to sell them in Europe, for a reasonable price and still make money on them.

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Sparky-Watts

+Sparky-Watts

Posted
Posted
That sucks. You could alway hook up with some American and buy some thru them. I doubt that they would be in it for the money. If you know anyone in the US, see if they will buy them for you and ship them over.

 

F_M

I'd be willing to help you out on that. Email me and maybe we can work something out on it. B)

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Brogan

Brogan

Posted
Posted

Same here, I'll ship you whatever you need for TravelBug Tags, NYGO currently has a stock of tags for sale to members and we DO ship international, all you have to do is sign up as a member at the New York Geocaching Organization and we can set you up! BTW you are allowed to be a member, just not a voting member.

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janni93

+janni93

Posted
Posted
Same here, I'll ship you whatever you need for TravelBug Tags, NYGO currently has a stock of tags for sale to members and we DO ship international, all you have to do is sign up as a member at the New York Geocaching Organization and we can set you up! BTW you are allowed to be a member, just not a voting member.

Wow, that's way cool - when I last was in need for some bug tags and other Groundspeak stuff I had it sent to a friend in the States who brought it along a trip home to Europe - a pain in the a** for all of us...

I am waiting for my confirmation mail now :)

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Twthmoses

Twthmoses

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Same here, I'll ship you whatever you need for TravelBug Tags, NYGO currently has a stock of tags for sale to members and we DO ship international, all you have to do is sign up as a member at the New York Geocaching Organization and we can set you up! BTW you are allowed to be a member, just not a voting member.

Sounds very good. Where does one find them on your page? -and what is the price?

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welch

+welch

Posted
Posted
I like the idea of a travel bugs very much, but I cant believe how hard it is to get hold of these in Europe.

 

...

 

Assuming that if Groundspeak shipped international you would add say $5 for shipping and handling. So a packed of 10 bugs would cost $47.50

 

...

Wow that sucks!

 

Anyways, I do have a question, is UPS really only 5 bucks more for international?

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Twthmoses

Twthmoses

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Wow that sucks!

 

Anyways, I do have a question, is UPS really only 5 bucks more for international?

Yes it does.

 

The $5 is just a number, I dont know what it cost from there to here.

 

But I have send packs of CD's to the USA before for less than $5.

Even 1Kg 2-3 days air mail cost less than $10 from Denmark to the USA.

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welch

+welch

Posted
Posted
Wow that sucks!

 

Anyways, I do have a question, is UPS really only 5 bucks more for international?

Yes it does.

 

The $5 is just a number, I dont know what it cost from there to here.

 

But I have send packs of CD's to the USA before for less than $5.

Even 1Kg 2-3 days air mail cost less than $10 from Denmark to the USA.

Ill have to look into that more in the future :o . I've sent paperbacks to the UK, and Portugal via the post office and they were around $8 (for one book).

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goldensurfer

+goldensurfer

Posted
Posted

I (living in germany) bought three TBs on a dutch website Look here.

If you don't speak dutch (neither I do), write to goodiesshop (at) geocaching.nl in english. I ordered three travel bugs for 7 EUR each, without paying any shipping or something else - just 21 EUR. You'll get the bugs along with a bill which you pay

after the bugs arrived.

 

Have a nice day,

Ralf

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ZippySLC

ZippySLC

Posted
Posted

Re: pboutdoor.com

 

I'm sure if someone emailed me and asked me if I could get them a deal on whatever Geocaching stuff they wanted, I could certainly do a better job than what's listed on my website.

 

As far as shipping is concerned, my cart software still needs a few tweaks, expecially in the shipping calculation department.

 

So far as pricing goes, it's hard to discount much when (as dealers) we don't get much of a discount ourselves. I offer the Groundspeak stuff more as a service than as a way of making money.

 

I'll try to cut anyone as much of a deal as I can. Thanks for bringing this to my attention - I'll have to work on the shipping calculator a little more.

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ZippySLC

ZippySLC

Posted
Posted

The shipping calculator has been fixed and now represents a more realistic price for shipping. I am still working on adjusting prices and adding discounts for quantity orders and such.

 

I am always available via email (bruset@pboutdoor.com) to quote out prices. I'll try to help out the Geocaching community as best as I can. As I said, Groundspeak doesn't offer us much of a discount vs. retail prices, and we have to pay for shipping to get it in stock here.

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