sorry @thegenerallist cant help you with your question, but for others, I ordered from Mantel who have a max order limit including postage of £135, ordered some tyres which came to £80ish on Saturday and arrived Wednesday with no issues.
As others have said before, if you're not prepared to pay import fees, don't buy from the EU. Treat anything over £135 as being the price plus circa 25% and if you don't have to pay the fees it's a bonus. But generally best to work on just expecting to pay them on anything over £135.
Just about to pay £348 import bill for a groupset via UPS due next week from Germany, still cheaper than UK and was available.
If they are unavailable in the UK then it's prob worth the Dutta and vat.
I just bought a tune hub - last one available anywhere for £160 (£400rrp) duty was £40 with fees etc. Sooo still 1/2 price.....
Also remember you'll pay vat on the total price including postage costs.....
Right, a new challenge.
I want to send my fork to Germany, have some knackered bits of it replaced, then sent back to me. Is there a way of doing this without getting rinsed for the VAT of full value of the fork each way, rather just pay the VAT on the new bits on return?
Or am I better off just learning how to rebuild forks?
I've sent a Bulova Accutron watch to the US for repair and avoided duty by using words similar to below on the customs declaration. Worked fine on the way to the US, unfortunately the repairer didn't bother on the way back so I got hit for the duty (which he then refunded, he'd sent back the wrong watch too but that's a different story)
- Description: Wris****ch for repair
- Return within three months
- £0.00 No commercial value
Does putting zero commercial value not ruin any insurance I might take out for its journey though?
@tom Howard
We use a carnet for things like that, just imported a 130k microscope for 2 months using it.
Sorry Tom, not answering your question, but thought I ought to note the outcome of my purchase since its only polite to add to the data ( that's the plural of antidote (sic) isn't it):-)
Didn't pay and VAT or duty on the wheels from Italy.
New SRAM eagle XO cassette.
Customs Duty = £8.39
Import Vat = £47.01
Clearance fee = £12
Optional Farcelforce Saturday Deliver fee of £12 ???
Is there a way of doing this
Yes there is. But the likelihood of it going wrong in at least one direction, and wasting hours of your life, is very high. It would be worth asking if they'll pay someone in the UK to fix it.
Yes there is. But the likelihood of it going wrong in at least one direction, and wasting hours of your life, is very high. It would be worth asking if they’ll pay someone in the UK to fix it.
Further research has revealed this to be true. I’m gonna give it a go myself. (It’s not on them to sort it, its out of warranty)
Imagine being a small UK brand trying to look after your customers across our new self imposed barriers... 😶
My parcel has been held up in customs for almost a week now with the tag "awaiting clearance information needed from addressee" after a couple of calls got to someone who gave me a contact email, within 20 mins of sending that someone called me.
The reason it was held was the description of the goods were in German and they didn't know what was inside. 🤦♂️ Google translate isn't obviously a tool they can use in Parcelforce worldwide. Now I have to wait 7 days for the fee letter to arrive before I can pay what I'm due.
viva brexit
Just putting in my two penneth...
Bought a Joe Blow Booster pump back in November from BikeInn(.co.uk) for about EUR130 and £20 cheaper than the UK.
In May it went wrong, under warranty.
Oh my word, the returns process was painful.
If you have to return stuff then prepare for hassle, couriers, paperwork and cost.
Then, if it's exchanged, prepare to pay the VAT, duty and fees again.
Worth considering this grief before buying something from the EU.
Overall, I've sort of given up on Europe unless it's the only stock available and / or I'm not worried about writing it off if it goes wrong.
