Worth importing from Amazon.com?

RomanNose · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:01

So I am thinking about shipping a tablet from the US as the price is a fair bit lower, I am unsure whether it is worth it though.
Does anyone know approximately how much a $500 tablet will come to if it was with all the duty+VAT possible as well as shipping costs?
I don't really have any experience with this and I was just wondering if it is worth it..
The UK version is going to be retailing for £500, so obviously there is a fair bit of difference.

ilcp · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:04

you may also have to pay custom charge which can be hefty. unless ofcourse you going to go and buy it from there yourself

RomanNose · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:05

ilcp said:
you may also have to pay custom charge which can be hefty. unless ofcourse you going to go and buy it from there yourself

I don't think I will be visiting the US any time soon.
Anyone have any idea how much this could cost?

PermaBanned · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:05

It's usually safe to assume that total cost will be somewhere around the item cost plus the delivery cost plus 20% of the total of the two.

.Lethal · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:07

PermaBanned said:
It's usually safe to assume that total cost will be somewhere around the item cost plus the delivery cost plus 20% of the total of the two.

Yeah, the 20% thing is about the right mark.

It's great for the odd region free bluray now and then, but I wouldn't buy anything expensive unless I was over there myself (or had a friend going over).

But if you do decide to buy from Amazon.com it is perfectly fine, I've bought a few items from there. But be careful of those charges!

muon · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:07

It's just a bog standard tablet right?

Then ($500 + delivery)*1.2 + courier "administration" fee.

If you are lucky enough for the UK courier to be Parcelforce, I believe the fee is £8.

RomanNose · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:12

Any ideas about the delivery cost from a typical Amazon seller?
Is Amazon the best place to get international shipping or is there any other sites that are just as good?

Glaucus · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:13

Just use this calculator
http://www.bundlebox.com/shipping_estimate/

Raymond Lin · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:13

First, does Amazon even ship that item internationally? They don't ship everything around the world, only certain things.

Cosimo · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:15

If the Tablet goes wrong you will most probably not be covered by EU warranty as well.

RomanNose · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:16

Glaucus said:
Just use this calculator
http://www.bundlebox.com/shipping_estimate/

Cheers!
@Raymond Lin
There are services that you can $5 a month and they will forward from that address to anywhere in the world.

simulatorman said:
If the Tablet goes wrong you will most probably not be covered by EU warranty as well.

True, but I heard that ASUS would probably be more than willing to help.

EDIT:
It comes to £420, so probably not worth it over the UK price which is £500 when you factor in warranty issues.

memyselfandi · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:25

anyon said:
It's just a bog standard tablet right?

Then ($500 + delivery)*1.2 + courier "administration" fee.

If you are lucky enough for the UK courier to be Parcelforce, I believe the fee is £8.

Not necessarily ... Parcel Force charged me a £13.50 admin fee on a ~£140 package last week ...

cosmos55 · 22 Nov 2011 at 22:43

your prob end up saving £14.72 and then having to wait 4 weeks for delivery of an empty box.

Also if it malfunctions think of the return fees.

stoofa · 23 Nov 2011 at 00:35

RomanNose said:
True, but I heard that ASUS would probably be more than willing to help.

If you do decide to go ahead check this point out first.
Most companies offer a European warranty - so buy the item anywhere inside Europe and you'll be covered.
They calss imports from the US as "Grey Imports" and usually will not honour the warranty over here.
Nintendo is probably the biggest exception to this rule - they will repair imports here in the UK, but most companies wont.

greywolf · 23 Nov 2011 at 00:44

I import quite a lot in my business. Most parcels will have around 30% added to them courtesy of customs. Also the VAT is calculated for the total cost of item(s) and also the shipping cost you paid, which is worth noting as it can push the VAT fee up quite a bit.

muon · 23 Nov 2011 at 00:54

memyselfandi said:
Not necessarily ... Parcel Force charged me a £13.50 admin fee on a ~£140 package last week ...

Okay, so that's more up to date then. £13.50 is the fee.

Loosecannon · 23 Nov 2011 at 06:37

Well there will not be any customs fees once it hits the uk so we can stop that discussion...

Amazon now operated a policy when you order items that you pay the 20% VAT up front. This shows during checkout so you can see how much they think you will have to pay extra.

If the "expected" charges are more than they should be you get a partial refund. If customs fees are more than the expected charge then amazon pay it.

It basically means you know exactly how much you will pay, and parcelforce can't get you with an extra £13 on top of customs.

Tomsk · 23 Nov 2011 at 07:50

Loosecannon said:
Well there will not be any customs fees once it hits the uk so we can stop that discussion...

Amazon now operated a policy when you order items that you pay the 20% VAT up front. This shows during checkout so you can see how much they think you will have to pay extra.

If the "expected" charges are more than they should be you get a partial refund. If customs fees are more than the expected charge then amazon pay it.

It basically means you know exactly how much you will pay, and parcelforce can't get you with an extra £13 on top of customs.

This.

On Amazon.com, you go through the checkout process and it will show the expected price including all taxes. The purchase can be cancelled before payment is taken.

Richie · 23 Nov 2011 at 08:14

Why don't you just go through the order process right up until the confirmation page which will tell you the overall cost (including estimated custom fees) in GBP.

I just ordered something from them last week as the item is not sold by any UK people and it told me the full cost in GBP including custom fees and delivery fees. Mine worked out to costing the same in GBP (with delivery and fees) as the base item was in USD

memyselfandi · 23 Nov 2011 at 08:26

Loosecannon said:
Well there will not be any customs fees once it hits the uk so we can stop that discussion...

Amazon now operated a policy when you order items that you pay the 20% VAT up front. This shows during checkout so you can see how much they think you will have to pay extra.

If the "expected" charges are more than they should be you get a partial refund. If customs fees are more than the expected charge then amazon pay it.

It basically means you know exactly how much you will pay, and parcelforce can't get you with an extra £13 on top of customs.

Erm, not necessarily true ... for international orders the .com site normally gives three shipping options, Expedited, Priority and Standard. only Expedited and Priority take an import fees deposit, Standard does not.

I remember a few years ago they found that they had screwed up the import fees deposit over the previous few years so I ended up getting loads of small refunds through where they were sorting things out