Absolutely agree with you - and I do. The issue is that audiophile vinyl on American labels is almost impossible to get in the UK without paying ridiculous prices
Absolutely agree with you - and I do. The issue is that audiophile vinyl on American labels is almost impossible to get in the UK without paying ridiculous prices
Rob998
Scimmia Nordoccidentale
To quote David Byrne, “Same as it ever was”.
Shipping from the US can be stupidly expensive, and bear in mind the customs charge will be calculated on the items stated value plus shipping, then add the uk carriers cost for collecting the customs charge on behalf of HMRC.
Thanks to the wisdom of our Brexit voting brethren, you can now expect to pay the same for stuff you buy from the EU, but, hey, it all goes into the exchequer, so it’s a Brexit bonus. Except you’re paying for it.
Shipping from the US can be stupidly expensive, and bear in mind the customs charge will be calculated on the items stated value plus shipping, then add the uk carriers cost for collecting the customs charge on behalf of HMRC.
Thanks to the wisdom of our Brexit voting brethren, you can now expect to pay the same for stuff you buy from the EU, but, hey, it all goes into the exchequer, so it’s a Brexit bonus. Except you’re paying for it.
I suspect that that comment is 6 months out of date.
The US is no different to the EU. If the purchase is under something like £130, UK VAT must be collected by the seller, blah, blah, blah. Hence the great majority of US sellers will no longer sell to UK customers (except via EPay, as EPay will do all of the finacial bits) - if you take a look on Discogs, most US sellers are feint script (as are many European sellers) - will not ship to UK. ALSO, sometime within the past several months, shippings charges were hiked enormoulsy by at least one of the favoured US carriers.
Rob998
Scimmia Nordoccidentale
Fair play Vinny, I’d sort of forgotten that. Another Brexit bonus, less Sterling leaving these Sceptered Isles.
I wonder how long that particular fudge, to plug the gap in the amount of customs officers needed vs actual existing customs officers + people who want to be customs officers, will last?
I wonder how long that particular fudge, to plug the gap in the amount of customs officers needed vs actual existing customs officers + people who want to be customs officers, will last?
joe9407
actress/activist
The whole thing blows my mind. Why the US, UK, and Canada can't just ****in' get it together to send stuff among our three closely-tied nations is a mystery wrapped in a riddle smothered in secret sauce. I sold a Naim Stageline to a PFM'er in the UK and the shipping from the US was $70 -- then, he got hit with customs duties! I was frankly embarrassed by the whole affair (and split the shipping cost).
On the other side of the coin, I recently bought a case of hot sauce from Osaka, Japan (much bigger, heavier box than the Stageline; also, I like hot sauce and this Japanese dude makes the best there is, IMO) and it arrived to me in NYC two days later at a shipping cost of $15. Fifteen bucks. Two days. From Japan. Japan!
To be fair, as far as is possible, what has to be paid has not changed amongst those countries. Who collects what is due, and how, has changed.
For Brits there is "just" the addition f the whole of the EU becoming subject to the same rules etc.
Then you are very lucky.
I reckon about 20-30% of my imports get missed so avoid tax etc.
Darth Vader
From the Dark Side
I bought a couple of small lab wash bottles for something like £2.50 delivered from Amazon. Then after ordering noticed delivery was 3 to 4 weeks and after checking found that these two bottles came all the way from China! It costs that much to send a recorded delivery letter in the UK!
Crazy no?
DV
A million miles from unusual - the cheapest source that you can find for items costing les than something like £3-4, and they are post-free from China. Totally insane.
Just done exactly that for a couple of glass hand lenses - £3.60. Totally nuts.
joe9407
actress/activist
It is, as Vinny notes, totally insane. Surely, the Chinese central gov't must be subsidizing shipping in some way?
That said, there are remarkably stark quality differences among the various national postal services -- Japan Post and Finnish Posti are amazing; the US Postal Service, not so much.
keiron99
pfm Member
Bizarrely, the US is effectively subsidising China. It's based on a treaty from 1874 and the Universal Postal Union (or something, I'm not an expert, but did stumble on a Youtube video about it). I never understood why Trump didn't deal with it.
That is just an agreement amongst essentially all contries, that postge paid in the sending country will ensure delivery anywhere in the world. That is why you get charged Post Office/Parcel Force rates and yet the item wil be delivered outside of the UK by another national postal service.
Items coming from China get delivered in any of several ways, some via courier, some via post. Somebody, somewhere, must also have some kind of depot in the UK, not unlike Amazon, as I have had Chinese stuff, stated as coming from China, delivered with UK stamps on.
kensalriser
pfm Member
Actually, the Trump administration did deal with it, in a way - they threatened to withdraw the US from the Universal Postal Union resulting in some sort of fudged compromise and huge increases in sending stuff to/from the US. So something that used to cost me around £7-8 to send to the US is now £15-£16. That will really teach China!
Tony L
Administrator
It is entirely random as far as I can tell. Sometimes nothing at all, sometimes a fair bit, sometimes a fair bit with an additional handling fee. I’ve been pretty lucky of late; a couple of fair sized vinyl orders, a replacement stylus for my MP-500 from Japan and some Russian capacitors all came through unimpeded, though that may be understaffing due to covid or the total cluster* of Brexit. It is so random it is best looked at overall, i.e. theoretically it is painful, but chances are you’ll not get hit at all on some stuff which evens it out a bit.