So…shipping from USA stores to my country (and eventually other European countries) is almost prohibitive.
I was looking to buy some drivers from MTN and shipping rates are above $17 (zone 5). Besides that, when things arrive I need to pay even more taxes making a $50 buy in products become more than $100 overall
Besides buying from MTN I would also like to get some stuff from darksucks for my FourSevens flashlight. I guess buying from these 2 stores would cost me almost $200, being most part of it in shipping fees and customs at arrival.
My question is: are there any services (reliable, preferently) that may send stuff from different shops at once, without the need to pay 2 shipping fees?
Anyone knows of it and how it works?
I can also have things shipped from China with low shipping fees and almost none custom fees (depending on the modality adopted by the sellers or shipping company).
However, from the USA the fees and customs are huge. Even among the EU the shipping fees are somewhat high depending on the country and product you buy.
I guess not, but…sometimes it is hard to tell (in terms of “paperwork”) if one thing is a gift or not.
When it comes from the US and has a price outside, we normally have to pay. The only thing I didn’t pay taxes was a wallet from Arc company (https://arc-company-usa.com/) because the seller managed to send it in a regular envelope and not a package.
When I get some lights for review (offered), although they come as sample without comercial value, if they have a symbolic price outside and the shipping fee value, when it stops in customs, I need to pay a % of that .
VAT is 23% in Portugal
sales tax in my part of USA is 8%
on my last aliex order, I paid aliex seller 5% tax, no other fees after the light arrived in USA
their rule for Gifts is it needs to be valued @ 45€ or less or there’s a 17.5% tax.
agree, I think they also charge 8 Euros inspection fee (or I might be thinking of England), and the VAT is based on their opinion of the value of the item, which may or may not be the same as what was written on the customs declaration.
If they decide to charge a fee, they require the recipient to come to pay the fees in person, before they can pick up the package.
Major pain all around, unless they just let it through for delivery.
Well, we are 27 countries, so we surely have more gov services around here Each country has it’s own fees and policies, though, despite there are certain EU directives or rules.
Thank you very much for the link and information @jon_slider ! I guess this is the kind of thing I was wanting but I need to check each option an see what suits me the most!
If I can reduce the shipping price by repacking 2 packs in 1 and pay just 1 fee, I would sauy that it is a plus. Concernig VAT, I am not sure if it would be over each order or something more general. I need to dig a bit on this!
Thanks for the help and link
I am not sure but a while ago started a rule here (and eventually in other EU countries) stating that orders above 20€ needed to pay VAT at arrival. I am not sure how it applies since some of mine (from China, mostly) are chapear and VAT is already paid while ordering.
They may do that, yes, specially in certain types of items, I guess. But I am not an expert in this
There is no gift or under <€ value anymore in Germany and I believe the rest of the EU too. The import process got reformed just a few years back to streamline it across the whole EU.
If you buy or get sent product from outside the EU, you will need to pay VAT on your product. Either the seller needs to take care of it (most of our Chinese friends do nowadays over the IOSS system, that’s why prices for EU customers are generally higher for example on AE and you don’t have to pay anything extra to receive) - or the buyer needs to take care of VAT. In this case customs may check your product to see how much VAT you owe, yes.
Very small amounts may get away with it of course, but if the seller is sending a big package and noting a value of only 5€ or so customs may get suspicious and have the right to double check too.
It’s funny that China manages to deal with EU IOSS but most American companies are like “whatever bro send it”
There are local suppliers. People work in electronics fields in Europe too. There’s colleges and universities there too. The suppliers just won’t be the ones discussed here as much cuz most people are US based. You just have to find them yourself and maybe pay a little more.
I used to work at a factory that had a vending machine by the parts counter full of little electronic components. That stuff youre trying to order from the US might be in a vending machine down the road. Find that machine and take it.
Thanks for the recommendations but…hum, you might not have read my original post, and might not have identified which stores I want to buy from, nor what I mentioned I wanted to buy, so I will explain.
MTN Electronics and darksucks.com are US based stores that sell things you can’t find nowhere else, namely the drivers I want (with FW by DRJones, in the first) and the specific accessories for the 47’s flashlight I have (in the second).
If I had them in Europe, even if more expensive, I probably wouldn’t be asking these questions and mentioning the specific stores/products I want.
I am not lazy; we just can’t find those things around here, neither in stores, nor anywhere else.
I know what you mean. I’m saying there might be other suppliers for that stuff. Those fourseven lights are all made from the same mass produced chinese components everything else is. A lot of their parts can be directly swapped out with stuff from convoy or lumintop or wuben or whoever.
Otherwise use a consolidated shipper. If you just want to get a bunch of stuff delivered in one order ya there’s tons of companies that’ll do that. You pay mtn or whoever to ship it to their warehouse, once they have all your stuff in a pile then you pay them to ship it to you and hopefully nothing gets lost along the way.
In this case, they are only sold in the store. We’re talking about this product (Quark Aspheric Lens – darksucks.com) which is only sold by them. You won’t find it elsewhere.
Well, I guess that was what I was looking for and @jon_slider shared that link above that contains some options. I will look at them and decide if it is worth it and which is the best option.
Each country has it’s own fees and policies, though, despite there are certain EU directives or rules.
