Why they do it
Two reasons, and neither one is about you personally.
- TerritoryBrands license products region by region. A US retailer shipping to a forwarding warehouse is, in effect, exporting into a market a different distributor paid for. The brand leans on the retailer, and the retailer refuses the address.
- It looks like fraudA single warehouse receiving hundreds of parcels a week, for hundreds of unrelated people, is indistinguishable from a fraud ring at the level of detail a risk system sees. Refusing the address is cheaper than working out which parcels are legitimate.
That second reason is worth sitting with, because it's the honest one. The retailer isn't wrong to be suspicious of a forwarding warehouse. It's just wrong about you.
What we won't do about it
- Rotate addresses. Assigning you a "fresh" address the retailer hasn't flagged yet is defeating a control on purpose.
- Keep a flag database. Routing orders around a retailer's blocks is the same act, with a spreadsheet.
- Use residential addresses to take commercial parcel volume, so the address doesn't look like what it is.
- Promise you a success rate. We don't control the retailer's decision.
What we will do
- Tell you before you pay whether that retailer ships to us.
- Buy it in a physical store as an ordinary customer. No forwarding address is involved in the purchase at all — that's the whole point.
- Ship it to you with the receipt in the box and an honest customs value.
- Tell you no when it's no.
What we don't do
We ship to one registered facility. You get your own suite number at it. We don't run multiple suites, we don't keep a database of which addresses a retailer has flagged, and we don't assign you a "fresh" address to route around those flags.
We also don't publish a success rate. We don't control the retailer's decision, so any number we quoted you would be invented.
Anything a retailer can see about our address, they're welcome to see.
The route that works
It's slower and it costs more. It's also not a trick.
A shopper walks into the store and buys the item the way any customer does — with a US card, over the counter, taking it away in a bag. There is no shipping address at the point of sale, so there is nothing for the retailer to refuse. You can watch it happen on video if you want to see the shelf, the item and the receipt.
From there it's an ordinary parcel to your door, at $14.99 plus the carrier's rate. Live video shopping is $75 an hour, 15% off two hours or more.
Be clear-eyed about the trade: for a $60 item this is poor value, and we'll say so. For a $900 one that no forwarder can get to you at all, it's the difference between having it and not.
Most of the time, none of this applies
The large majority of US retailers ship to our address without a second thought. The block is concentrated among a minority of brands who police territory hard — mostly electronics, beauty, and limited-release footwear. If you're buying kitchenware, books, clothes or vitamins, forward it and don't think about this page again.
When you're unsure, ask us the day before you order, not the day after it's cancelled.
Check your retailer
Tell us the store and what you're buying. We'll tell you whether they ship to us, whether an in-store purchase is possible, and what it lands at — before you spend anything.
Questions
Two reasons, and neither is about you. Brands license products by territory, and a retailer that ships to a forwarder is effectively exporting into a market another distributor holds. And a warehouse receiving hundreds of parcels a week for hundreds of different people looks, to a fraud system, exactly like a fraud ring. The retailer resolves the ambiguity the cheap way: refuse the address.
No. We ship to one registered facility and you get your own suite number at it. We do not run multiple suites, keep a database of which addresses a retailer has flagged, or assign fresh addresses to route around those flags. That is defeating a retailer's controls on purpose, and we do not do it.
We tell you before you pay, rather than after your order is cancelled. Then a shopper can buy the item in a physical store as an ordinary customer, which is not a forwarding transaction at all and involves no address the retailer objects to. If neither route works for that retailer, we say so, and you have not lost anything.
It is a street address at a commercial building in Minneapolis, staffed, where parcels are signed for in person. It is not a PO box and not a mailbox rental. We do not use residential addresses to receive commercial parcel volume, which is both a lease problem and a way of disguising what an address is for.
If a retailer cancels before dispatch, no purchase completed, so there is nothing for you to pay for the item. Service fees are handled under our refund policy, which credits approved refunds to your Selectido wallet. What we will not do is promise you a guaranteed outcome with a retailer whose decisions we do not control.
Not at all. The large majority of US retailers ship to our address without a second thought, and forwarding is much cheaper than paying a shopper's time. The block is concentrated among a minority of brands who police territory hard, mostly in electronics, beauty and limited-release footwear. For everything else, forwarding is the right answer.
Selectido is an independent shopping and package-forwarding service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, authorised by, or a partner of any retailer named on this site, nor of any other forwarding company. We purchase openly at retail with our own US payment methods, ship to a single registered facility, declare honest values on every customs form, observe published purchase limits, and comply with retailer terms of service. We do not rotate addresses, maintain retailer flag databases, or otherwise attempt to defeat a retailer's shipping restrictions. Refunds are governed by our refund policy.