How iWishBag Calculates Your Final Bill | Line by Line

This is the full breakdown of what you pay when you ship with iWishBag. We write it out this plainly because the single biggest reason customers bounce at checkout is the words "final bill" without knowing what that covers.

The five components

Every iWishBag invoice — regardless of origin warehouse or destination — has the same five lines:

1. Goods — the item price from the retailer. No markup from us when you "shop yourself"; ~10–15% markup when you use "we shop for you" because we cover the seller-side payment cost
2. International shipping — air freight or surface freight from our origin warehouse to your destination country
3. Customs duty and VAT/GST — paid to your destination's customs authority. We pre-pay on your behalf and pass the cost through, no markup
4. iWishBag service fee — our charge for receiving parcels, consolidating, photographing, packing, customs paperwork, and delivery coordination
5. Payment method cost — zero for direct bank rails (Fonepay, UPI, eSewa, Khalti); around 2.5% for international cards because that's what processors charge us

That's the whole bill. No "handling," no "premium support," no surprise add-ons.

A worked example

You're in Nepal, ordering a $200 phone from Amazon India.

• Goods — $200 (you paid Amazon directly via "shop yourself")
• International shipping — $18 (1.2 kg air standard, India to Nepal)
• Customs duty + 13% VAT — $43 (15% duty on CIF + 13% VAT on duty-inclusive)
• iWishBag service fee — $7 (warehouse handling)
• Payment method cost (Fonepay QR) — $0
• Total you pay us — $68 (everything except the $200 you already paid Amazon)

Your landed cost is $268.

If you'd used "we shop for you" instead, the math shifts: we'd buy at Amazon and add 10–12% to the goods line to cover our card processing on the seller side. Your service fee line goes down because there's no warehouse-receive step (it goes direct from us to forwarding). Total is usually within $5–10 of the "shop yourself" path.

Why we don't bundle into one number

We've experimented with a single all-in price (some shipping services do this). Two reasons we kept the breakdown:

• Trust — when something costs $X to ship a $200 phone, you want to see what $X actually pays for. Bundling hides duty drift, FX swings, and our cut. Itemizing keeps us honest
• Customs paperwork — your destination customs needs an invoice with line-item detail. The breakdown becomes the invoice; we don't reformat anything

What changes between quotes

If you re-quote the same item later and the price moves, the difference is almost always in one of:

• FX rate — origin currency to destination currency. Quotes lock at the time of booking
• Carrier rates — airline cargo rates change weekly. Same parcel two weeks apart can swing 5–10%
• Customs schedule — destination governments occasionally adjust duty rates. New rates apply to in-progress orders that haven't yet cleared customs
• Promotional pricing — we run forwarding-fee discounts during low-season periods. Same parcel quoted in November vs March can differ

For active orders, the quote you accepted is the price you pay. We don't re-bill if the math shifts after you've paid.

Where the service fee goes

For full transparency on the service fee — that line covers:

• Warehouse staff receiving and photographing every parcel
• Storage (free up to 90 days)
• Quality check on every item
• Consolidation into one international shipment
• Customs paperwork preparation
• Carrier coordination
• Tracking system maintenance
• Customer support coverage in your timezone

It's not a profit margin; it's the operational cost of running the warehouse network. Margins, where they exist, are in international shipping rate negotiations with carriers (we get bulk rates, you get retail rates without us — the difference is some of our margin).

Common questions

Are there any fees I haven't seen yet? No. The five components above are the entire bill. Nothing materializes after you pay.

What about hold-time fees? Storage is free up to 90 days. After 90, $0.50/parcel/day applies. Most customers ship before that limit.

What if a parcel arrives damaged? We photograph at receipt and flag damage before forwarding. If we ship a damaged parcel anyway, we cover the loss up to declared value (we never pre-pay for a damaged item to leave our warehouse, so this is rare).

Can I see other customers' bills? Customer-specific bills are private. We can show you anonymized invoices for similar order patterns if you ask before booking.

Why is the customs amount sometimes different from your initial estimate? Customs is a government-side calculation. Our estimate is based on our HS-code library and historical rates. 95%+ of shipments match exactly. For the 5% where customs assesses differently, we cover the gap up to a tolerance and let you decide on larger discrepancies.