#1: Ordering from overseas carries a certain risk that you get a faulty unit in the mail which would then involve quite a bit of hassle if the warranty is not covered locally.
#2: You would usually have to pay GST and shipping (I recall B&H shipping rates are not that cheap), so the price is not as attractive as it seems.
B&H does ship to Singapore, as I recall.
yup, they do ship to SG and u're right. the freight charges are not cheap.
i've asked very similar questions before and worked out a spreadsheet after receiving feedback from many here to help me weigh the pros and cons.
in essence, i key in simple formulas to help me quickly derive the CIF price and the SGD price inclusive of GST, compare the item with the local street price and decide from there if its worth it.
the important thing here is the threshold that is used to make the decision - how much cheaper is cheap enough to take the risk and click buy?
if the item is not available in SG and the only way is to ship it in from overseas, then the question is largely irrelevant.
if the price is only marginally cheaper (i.e. 10% - 20%), i consider it not worth the trouble.
at the end of the day, the cost savings should at least exceed the amount needed to cover the cost of return shipment if the item does not turn out well. but while we might not have lost money in that event, it would have taken quite a lot of time to deal with such problems - all things considered, it might be less trouble to just take the train down to Funan.
in my experience, more established overseas online stores would insert the original invoice on the outside of the package (not sure if B&H does this - never bought from them before) and they do not entertain requests to doctor their documents.
