Totally noob HMV question(s).

[enigma]

Alright, here's the deal.

I want to pick up some steelbooks from HMV. They ship to the states, but the shipping is outrageous. As in, I have four steelbooks in my cart and shipping is sitting at £18 ($28)! I'd actually be paying as much or more for shipping that three of the four items actually cost.

So my noob question: How do people stateside usually handle HMV transactions?

I actually added five of each title as an experiment and the shipping raised an even £4.50 per title, so that seems to eliminate the ability to group buy if reduced and/or free shipping isn't even available. So what option does that leave (besides forking over almost $30 for them to send four movies)?

In comparison, Amazon.co.uk will ship me four copies of Batman Begins/The Dark Knight Limited Edition Steelbook for about 1/3 of what HMV is charging (and I could actually get Amazon's fastest shipping for only $10 more than what HMV is asking). Arrow Video doesn't even charge for shipping on orders over £49.99. So what's HMV's issue? I understand shipping overseas is more expensive. I have no problem with that. I'm not trying to get things dirt-cheap. I'm just trying to offset the cost a bit, because there's "more expensive" and then there's "HMV."

Sorry for the rant, as I'm sure this is nothing most of you don't already know, but I just don't get it. Blu-ray importing experts - please advise, my forum brethren!

[NARMAK]

So, just to see if i got this right. HMV are charging you a flat £4.50 more per title to be sent to the US as opposed to a set fee or something?

If that's the case, it is likely due to them having to declare customs etc. If you wanted cheaper shipping, only way i can think of is either a member in the UK buys for you, invoices you the cost and ships them out. Royal Mail Airsure usually gets there in approximately 4 days and is tracked. You want insurance it is a bit extra, but could be worth it to you.

The other thing is that the cost of shipping reduces down the more you add rather than staying at a flate rate. Hope this kinda helps

[Petra_Kalbrain]

If you want the steelbooks directly from HMV, you have to pay the shipping.

If you know someone in the UK, you can have them shipped to them for free and have that person forward them for a much lower cost... but, you would probably want to know that person relatively well since they'll have your product without any guarantee of having them forwarded to you.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by NARMAK

So, just to see if i got this right. HMV are charging you a flat £4.50 more per title to be sent to the US as opposed to a set fee or something?

If that's the case, it is likely due to them having to declare customs etc. If you wanted cheaper shipping, only way i can think of is either a member in the UK buys for you, invoices you the cost and ships them out. Royal Mail Airsure usually gets there in approximately 4 days and is tracked. You want insurance it is a bit extra, but could be worth it to you.

The other thing is that the cost of shipping reduces down the more you add rather than staying at a flate rate. Hope this kinda helps

No. From HMV it's always £4.50 per unit for international shipping. That's why I'd order them all separately if I was buying multiple items. A bunch of individual boxes with low purchase amounts are less likely to get flagged by North America customs compared to 1 box with a $100+ purchase total. Therefore, much less likely of being charged extra by U.S./Canada customs if you buy individually since the shipping is the same anyways.

[enigma]

Originally Posted by NARMAK

So, just to see if i got this right. HMV are charging you a flat £4.50 more per title to be sent to the US as opposed to a set fee or something?

If that's the case, it is likely due to them having to declare customs etc. If you wanted cheaper shipping, only way i can think of is either a member in the UK buys for you, invoices you the cost and ships them out. Royal Mail Airsure usually gets there in approximately 4 days and is tracked. You want insurance it is a bit extra, but could be worth it to you.

The other thing is that the cost of shipping reduces down the more you add rather than staying at a flate rate. Hope this kinda helps

I really appreciate the reply. The thing is though, it's not reducing the cost of shipping if I add more titles. Are you sure it's supposed to be? When I have the four titles I'm interested in added to the cart, it's charging £18.00 for shipping (which is £4.50 per title). I just added a fifth title to see if a different title would change it, but it just increased it to £22.50 (again, £4.50 per title). And as I said in my initial post, I tried adding five copies of each title, thus increasing the cart contents to twenty items, and it raised the shipping to £90.00 (or - you guessed it - £4.50 per title). So no matter how many titles (at least up to the twenty that I tried) that are added, it's charging me £4.50 per title for shipping.

