It's not Oculus's fault. Sending packages to individual customers in Russia has become all but impossible...
(Reuters) - Express delivery companies DHL and FedEx (FDX.N) said on Thursday they had suspended foreign shipments to individual customers in Russia because of stricter customs procedures, making it harder for internet users to buy goods from abroad.
President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign late last year to "put into order" a booming e-commerce sector. One of the proposed measures was lowering a value threshold for purchases in foreign online stores that are subject to customs duty.
According to DHL Express, part of Deutsche Post, Russian authorities from January 2014 expanded the list of documents required to ship goods to individual customers, which has significantly slowed customs clearance.
DHL will suspend all shipments of goods for personal use to Russia from January 27, the company said in emailed comments, after already suspending most such imports already in 2010.
A Moscow call-centre operator for FedEx said shipments to individual customers in Russia were "temporarily suspended". The FedEx press office was not immediately available for comment.
According to a draft letter to clients from Russia's Association of Express Carriers, seen by Reuters, other providers such as UPS, TNT, and DPD also decided to suspend imports…
Oculus isnt accepting any preorders in Russia atm. Maybe due to resellers or something else. But if Cyberreality says they aren't shipping to Russia then its so. Maybe they can give an update on how they will handle existing orders. Did you get an email asking to update your payment information?
I sure hope this only affects new pre-orders and not existing customers. I have ordered shortly after DK2 announcement and planned work to begin in this summer, so it would be unfortunate if the devkit would be delayed for some strange reason.
As far as I understand, all delivery services have resumed their work in Russia since the period of uncertainty in winter due to changing import laws. The changes in the law dropped the lower threshold of non-taxable goods imported individually (to 100 euros, I think).
That is unfortunate change lobbied by local interest, but I don't see how it would change the situation on shipping of the existing preorders to Russia for Oculus. As far as I understand, the customer himself is required to handle the fee in the customs processing center (if you're dealing with traditional post). Alternatively, if a shipping service like DHL prefers to deal with the customs completely on it's side, the fee can be included into the shipping bill.
I have no problem paying an altered price for shipping (mine at the moment sits at $145.00, according to the order page) if it's necessitated by those changes. If that's out of the way, what is stopping Oculus from shipping devkits to Russian customers as planned?
