amazon.com and the uk

[gunner89]

Hey, i live in the uk and have never ordered from Amazon.com before, lots of times for UK but i never had a compatible card to pay on the us site, i got a Visa card sent the other day and wanted to buy some blu's. Lots of blu's, seeing as they work out almost half the price of the uk, lol.

Anyone know how many you can order without getting stung for import tax and such, would be really grateful, thanks

[winoni71]

You have to pay in advance the import taxes only if you choose the "Priority International Courier".
For the others shipping methods, if there's such tax to be paid, you'll pay it when you'll receive the package, but whether you need to pay it or not, i believe, depends on each national laws.

[jomari]

quick question while we're at it,

for amazon.com users, can we purchase from a different amazon? amazon.jp or amazon.de?

not to knowledgeable on that end...

[winoni71]

Of course you can.

[jomari]

Originally Posted by winoni71

Of course you can.

excuse the ignorance on my end. thank you for confirming that for me.

[katharsis]

Originally Posted by jomari

quick question while we're at it,

for amazon.com users, can we purchase from a different amazon? amazon.jp or amazon.de?

not to knowledgeable on that end...

I purchase quite a lot from amazon.de. The great thing is that they will not charge you Germany's 19% tax!!
So if you see the 25+ Euro prices you can knock off the 19% right away.
I am pretty used to the higher prices on some electronics and such from there, but if you make it work (say you order for $150+) the tax vs the 3-day UPS shipping cost comes out to the same, so I always make it look like free shipping!

[djluis2k6]

Originally Posted by jomari

excuse the ignorance on my end. thank you for confirming that for me.

I know at one time that wasn't possible. You could get all the way to the check out, then it would ask you for a country code and you couldn't get it passed that point. But not you can. I've placed a couple orders to amazon.co.uk, it was pretty cheap for AirMail of 1 BD, and it took about 2 weeks to get here.

[jomari]

any recommendations to be my first purchase?

[2099net]

Originally Posted by gunner89

Hey, i live in the uk and have never ordered from Amazon.com before, lots of times for UK but i never had a compatible card to pay on the us site, i got a Visa card sent the other day and wanted to buy some blu's. Lots of blu's, seeing as they work out almost half the price of the uk, lol.

Anyone know how many you can order without getting stung for import tax and such, would be really grateful, thanks

Anything with a price of goods over £18 (once the currency has been converted) will be subject to import charge. This import charge will be calculated based on the price of the goods AND the price of the shipping.

So if you have £19 worth of goods and another £4 of shipping, you will actually be taxed on £23 rather than just £19.

It is somewhat of a gamble if you will be caught or not, but in my experience these days you're more likely to be caught than not.

The major downer is that if you do have to pay customs, the Royal Mail slap on a huge £8 admin fee, which you must pay. I got the two Mummy films recently in one package and the total admin + customs charge I had to pay was over £12! (the actual duty and tax was only £4)

So the rules of thumb are:

Try to only order one item at a time and most times this will be well under the £18 limit. This may result in extra shipping costs, but this is normally well under £4 per item - so already its cheaper than ordering two items at once and paying £4 each just in admin costs, before tax.

Anything bigger like boxsets, you may be better off ordering from a company which reposts products inside the UK, which means your are not responsible for the importing fees. Such companies typically charge more per product, but again its normally cheaper than being stung for customs (mainly due to Royal Mail's huge admin fee). You'll have to check and do some reseach, but I believe both MovieTyme and Loaded247 repost from the UK.

If you must order a large ticket item from Amazon, and want to stack the odds of not paying import little more in your favour, try adding one or two books to your order to ship at the same time. Books are tax free, and boxes with books and discs in are more likely to slip through the net simply because it takes more time and effort for the inspectors to work out the required charges (especially when combined shipping is taken into account). Note: While I've found this does seem to lower the chances of being hit for import fees, it is not guarenteed and if you do have to pay, you normally have to pay more as they tend to not bother splitting the shipping. It's a gamble, but if you work out you are also being asked to pay duty on the book, make sure you question it at the post office before paying

[Bullseye]

Wasn't there a law announced by the EU that imports under €150 (actually maybe a higher figure) would not be charged import duties?

BTW amazon appear to keep records so that you can order from any of their online stores. I only signed up for amazon.com but have ordered from .co.uk, .de and .fr

[2099net]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

Wasn't there a law announced by the EU that imports under €150 (actually maybe a higher figure) would not be charged import duties?

