Introduction

I had a feeling that I’m not the only person struggling with buying new toys locally. Lets take my home country, Poland as example – new tech here is more expensive than in the west (logistics+higher VAT for electronics, duh). After thinking about it for a sec I figured out that I’ll help my dear readers on how to buy things way cheaper than you thought.

0. My own experience, skip if you respect your time

Buying technology in the land of Pierogi ain’t easy – taxes on tech are higher than in the west, used tech is getting sold for way more than its worth, tl;dr – life sucks.

But I found a workaround – German eBay. I was using eBay Kleinanzeigen previously, before these cheeky krauts decided that they’ll ban my account (as I was logging from Poland). Well, that sucked because that was the cheapest place to buy things, but regular eBay remained.

There I was able to get a lot of nice tech – since I’m a free software enthusiast I found interesting things there (PINE64 devices, libre/corebooted laptops etc.), and since I’m also investing way more assets than necessary in music listening I was able to find cheap headphones/dap’s/dac’s/amp’s there.

I think that’ll be applicable to other expenses too, such as clothes, vehicle parts, everything else you might like. Discounts in Germany are way better than in Poland (way less scammy, because our psedo “black friday” sales are a joke). We’ll, I had to take that one out of my chest first, now let’s get down to business.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t endorse using proprietary solutions, but since I’m also pragmatic – sometimes I need to. So… let’s go!

1. Parcel forwarding service

Germans are very hesitant with shipping abroad, so to cheat them create an account on the parcel forwarding service (in my case – forward2me, always worked for me but will not endorse them because they don’t pay me a cent!). There you’ll be handed over your address details, which propably consists of your name/surname, some random numbers and the rest of the parcel delivery address.

Then you’re set, at least for the beginning. Wasn’t so complicated, right?

2. Ebay side of story

Start with creating an eBay account and set your location to the same place of your forwarding service.

Then I recommend searching for auctions. Why? Because often in these you get the best offers, and can save hundreds of euros on a single purchase.

3. Whats next?

Now start looking! Abroad you’ll be able to find more rare equipment, and if you’ll be lucky enough you will win the auction and will get your new toy for cheaper than you thought possible.

If your bank is allowing you to create a free sub-account with Euro’s as the currency – please do, as by transfering money from your local currency to euro and then using it to pay will save you plenty of extra money (eBay/PayPal currency ratings are the scamiest thing I’ve seen like… ever). Do not use their conversion!

Then – keep track of your package, after it’ll be delivered to the forwarding service press the necessary buttons, then pay and wait for the time when the courier will deliver the package to you. The package may be processed for a day or two in the company warehouse, so sometimes you need a bit of patience.

Also – always check the delivery option in the listing you’re interested in. There’s a chance that the seller will offer you direct shipping to your home, saving you a bit of money which you would’ve spent on forwarding.

If you’ll use forward2me – don’t go for the fastest shipping, always pack for safety. You might wait a bit longer, but then you’ll receive your things in good condition + with original packaging.

4. Conclusion with some of my best findings attached.

I hope that you found something useful here! As a proof that the method is working I’m listing some of my best findings here:

As you can see – it may be worth to look for a bit 🙂