Terms of service

AmeriKiwi is a purchasing and forwarding service. When you accept a quote, you are engaging us to buy a specific product on your behalf in the United States, receive it at our US address, prepare it for export and arrange its shipment to you in New Zealand.

We are not the retailer, the manufacturer, a customs broker or a freight carrier. We do not provide legal, tax or import advice.

Submitting a request does not create a contract. Every request is reviewed by a member of our team, who may approve it for quoting, hold it for further review, or decline it.

Automated checks in our software are triage only. They classify and route requests; they never approve an import. Human review is authoritative in all cases.

• Quotes are itemised and expressed in New Zealand dollars.
• Lines marked as an estimate are exactly that — international freight depends on the parcel's measured size and weight, and duty and GST are assessed by NZ Customs.
• A quote is valid for the period stated on it. Exchange rates and retailer pricing can move; if they move materially before you accept, we may reissue the quote.
• Accepting a quote and paying it forms the contract between us for that request.

We do not purchase anything until payment has cleared. Where the final assessed duty, GST or freight differs materially from our estimate, we will contact you before charging any additional amount. Where it comes in under our estimate, the difference is yours.

Certain products cannot be accepted at all, and others require review before we will quote. The current lists are published on our restricted products page and may change at any time as rules or carrier policies change.

You are responsible for describing your item accurately. If a product turns out to be materially different from what you described, or falls into a prohibited category, we may decline it at any point — including after purchase — and will refund whatever we are able to recover.

Title to goods passes to you on purchase. We hold goods as bailee while they are in our care. Risk in transit sits with the carrier’s terms; where transit cover is available and you have asked for it, we will arrange it and show it as a line on your quote.

We give indicative timeframes, not guarantees. Retailer delays, carrier delays, customs inspection and weather are outside our control. What we commit to is telling you promptly and honestly what has happened, and doing the chasing on your behalf.

US retailer return windows are short and rarely survive international shipping. Once an item has left the United States, a return is usually not practical. Where an item arrives with us damaged or incorrect, we will photograph it and take it up with the retailer before it ships.

Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 or the Fair Trading Act 1986 where those Acts apply. The specific interaction between those Acts, goods bought overseas on your behalf, and our role as your agent is one of the areas that must be settled by a New Zealand solicitor before we trade publicly.

To the extent permitted by law, our liability in relation to any request is limited to the fees you have paid us for that request. This clause in particular requires legal review and may not be enforceable as drafted.

We may update these terms. The version that applies to a request is the version published when you accepted its quote. Questions go to our support address, and a person will answer them.