Shipping from the US

Caporegime
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Whats the best method for this?

I want to buy a Guitar and have been quoted £3250 from a dealer in the UK to get me it in 7/10 days.


Or I can buy one from the US on the net for $3995 and have him ship it. This works out to £2039

(He's getting back to me with pricing for shipping/insurance)

As you can see this is a massive saving.

Whats the deal with tax etc...?

Is there another way I can do.Like getting it shipped to a US Address then courier collecting from there and shipping it onto me?

Think DHL can do this ?

Any advice would be great has its a high value item and to be frank I'm s******* myself about it.:p
 
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Remember you're going to have to pay duty and vat on that, as well as a courier charge for dealing with customs (so vat is 17.5, duty i've no idea and courier surcharge is likely to be something along the lines of 2% of the value for something that expensive).
 
Parcel2go have a service available.
Items are sent to a Miami address and then forwarded to the UK.
I don't know what sort of insurance cover is available though.
 
So VAT = £356

2% courior charge = £40

Looks like you will still get a saving of maybe £500 with shipping added.
 
"The price of the guitar is listed on the website at this link. For overseas purchase, bank wire is the preferred payment method and you would get the cash discount price, to which the shipping/insurance charges would be added.

In order to get an accurate shipping/insurance quote I need your full address, city and postal code.

If you want to use a non-US issued credit card to purchase, take the cash discount price plus shipping/insurance and add 5%."

Thats from the email.

How does the tax work then?

When do I pay it etc...

As far as I can tell I wire him the 3995 + plus the shipping and insuarnce and thats it isn't it?

Sorry for my lack of knowledge on this.
 
get on a plane and fetch it. make a holiday out of the money you save by not declaring to customs on the way back ;)
 
I think then general rule is add 30%.

Pretty much yea. He will still get a good saving over the UK dealer.

After all the UK dealer is more than likely ordering them in from the same place you are Easy or some distributor and making a nice profit ;)

Hence why they say it will take 10 days to get them in :)
 
Be very careful. just bought a £37 jumper and ended up with a tax bill for £45. If you phone the inland revenue they can tell you how much. I got hit for Import tax, Retaliatory tax and then vat on the lot.
 
Be very careful. just bought a £37 jumper and ended up with a tax bill for £45. If you phone the inland revenue they can tell you how much. I got hit for Import tax, Retaliatory tax and then vat on the lot.

My boyfriend just got a similar bill, £40 tax etc on a few items that cost £60 including postage :(.
 
I'll get the full cost and post back...

I have 5 UK companies on the quest.

Will be interesting the difference in cost between them to get me it.
 
Im shipping Rock Band on the PS3 from the US now - it's taking ages!
Im using USPS and my tracking currently says:
04-01-2008 21:52 CAPE FOREIGN CENTER JERSEY CITY NJ 099 Left origin country
29-12-2007 12:44 Delivery Agent - UNITED STATES AMERICA Collected from customer

*Sigh* :(
 
"The price of the guitar is listed on the website at this link. For overseas purchase, bank wire is the preferred payment method and you would get the cash discount price, to which the shipping/insurance charges would be added.

In order to get an accurate shipping/insurance quote I need your full address, city and postal code.

If you want to use a non-US issued credit card to purchase, take the cash discount price plus shipping/insurance and add 5%."

Thats from the email.

How does the tax work then?

When do I pay it etc...

As far as I can tell I wire him the 3995 + plus the shipping and insuarnce and thats it isn't it?

Sorry for my lack of knowledge on this.

You do not normally pay the vendor the tax etc which are due when importing into the country. Normally the courier or postal service bill you whatever they have been charged by customs plus their admin fee and quite probably will not release the item to you until it's been paid, (does vary a bit from company to company).

This is why you sometimes have people referring to being lucky they haven't been charged when they have ordered things like DVDs from the US as the package has not been stopped by Customs and hence no charge has been generated. If you paid the vendor the import duties in advance then you would always be paying them.
 
I bought a a C2D 6600 a month before release fom a guy fom Orange Texas.He put on the enevelope it was a 486 Old Cpu chip.

Couldn't the guitar be marked as a present or something?
 
Marking it as a present only ups the limits a bit and the amount this is would still put you way over that limit.

Also its all well and good claiming that there is something old and cheap in the package until it goes missing and you find that you can only claim on the postal/courier insurance for what you said was in there instead of what actually was ...
 
The gap between shipping in from the US and getting it from a UK dealer is getting smaller.

Just had this email:

You already know the pricing on the guitar, but the shipping is variable according to the service and insurance coverage you select, also whether you are paying by bank wire (= cash price) or non-US-issued credit card (= cash price plus 5%).

Shipping via UPS or FedEx is the most expensive but allows full insurance coverage:

UPS Worldwide Expedited (4-5 business days) w/full insurance = $385 US
UPS Worldwide Saver (2-3 business days) w/full insurance = $407 US

FedEx Int'l Economy (4-5 business days) w/full insurance = $375 US
FedEx Int'l Priority (2-3 business days) w/full insurance = $395 US


Anyone care to do the math and give me a price in $ of what this will cost me all in to have this guitar in my hands, Including tax etc...?


Guitar = $3995
Shipping = $385
other stuff=?

:)
 
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