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

No. From HMV it's always £4.50 per unit for international shipping. That's why I'd order them all separately if I was buying multiple items. A bunch of individual boxes with low purchase amounts are less likely to get flagged by North America customs compared to 1 box with a $100+ purchase total. Therefore, much less likely of being charged extra by U.S./Canada customs if you buy individually since the shipping is the same anyways.

I don't understand the relevance of them being flagged. Who would be charged extra when? Forgive me - this importing things by myself is an extremely novel concept to me.

[jammyone]

Originally Posted by enigma

I really appreciate the reply. The thing is though, it's not reducing the cost of shipping if I add more titles. Are you sure it's supposed to be? When I have the four titles I'm interested in added to the cart, it's charging £18.00 for shipping (which is £4.50 per title). I just added a fifth title to see if a different title would change it, but it just increased it to £22.50 (again, £4.50 per title). And as I said in my initial post, I tried adding five copies of each title, thus increasing the cart contents to twenty items, and it raised the shipping to £90.00 (or - you guessed it - £4.50 per title). So no matter how many titles (at least up to the twenty that I tried) that are added, it's charging me £4.50 per title for shipping.

He meant if HMV were to ship to a UK member who then bulk shipped them to you it would be cheaper per title as a bulk delivery.

However I'm not so sure about that as UK postal prices are quite high now so the saving wouldn't be huge


Also at the minute while HMV are moving warehouses they are sending a lot of stuff in jiffy bags so if it's possible it may be a good idea to wait until they switch back to their normal cardboard mailers.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by enigma

I don't understand the relevance of them being flagged. Who would be charged extra when? Forgive me - this importing things by myself is an extremely novel concept to me.

When you make a purchase from outside of your home country, that purchase ALWAYS gets stopped at your home country customs agency for 2 reasons. #1. Because the parcel is coming from another country, they need to ensure that it is a legal and safe item that is being brought into the country for the safety of the general public and your fellow citizens. #2. Because the purchase is being made outside your home country it is susceptible to EXTRA TAXES.

What normally happens (here in Canada anyways) is that the item gets to your door and the person delivering it will say "Please give me the $xx.xx for import taxes in order for me to relinquish the item over to you." And, if you don't pay that amount they will not give you the package. They will take it back to the post office and give you some time to make your way there to pay that fee. If you don't pay the fee, the item goes back to the sender.

However, if the purchase is under $50, usually customs will just let it through as the taxes are negligible. So, bundling a bunch together in 1 order will make the purchase stand out for them to process with what's called "DUTY FEES" or "DUTY TAXES." Since HMV charges shipping per item, ordering them separately will have 5 small purchases under $50 come through instead of 1 purchase of $100+. So, they'll likely just ignore the 5 individual packages.

[enigma]

Originally Posted by jammyone

He meant if HMV were to ship to a UK member who then bulk shipped them to you it would be cheaper per title as a bulk delivery.

However I'm not so sure about that as UK postal prices are quite high now so the saving wouldn't be huge

Also at the minute while HMV are moving warehouses they are sending a lot of stuff in jiffy bags so if it's possible it may be a good idea to wait until they switch back to their normal cardboard mailers.

Thanks much for the advice! Three of them are September pre-orders anyway, so hopefully they'll have things situation by then.

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

When you make a purchase from outside of your home country, that purchase ALWAYS gets stopped at your home country customs agency for 2 reasons. #1. Because the parcel is coming from another country, they need to ensure that it is a legal and safe item that is being brought into the country for the safety of the general public and your fellow citizens. #2. Because the purchase is being made outside your home country it is susceptible to EXTRA TAXES.

What normally happens (here in Canada anyways) is that the item gets to your door and the person delivering it will say "Please give me the $xx.xx for import taxes in order for me to relinquish the item over to you." And, if you don't pay that amount they will not give you the package. They will take it back to the post office and give you some time to make your way there to pay that fee. If you don't pay the fee, the item goes back to the sender.

However, if the purchase is under $50, usually customs will just let it through as the taxes are negligible. So, bundling a bunch together in 1 order will make the purchase stand out for them to process with what's called "DUTY FEES" or "DUTY TAXES." Since HMV charges shipping per item, ordering them separately will have 5 small purchases under $50 come through instead of 1 purchase of $100+. So, they'll likely just ignore the 5 individual packages.