BTW amazon appear to keep records so that you can order from any of their online stores. I only signed up for amazon.com but have ordered from .co.uk, .de and .fr

As far as I know, that doesn't take effect until sometime in 2009 (February I believe, but could be wrong)

[adamkang]

so until 2009 if i buy something worth £100 of amazon.com i wont be charged tax or nuffin? and what delievery service should i choose?
]thanks

[2099net]

Originally Posted by adamkang

so until 2009 if i buy something worth £100 of amazon.com i wont be charged tax or nuffin? and what delievery service should i choose?
]thanks

No, until 2009 you WILL be charged tax - approx 4% import duty and then 17.5% vat ontop of that plus a Royal Mail "admin fee" of £8. Sometimes you are lucky and don't have to pay a penny, but this is becoming more and more infrequent. Its basically down to if customs and excise have a backlog of parcels to work through or not - sometimes they let stuff through because they don't have the time or manpower to administer the charges.

You only don't have to pay if the value of the goods in the parcel is £18 or less.

I only read this breifly on another forum recently, and I may not be remembering right, but I think that from Feb 2009 you can import upto £125 without having to pay any duty or VAT.

I urge anyone to research this themselves and not simply take my word for it, as I may be incorrect.

The rational is it was costing more to administer the current system than they were getting back in tax. (Remember the £8 Royal Mail fee goes direct to RM, not customs and excise), especially since the explosion in online shopping has resulted in more and more packages being recieved just over the current duty free limit. Thus the limit will be significantly increased.

When the increase has been made, I would guess you'll still be better off going for normal post from Amazon rather than courier, as the courier companies charge an admin fee for getting packages through customs quickly, even if no fees are indeed payable. So you may get your package within 2 or 3 days, but will still have to pay an additional £10 or so admin fee.

[TenEightyP]

I purchase a lot of CD's from the US, and the odd DVD. My experience is that if I keep the value of the goods to less than or equal to £18, then I have never had to pay any additional duty or taxes. furthermore, the postage and packaging has never figured in the costs. for example I purchased many CD's and multiple CD's which came to a total of £17 and the supplier then charged me around £6 postage. Therefore from my experience P+P don't seem to count towards the total value.

I hope that the £18 will rise to £125 as I can then make greater savings by purchasing multiple CD's, DVD's and Blu's in one package.


..

[richieb1971]

If you want free blu's then use amazon.com. What used to happen to me (happened 3 times now) is that you order a movie and they give you a delivery estimate date. If you choose the slowest shipping method which saves you the most cash it can take over a month to deliver (I'm not kidding here). If 10 days or so past the delivery date you haven't received jack you can email them and they will promptly tell you that A) you can have your money back or B) They will submit another order containing the movies you ordered.

Then this is the kicker. About 4 days later you will receive both lots of movies, you'll end up ebaying one set. After a while I wised up to the fact amazon.com was crap handling delivery times and if you choose fastest shipping option add 22% tax because shipping fee's are inclusive of mr Browns import duty. So hardly any saving at all.


Then, I found out about tower.com. Roughly same prices for most things. You make a bumper order of how many movies you want and they charge you in one lump sum. The only downer is that they charge you $5 (shipping) per movie because they send them out separately. But the benefit of this is, you never pay import duty because its always under £18. I have never waited more than 5 working days for a movie from them.

Thank me later

Most movies end up being about £12-£13.

[gunner89]

Originally Posted by richieb1971

If you want free blu's then use amazon.com. What used to happen to me (happened 3 times now) is that you order a movie and they give you a delivery estimate date. If you choose the slowest shipping method which saves you the most cash it can take over a month to deliver (I'm not kidding here). If 10 days or so past the delivery date you haven't received jack you can email them and they will promptly tell you that A) you can have your money back or B) They will submit another order containing the movies you ordered.

Then this is the kicker. About 4 days later you will receive both lots of movies, you'll end up ebaying one set. After a while I wised up to the fact amazon.com was crap handling delivery times and if you choose fastest shipping option add 22% tax because shipping fee's are inclusive of mr Browns import duty. So hardly any saving at all.


Then, I found out about tower.com. Roughly same prices for most things. You make a bumper order of how many movies you want and they charge you in one lump sum. The only downer is that they charge you $5 (shipping) per movie because they send them out separately. But the benefit of this is, you never pay import duty because its always under £18. I have never waited more than 5 working days for a movie from them.

Thank me later

Most movies end up being about £12-£13.

thanks, usign tower.com now to order sarah connor chronicles, into the blue, transformers and reign over me, thanks dude.