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Is buying from abroad really cost saving

ataylor

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I only buy in small amounts if and when i need them. I really can't afford to buy in bulk, but reading on other forums the costs can't really be reduced if you have other costs involved. Import tax at 20% will make up the ballance from buying at home, so is there really a cost saving buying from abroad? :thinks:
 

yorkshireman

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Buy from timberbits. Make sure you spend over 80 aussie dollars to get the free postage. If you spend over 200 dollars you get delivery in 4 days by TNT but they collect the import duty. I've never had an extra charge since I kept all purchases to just over $80.

keith
 

Walter

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Buying 10 or more bolt action kits from Penn State Industries, even with their shipping costs, VAT and carrier's admin costs for paying it worked out about £1.50 per kit less than Turner's Retreat last time I bought them.

when deciding whether to buy from abroad I always take the cost, add on the VAT and carriage and add £15 as an estimated admin/collection fee. If that comes to less that the cost of buying in the UK then I go for it.
 

Jim

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Buy from timberbits. Make sure you spend over 80 aussie dollars to get the free postage. If you spend over 200 dollars you get delivery in 4 days by TNT but they collect the import duty. I've never had an extra charge since I kept all purchases to just over $80.

keith

That is the best way of doing it is exactly what Keith says, but you may still get charges at sometime ... I have learnt the hard way, and this is what i will do from now on ... :bwink:

But to answer the OP's question, if buying £500 worth of accessories, you will be hammered with import duty, also import VAT and a deferment fee which also includes VAT, this is when it starts to become less cost effective ... :goesred:
 

Jim

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It is all explained here.

Good link Walter, but i don't see anything on there regarding the deferment fee and its VAT ... To be honest i don't ever recall seeing this before on any of my buys, or have i just overlooked it? :nooidea:
 

ataylor

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Thanks for the replies guys I think that I will stay with my £20 buy when needs policy. :bwink:
 

clumsysod

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Whilst being as helpful as possible which I know you are all trying to do.
I think perhaps you have missed a point.

I only buy in small amounts if and when i need them. I really can't afford to buy in bulk

We don't all have £500 to spend on kits and maybe only want a few or even less kits which are perhaps unavailable or cost prohibiting in UK.

A purchase club among members would be my suggestion maybe one of you bulk buyers could offer to tag on a few items for those who are less comfortable buying abroad.
Shoot me down if you llike it's just an idea.
 

Pete B

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Hi,
its not as cheap as it has been especially USA wise as the exchange rate is not as good as it was.
It used to be a lucky dip as to whether they charged you or not. But not anymore since HMRC decided to ask Royal mail etc to charge for them, collect and charge a tenner for doing it.
A few weeks ago i had to get one item from America and it was 20cents over the limit which i think was 28 dollars for it to be free and it cost me an extra £12, very annoying.
Some of the USA forums run group buys and buy direct from the far east for the really pricey kits but that would take a bit of organizing and trust etc.
But to be fair to likes of turners retreat etc they have to pay all the charges as well.
It is annoying when you see how cheap they can be abraod and we pay the same in Pounds here.
Its always going to be a problem though as there always seems to be something that looks great and is not available here.

Pete
 

Walter

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Good link Walter, but i don't see anything on there regarding the deferment fee and its VAT ... To be honest i don't ever recall seeing this before on any of my buys, or have i just overlooked it? :nooidea:

The deferment fee is charged by the carrier for you using their account whereby customs let the item through without collecting import duty up front - it gets billed to the carrier who collects it from you on delivery.

There is more about deferment here if you are interested.
 

Jim

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Whilst being as helpful as possible which I know you are all trying to do.
I think perhaps you have missed a point.

We don't all have £500 to spend on kits and maybe only want a few or even less kits which are perhaps unavailable or cost prohibiting in UK.

A purchase club among members would be my suggestion maybe one of you bulk buyers could offer to tag on a few items for those who are less comfortable buying abroad.
Shoot me down if you llike it's just an idea.

George i echo what you are saying, the £500 quote was an example saying, yes you will get hammered with import costs spending this amount of cash, nothing more ..

I fully understand people can not afford the luxuries that others can, and this is what we are about ... I know for a fact behind the scenes we are involved in posting some of our items off to each other at no costs, this happens on other sites that is out of our reach and which we can't get involved without costs, the more we grow here the better it will be for all of us, so please carry on doing what is needed here and who knows, what you are asking for and what we all want to happen may just come to fruition ... :thumbs:
 

clumsysod

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But turners retreat can just about claim all the taxes back ..

Can they?
Without going into all the why's and wherefors of running a business, and theirs is not mine to comment on.
At the end of their financial year they can offset a given amount to expeneses, yes, but in the meantime they still have to pay for the stock, running costs and show a profit.
A hard task in this economic climate and without customer support there would be no business.
 

bellringer

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Can they?
Without going into all the why's and wherefors of running a business, and theirs is not mine to comment on.
At the end of their financial year they can offset a given amount to expeneses, yes, but in the meantime they still have to pay for the stock, running costs and show a profit.
A hard task in this economic climate and without customer support there would be no business.

I heard at one point that Robert sorby owned turners retreat but that might be wrong
 

clumsysod

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I heard at one point that Robert sorby owned turners retreat but that might be wrong

I believe you may well be very right there I heard something about the buy out and because of lack of customer support.
I agree we all want the best quality at the cheapest price but with ever increasing costs to small businesses it gets harder for them to compete.
We live in a very small world these days and with internet shopping we will watch the high street disappear.

I believe Neil made a comment somewhere, maybe he could add his tupence worth He seemed very knowledgable on suppliers.
 
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bellringer

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The many bit that kills on inporting larger amounts of pen kits is import tax but there is not much we can do about it
 

Neil

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My six pennyworth on the subject. Over £18 and you'll get done on the vat. Over £135 and you'll get done on import tax first and there are different scales of that according to what you're importing. If the exporter puts the correct code or description then you'll get done at 3% and then the VAT at 20% on the cost of the goods and the cost of the import tax. Lovely people these stupid revenue idiots. We just love financing a low life cost centre that is trying to drive all uk enterprise into the ground by ever increasing tax revenues so they can waste it frivously on some trade visit freebie to somewhere exotic that doesn't need a trade visit. And you're quite right on top of that the Royal Mail will clobber you all for the privilidge of paying the dear HMRC on your behalf, around £8-10 unless it has gone up.

Concur on the TB method, I have been doing exactly the same since I got a series of bills amounting to £600 all back dated from TNT. Suggest that we might want to be slightly careful of what we post on an open forum about this sort of thing as we might shoot ourselves in the foot?
 

Walter

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Lovely people these stupid revenue idiots. We just love financing a low life cost centre that is trying to drive all uk enterprise into the ground by ever increasing tax revenues so they can waste it frivously on some trade visit freebie to somewhere exotic that doesn't need a trade visit.

Suggest that we might want to be slightly careful of what we post on an open forum about this sort of thing as we might shoot ourselves in the foot?

I agree that we should be careful Neil, although I would say very careful. My brother works for Revenue and Customs, he doesn't visit this forum but who knows, some of his colleagues may be pen makers. I am not sure that I would describe him as lovely, but I can assure you that he is neither stupid nor an idiot.

The "stupid revenue idiots" employed by Revenue and Customs simply enforce the taxation decisions made by politicians.
 
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