Getting Started
Many of the on-line shopping opportunities we’ve found are from US based sites. Often these sites are restricted to customers based in the US, and will only accept US based credit or debit cards. By connecting to our US servers, you will appear to be in the US, and have access to the store, but you will need to take care of the credit card and shipping.
Before you start
There’s a couple of things you will need before you can start online shopping in the US:
1) Sign up for a VanishedVPN account (if you don’t already have one)
2) You will need a credit card and US shipping address. The best way to get this is to sign up for a virtual debit card like USunlocked who specialise in enabling US online shopping. The best thing about using this service is that they will give you a virtual address in Oregon, which means that you will not pay any GST on purchases (as the state of Oregon is GST free). That potentially adds another 9% to your savings. Once you have your card, load it up with US$.
3) If you are buying physical goods, you will need to sign up with a service that enables you to ship (and insure) your purchases. There are a few of these. We recommend Opas (who are also partnered with USunlocked). They provide you with a shipping address in the US. When it arrives there, they will send it via the courier of your choice, with the insurance that you choose (prices vary depending on the courier, insurance, and weight / dimensions of the parcel). They will even refund any GST if you have been charged by the retailer.
Shop til you drop
Now you are all set and ready to go. Just connect to our USA VPN servers before going to the site you want to visit (apple.com , amazon.com etc), and you will be magically presented with the US prices (you may need to clear browser cache / cookies first for this to work).
We will be publishing deals as we spot them, and remember to use the shopping section of our forums
One last point. We are proud to be an Australian business, and we do not support using Geounblocking to take business away from other Australian businesses. However, in the case of global businesses (such as Apple) who are trying to have one over on non US residents, we think its fair that we should be treated equally.
Happy bargain hunting.