That...was an exceptional explanation. Seriously, you did a fantastic job explaining that to someone who didn't know the first thing about it. That likely explains why I never ran into this issue with Amazon UK or Arrow orders then.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by enigma

That...was an exceptional explanation. Seriously, you did a fantastic job explaining that to someone who didn't know the first thing about it. That likely explains why I never ran into this issue with Amazon UK or Arrow orders then.

Glad I could help.

Just be thankful that you were able to get an explanation. I remember the first time I encountered duty fees. I had ordered something off of ebay for a friend who didn't own a credit card back in the pre-Paypal days. When the item arrived at my door they wanted $125 before they would give me the item. I was like, "F That buddy! You are trying to scam me!" When I told my friend, they were shocked too. But, he needed to thing so we went to the post office a couple of days later and he paid the fee.

Trouble with import fees though is that it often negates the "better price" aspect of anything that can be purchased within your own country. Example is Blu-rays. Irregardless of what type of case it is in, you can most likely buy those titles in the U.S. Therefore, with the duty fees, the government makes you pay more for the items than had you purchased "at home."

I have a safe contact in the U.S. that I use as a middle man for my media purchases. I can have literally hundreds of dollars worth of Blu-rays/DVDs shipped to his house for free. Then, he boxes several orders together and sends them to me in Canada labelled as "a gift." Bypasses customs every time since customs can't charge me duty fees on something that they have no proof I actually paid for. To them it was purchased by a U.S. citizen and given to me as a gift. THIS is the scenario I was mentioning earlier. If you know someone in Europe, you can have the steelbooks delivered to that person in Europe free of charge. That person can turn around and ship them to you "as a gift." This reduces the "$4.50 per item" shipping fee to you substantially as it would cost less than that for your contact to forward the items to you. The trick is establishing a trustworthy relationship with that person though as once the steelbooks are delivered to that person, there is no guarantee that they won't just keep them for themselves leaving you out of pocket AND out of product. It's not like you could contact HMV and explain in that situation because you asked to have it delivered to that address. And, as a result, your credit card company can't do anything either as HMV will have proof that it was a legal transaction that was designated and delivered to the proper destination.

Importing is a very shady hobby, as you can see.

[enigma]

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

Glad I could help.

Just be thankful that you were able to get an explanation. I remember the first time I encountered duty fees. I had ordered something off of ebay for a friend who didn't own a credit card back in the pre-Paypal days. When the item arrived at my door they wanted $125 before they would give me the item. I was like, "F That buddy! You are trying to scam me!" When I told my friend, they were shocked too. But, he needed to thing so we went to the post office a couple of days later and he paid the fee.

Trouble with import fees though is that it often negates the "better price" aspect of anything that can be purchased within your own country. Example is Blu-rays. Irregardless of what type of case it is in, you can most likely buy those titles in the U.S. Therefore, with the duty fees, the government makes you pay more for the items than had you purchased "at home."

I have a safe contact in the U.S. that I use as a middle man for my media purchases. I can have literally hundreds of dollars worth of Blu-rays/DVDs shipped to his house for free. Then, he boxes several orders together and sends them to me in Canada labelled as "a gift." Bypasses customs every time since customs can't charge me duty fees on something that they have no proof I actually paid for. To them it was purchased by a U.S. citizen and given to me as a gift. THIS is the scenario I was mentioning earlier. If you know someone in Europe, you can have the steelbooks delivered to that person in Europe free of charge. That person can turn around and ship them to you "as a gift." This reduces the "$4.50 per item" shipping fee to you substantially as it would cost less than that for your contact to forward the items to you. The trick is establishing a trustworthy relationship with that person though as once the steelbooks are delivered to that person, there is no guarantee that they won't just keep them for themselves leaving you out of pocket AND out of product. It's not like you could contact HMV and explain in that situation because you asked to have it delivered to that address. And, as a result, your credit card company can't do anything either as HMV will have proof that it was a legal transaction that was designated and delivered to the proper destination.

Importing is a very shady hobby, as you can see.

I don't suppose you know anyone who wants a new BFF?

I'm as trustworthy as they come. Hell, it's not hard to just Google my screenname and location and figure out who I am. I've never worried much about anonymity.