On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 11:11:26 +0100, "Peter Crosland"
wrote:

How much cheaper? As a rule of thumb add 25% to the USA cost for duty and
VAT as well as Customs clearance charges.

It's actually nearer to 20% because the duty rates are 1.7 and 2.7%
depending on the item. Entry charges are normally bundled in with
the shipping and if DHL or Fedex are used, they have pretty good rates
in their economy services.

Remember that duty and VAT have to
be paid on the total cost including carriage.
Unless your are fortunate
enough for the item to avoid Customs then you will have to pay all of these.



To pick an example, a Makita 6347DWDE 18v drill driver is $209 from
Coastal Tool. Coastal Tool uses UPS and for this package the
express service for this weight of 22lb is $106. I bought
something of similar weight from them recently and asked them to use
my Fedex account. The cost on that was $45 in shipping on the
cheapest service which took about a week.
So total $ cost was $254

At the current rate of $1.80 that works out to £141.

Add to that 2.7% duty and then VAT and it comes to £170.

Toolnet has the same product for £181.82 +VAT = £213.64

So yes, it is worth it.


Another option is to do a shopping trip to the U.S. and buy a bunch of
items. Much of the airfare can be offset by the duty free
allowance - paltry though it is, and all of the shipping cost can be
saved.



..andy

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