After decades of helping clients to import items from overseas, shipping agent Mailboxes Unlimited is now adding retail to its repertoire.

Mailboxes has just gone live with an online retail store for registered clients.

“The shop is a gamble that may be the next evolution in the company,” Mailboxes president Kenny Thomson said.

The firm’s head of business development, Mark Simons, said: “The prevailing reason for opening the shop was to add another service for our customers to take advantage of.

“We know what items customers import most, so we have made these available directly from us. They can acquire the products immediately instead of waiting a few days or a week to get them from overseas.”

Mr Simons said customers generally use Mailboxes to import items that are not readily available in Bermuda, or are cheaper overseas.

“The most popular imports are clothing and shoes, electronics, personal care items, toys and healthcare supplements,” Mr Simons said. While clothes and shoes are not on the list yet, a number of the other items are.

Mailboxes’ retail advantage is that it can import in bulk and thereby save money for the customer.

For example, the Nintendo Switch Lite’s estimated landing cost would be $343.76, but Mailboxes is selling it for $269.10.

Other items for sale in Mailboxes’ shop include iPhone 13 Pros for $1,034.10, Apple AirTags for $53.95, and an Ooni Koda gas pizza oven for $1,120.50, among other things.

Mr Simons said they are completely new to online retail, so have not encountered all the challenges yet, other than pricing the products at a cost that works for both Mailboxes and the customer.

The team conceded, however, they are learning the perennial retail frustration of having to carry importing costs until the point of sale.

The service went live late in 2022 for a small test group.

“Since then, we slowly added more customers, finally adding all existing customers to the shop last month,” Mr Simons said.

“The response so far has been quite good. We have already sold out of four products, the Eufy Smart Scale, Apple AirTag key rings, the Dyson Airwrap and the Always Pan.”

To use Mailboxes’ online shop, members must log in to their dashboards and then click the shop icon.