Buying from Ukranian or Russian Web Store from the US?

Post date: 2020-02-27 05:40:21

I'm looking to buy an inexpensive specialty item that seems to only be available from online sellers located in Russia or the Ukraine. I'm in the US, and I don't speak/read Ukranian or Russian. Is this do-able?

Total value is <$20 USD before shipping. I've found the item on prom.ua (seems to be the Ukranian version of Aliexpress, in that it's a platform to aggregate lots of sellers) and eandc.ru (looks like a more traditional electronics component vendor).

I can't read or speak Ukranian or Russian, and the item does not appear to be available in an English-language web store. It's a unique toggle switch that seems to only have been used on a few Russian airplanes and helicopters -- I'm a flight sim/aviation nerd who builds simulator instrument panels.

Google Translate isn't very good with login-required pages, so I'm likely going to have to muddle through by copy-pasting phrases into a translator and relying on web design conventions to figure out what I need to click, which is fine.

Big questions seem to be: Payment -- my instinct says "be suspicious of small web stores," but I'm not sure how much of that is realistic and how much is, well, not. In the past I've used paypal but it doesn't seem to be broadly supported.

Shipping -- How do I get it once I pay for it? Again, this is a small item, but it looks likely that this isn't a "free shipping from China" situation. I'm fine with paying reasonable shipping rates but I don't want to get hit with something ridiculous like $200 to ship a $20 part.

This is a low-impact thing for a hobby project so if the answer is "it's not really feasible for reasonable time/money for a low-dollar part," that's good to know too, I can just DIY an equivalent.

Please click Here to read the full story.