Originally Posted by
gohei_
I've had some business with BooksEtc recently, and I thought I would share my thoughts here.
They have a new website now, and they offer "free shipping" worldwide, and any additional taxes and import fees are already added to the price that you see on the website. That means that the price at the checkout page is the final price for your order (just like BookDepository is doing). I decided to try this and placed 2 separate orders. Once they arrived in my country they were handed over to 2 different mail carriers, and one of them held my books in customs and demanded that I pay a fee in order to get the books released.
After a bunch of emailing back and forth between the carrier and BooksEtc (both of them insisting that the other part is wrong and should refund me the fee) BooksEtc ended up refunding me the amount and all is now good.
So, since the other mail carrier delivered the order to me directly without asking for any extra fees, it seems like this is completely up to which local carrier ends up taking the packages once it arrives in your country.