I've Been looking at buying a new GPS, and have ruled it down to Lowrance Endura Safari.
Mapyx seem to be the only suppler in the UK, but with a price of £414.44 inc delivered, this works out very expensive.
After doing a bit of searching I Have found that I can get same gps unit from the US for £210 inc p+p delivered to the UK, plus add another £69.99 for Quo mobile XT so the unit will work with Quo mapping. The total saving if I buy from the US will be a massive £134.45. But...
I know a fair few a you have bought kit from the US before but what are your experiences with when it comes to custom duty etc, is there ways around it? And even if I was hit with customs duty do you still think it would be worth importing from the US?
You could be lucky but then...the delivery to your address could involve hand over to a delivery company in the UK who would act as agent paying duty and VAT for you which you'd have to reimburse. In these circumstances they invariably charge an agency fee on top and then a UK delivery fee on top of that so you could end up paying more.
Another thing to consider is warranty and how you'd invoke it, if needed, on an item imported by you from the US.
I agree with Mal, what you get charged is a complete lottery. If you do go down this route make sure that you keep all receipts and invoices from the delivery agent, plus records and proof of any payments you made.
Some years ago, I got a threatening letter from a debt collection agency saying that I owed some Large delivery organization some very small amount of cash (less than £10). This was for something I had bought from the US. Neither the debt collection agency, or the delivery agent would answer my correspondence asking for evidence that I actually owed them the money, which I knew I didn't. Eventually, it ended up in the Small Claims Court. The Debt Collection Agency didn't even turn up and I had a full paper trail showing that I had paid all relevant invoices. Case dismissed and I got costs. However, I did waste a considerable amount of my time, which I wasn't compensated for.
The main charge you are hit with is not customs duty or import duty (which is zero to a few %), but VAT as Mal identifies.
£210 * 120% (VAT) = £252, 2.5% credit card charge (for buying in USD) + £5, £15 admin charge from courier for VAT collection = £272 total. £70 Quo mobile = £342 still saves you a bit if the import duty is zero (depends a bit on how a GPS is categorised).
The ways around this are a) to not declare the goods ('gift' with underdeclared value and therefore insufficient insurance if its lost in transit) - this is just an form of tax evasion (i.e. illegal), b) to declare and hope they miss it (never happened to me, they've always asked for the money), c) to go to the US yourself, buy it, use it (now its secondhand so arguably might be below the value threshold) and bring it back in...
Stoveman - you forgot that duty and VAT are payable on the whole cost including shipping and insurance.
I would only buy from abroad if the saving were huge, or if the product simply wasn't available here. To take your GPS example, you have a price, so far, of £280; to that you will add cc fees as Stoveman suggests getting you to £290, then import duty and VAT - look here - £70, makes £360 , then Royal Mail's handling fee of about £15 makes £375, so your total saving is £40.
You will need an adapter to use a mains plug (you may already have that), although my experience is that most transformers can cope with our electricity.
And then, there's Mal's comment about returns . . .
You may decide that the £40 saving is worth it, or you may decide that our shops aren't ripping us off that much, since they are taking the stocking and returns risks.
I bought a tent form the US recently (I am in Belgium) I had to pay a 25euro admin fee as well as 38 euro taxes, the bummer was they held on to the tent for over a month before they contacted me., the tracking page just showed it stuck in customs.
