US Intermediary: How It Works and What to Look At When Choosing One
A US intermediary is a company with a warehouse in America. It gives you an address for shopping, receives your parcels from stores at that address and sends them to Russia, and if your card doesn't work at a store, it can buy the item itself. Many US stores don't ship abroad, but they deliver to a warehouse inside the country without any questions. Pochtoy has worked this way since 2008, and our warehouse is in the state of Delaware.
Three Intermediary Services
Address. This is the warehouse address plus the number of your personal locker. The number tells the warehouse whose box has arrived. Our address is free: registration has no subscription fee, and you don't need to link a card.
Forwarding. The warehouse receives boxes, stores them while you buy the rest, combines several purchases into one parcel, helps with the declaration and sends it with the shipping rate you choose. In English this part is called mail forwarding.
Buyout. The intermediary's employee, a buyer, purchases the item from your link with their own card, and you top up your balance in your account. Not every intermediary offers this service, but it helps when a store doesn't accept your card or doesn't ship to intermediaries.
Ordering Yourself to the Warehouse Address or Through Buyout
Yourself. You need a card that the American store accepts. You place the order as an ordinary customer, enter the warehouse address in the delivery field and get a tracking number from the store. It's worth adding it to "Expected parcels" in your account: the box will appear in your account on its own as soon as it is received. Your contract is directly with the store, so exchanges and returns are also up to you.
Through buyout. You send a link, size and color, pay for the order from your balance, and the buyer makes the purchase. With the promo code GETITNOW the buyout is free; without it, it costs 7% of the order, minimum $7. For a store that doesn't ship to intermediaries, the buyer can manage through another American address, but such a store is usually listed as "capricious," and buyout there costs more — more on that below. What the buyer has purchased can no longer be returned to the store — only if the store itself made a mistake and it is visible in the photo.
Many people use both methods. Over the year, from November 2025 to November 2026, the warehouse received 76 899 boxes for 7 878 Pochtoy customers: 51 757 were ordered by the customers themselves, 25 142 were bought by buyers. 4 480 people bought only through a buyer, 2 545 only by themselves, and 853 combined both. Items bought through buyout and your own purchases can be sent in one parcel.
What to Look At When Choosing an Intermediary
These are questions worth asking any service before your first purchase. Alongside, here is how it works with us, so you have something to compare with.
Where the warehouse is and whose it is. It's more convenient when the warehouse is the company's own: the parcel is received, stored and sent by the same people, and whoever you made the agreement with is responsible for a mistake. Our warehouse is in Delaware, where there is no sales tax. Boxes are received there on weekdays, and on the day of receipt the box appears in your account.
How long storage is free. This matters if you are assembling a parcel from several stores. With us a box is stored free for 70 days; after that, up to another 70 days at $0.50 per day. Usually that much isn't needed: in half of the parcels sent over the year, the oldest box waited for shipping no more than 8 days, and in 90% — no more than 47. A box stayed longer than 70 days in about one parcel out of twenty.
Whether parcels are combined. Several boxes in one parcel cost less than each one separately. With us, combining is free, and it is used often: four parcels out of ten are made up of two or more boxes, and the largest of dozens.
Whether there is insurance. A parcel travels through several services and countries. With us, loss insurance is mandatory on the main rates and is added to the bill automatically: up to $100 of goods — $3, up to $500 — $5, up to $1000 — $7.50, above that — $15.
What rates and delivery times. An intermediary should state the delivery time of each rate honestly. With us, CDEK rates take 5–15 days, Econom via Russian Post — 20–30 days. Over the year, Fastbox was most often used for shipping to Russia — more than a third of parcels, followed by Express and SuperFast, while Econom was chosen least often, for about one parcel in eight. The prices of all rates are calculated by the calculator on the prices page.
What is prohibited. An intermediary's list of prohibited items should be visible before purchase. Our list can be read even before registration. Most often customers run into three items: perfume and anything with alcohol, auto parts and standalone batteries. Valuable items have a ceiling: clothing and shoes — up to $300 per item, a phone or laptop — up to $2500, and no more than two devices with batteries in one parcel.
How much buyout costs. The fee should be visible before payment. With us, besides ordinary buyout, there are "capricious" stores that don't ship to intermediaries — 15%, minimum $15, and the promo code doesn't apply there; urgent out-of-turn buyout costs the same. The commission is calculated for each store separately. Details are on the buyout page.
Whether there is a stop list of stores. It includes stores where even the buyers' spare addresses don't help, websites with failures in the ordering system itself, and fraudulent ones. We don't place buyouts from there. You can buy from a genuine store on this list with your own card, but it's better to avoid a fake site. The list is open: stop list.
Whether you can inspect an item and return it. While the box is at the warehouse, it can be checked: three photos of the contents cost $5. And if an item you bought yourself didn't fit and the store's return window is still open, we will send it back using the store's prepared label for $10.
Duty doesn't depend on the choice of intermediary: a parcel up to 200 euros enters Russia without it. The amount above the limit will be shown by the duty calculator.
Where to Start
It's convenient to start with one inexpensive purchase. That way you will see the whole path — the receipt notification email, the box in your account, the declaration, the shipping tracking number — before ordering something expensive. How it looks step by step is shown on the free US address page, and if buying yourself doesn't work out, you can hand the link to a buyer right away. The whole path of a parcel from the warehouse to your city, step by step, is in the article "Parcel from the USA to Russia".
How to buy yourself · Buyout by a buyer · Prices and storage · What cannot be forwarded
