Help needed to purchase kegging equipment and shipping to Australia

Hi Everyone,

I live in Sydney Australia and joined this great forum to read what other people outside Australia are doing, and the US seemed like a great place to begin as you guy's are probably several years ahead of the Aussies with equipment etc.

I am relatively new to home brewing and am now going to start kegging, I have most of what I need, of which some was purchased in Australia as well as from the US, but there are several items I still need to complete my parts list and build my Kegerator.

Now to my problem
I am looking to purchase a Tower, tap and a few other bits and pieces and want to purchase them from Beverage Factory, partially because they have some very good prices, but also I can get everything I need from the one place to save on shipping. (Why not get them in Australia you ask, because I would be paying just over double the price of what it costs shipped from the US and still have Aus shipping costs on top) The problem I am having is that Beverage Factory will not ship outside US (something about warranty apparently) and whilst there are other stores that will ship internationally, they are either a lot more expensive (for either parts or shipping or sometimes both) or they only have some of the things I am after.

I am hoping someone may be able to provide me with any ideas as to how I may be able to perform this transaction, is there a company or person who would be willing to accept a parcel on my behalf and forward it on to me (obviously I would pay the shipping charges which would probably be through USPS).

Any advice or assistance anyone can offer will be gratefully accepted and I thank you in advance for your help.

Yours In Beer

Geeze, be careful man is my only advice. People on here are pretty cool, but the thought of having hundreds of dollars of equipment delivered to a strangers house in another country sends a shiver up my spine. Would you really be saving that much by the time you payed shipping twice?

Hi Bottlebomber,

Yes it bothers me a little placing that much trust in a stranger, but the problem I have is that all the stuff here in Aus is either coming from China (so its cheap rubbish) or coming from the US in which case the seller is taking his cost + shipping and then adding his markup which I have seen in a lot of cases is 100%+ and then I have to pay shipping which they then add a little bit more onto that cost as well.
A SS 3" double faucet tower in the US is $100 + shipping the same thing is not even available in Aus only cheap chrome towers which I have seen and they're pretty ordinary (Chinese made)
So as you can see I'm pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place

But thanks for the concern.

G-Rant said:

But thanks for the concern.

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I'm not saying it can't be done.. Personally I would see if maybe one of the Mods was willing to do it. Next in line I would look at maybe some of the more reputable members. I have a couple people on here I would trust with something like that. Maybe try to make an acquaintance that you feel you can trust.

You might try Browndog.

He lives near San Diego so shipping to him should be low.

He has a commercial shipping account so he can get it to you cheaper than the rest of us.

He also just resold 100 Better Bottles and everyone was happy with him.

Sounds like a good idea, I might see who replies, maybe one of the Mods might reply saying they would be willing to help or at least can recommend someone or a company they might know, I have heard there are companies that do this sort of thing based in the US, but I have read some reviews and some of them have been pretty bad and the shipping costs are pretty high.

But I guess all I can do is ask the question and see what response I get.

And they call Australia "The Lucky Country".........Pfft, not if you want to buy decent brew equipment at respectable prices it ain't. lol

Thanks bleme, I will see if I can get in contact with Browndog and see what he thinks, thanks for the pointer, I appreciate it.

G-Rant said:

Thanks bleme, I will see if I can get in contact with Browndog and see what he thinks, thanks for the pointer, I appreciate it.

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It's easy to recommend someone else but I was pretty impressed by Browndog. That deal could have gone all different ways of bad but he held it together. Not many people could fill that many orders that fast without a single complaint.

morebeer.com does ship internationally, but i don't know how much it costs. i just inquired about having something sent to europe and got this response:

Thank you for the interest in our products. We ship orders internationally using USPS Priority Mail in most instances. If you would like to formulate a quote you may do so by using our shipping calculator on our website. You will need to first have an account set-up, and then you can log-in and use the shopping cart to view the different shipping options and their associated costs. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.

assume they would ship to oz but dunno how much it would cost... free to ask though. by the way, i bought my kegerator parts in the us and had a friend ship them to holland. i specifically asked them to NOT include the packing list and invoice so it didn't look like an international order, but they did, and dutch customs opened the box and frigging taxed me on the stuff!

Thanks for your input guy's, and thanks for your response dinnerstick, (I will certainly have a look at morebeers website). I think I solved the problem, I was on the Aussie Home Brew forum and found a thread about someone who used a freight forwarding company in the US to get stuff sent here in Aus. It was from last year so I took a chance and PM'd the guy and low and behold he responds about 5mins later, he told me who he used so I had a look on their site and I can even get the stuff shipped to Oregon and pay no sales tax. All up with frieght to Oregon plus their cost ($8.50 for 1 parcel) and shipping to Aus its actually costing me about the same amount I was going to pay with another company who will ship direct, but whose prices are more expensive. An added bonus is it will cost me about the same amount to get it shipped from Oregon to Aus with TNT Express (2-4 days) as what I was going to pay to go through USPS (2 weeks+) so it seems to have solved my problem and I now have a US address to get stuff shipped to and then forwarded on to me whenever I want.
So thanks again for the advice, it's very much appreciated, this is why I join forums, somewhere, sometime, someone has tried to do whatever it is your trying to do.