Shipping to Europe?

[ken]

Hello,

I am getting many emails from customers who want me to ship to Europe,
mostly France, Germany and UK. Is there a reasonably cheap, quick way to ship there?

Also, a few have asked me to ship to them 'gifts' - I assume so they can avoid paying duty. Has this happened to you?

What is your 'luck' with shipping there?

Thank you,
Ken

[Peter Naglitsch]

Re: shipping methods I can only say that DHL, FedEx, UPS, USPS all work fine but have different costs and speed associated to the specific service provider.

Generally the "gift" trick doesn't work anymore. The customs guys have got that figured out several years ago. Add to that the fact that I *think* that YOU are the one guilty to fraud should steer you away from that. One thing that however works is to write a completely different prize and to call it "spare parts". I recently got a package labeled that way with the value decreased to 10% of the actual value and that passed customs without problems.

[Steve Conner]

Sure, that works. The only downside of undervaluing is that if the shipper loses the item or smashes it, you can only claim compensation to the value that you wrote.

[David Schwab]

I use USPS Priority Mail for international shipping. So far it's been working well, and is pretty reasonable.

I have had a few people ask to mark it as a gift, and undervalue it. The most recent, which is going to Brazil, seems to have dropped off the map. Actually USPS never did get the tracking working right, and now no one knows where it is, but they suspect it's in customs.

Obviously if its lost there's no way to get the full value of the pickup.

[defaced]

I remember reading recently that the EU VAT tax was going to disappear for items under some magical value. I don't ship over there, but I know people in the EU who purchase from the US and were elated by this. Would be worth looking into.

[ken]

I remember reading recently that the EU VAT tax was going to disappear for items under some magical value. I don't ship over there, but I know people in the EU who purchase from the US and were elated by this. Would be worth looking into.

I wish this was true, I have a lot of customers in Europe and for some people the duty they pay is a deal breaker.

USPS doesn't seem too bad as long as you use a very small shipping box, as the
prices seem to go up exponentially with the box size.

Ken

[LtKojak]

I have a lot of customers in Europe and for some people the duty they pay is a deal breaker.

Of course it is! In some countries the VAT go up to 25%, plus up to 15% of import tax. Do your math and you'll see why.

USPS is not very reliable in some countries of Europe including Italy. In reality is not really USPS fault, but the Italian post system, which the goods are delivered to once arrived. The posiibilities in getting what you're waiting for is about 50% and waiting delivery time is three to four weeks in average. In France, Germany, Benelux and specially the UK things are a lot better. Countries that are newcomers to the EU are as bad as Italy, if not worse.

Use DHL, FedEx or UPS, which have their own delivery service inside the country. In Italy, the best service is given by DHL, which has their own custom office.

HTH,

[Peter Naglitsch]

[QUOTE=LtKojak;116097]Of course it is! In some countries the VAT go up to 25%, plus up to 15% of import tax. Do your math and you'll see why.
QUOTE]
Minimum VAT in European union is 15% and maximum is 25%. But 15% import duties seems a bit high. We have 25% VAT in Sweden, but import taxes are like 2%, depending on if the goods is "luxury" stuff or not.

For the nothern part of Europ I think that USPS will work just fine. But I agree with Kojak, DHL is generally the best, even thou I don't think they are the cheepest alternative.

[SteikBacon]

In Norway we pay 25%. But I have sometime experienced they take a extra fee, like "for the job". Don't know the english word. If we order below 30$ then it's free.

[LtKojak]

In Norway we pay 25%. But I have sometime experienced they take a extra fee, like "for the job". Don't know the english word. If we order below 30$ then it's free.

Norway, huh? In 1984 I've played in Oslo, Bergen and another town I forgot the name for ten weeks. Wait! That was twenty five years ago?

Man, I'm OOOOOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here in Italy we pay as follows:

VAT: 20%
Import tax: 3%
Stockage: 2%

Could that word in english be "shipping and handling" "S/H"?

[RedHouse]

I haven't figure a way around it either.

My wife is Scottish (I'm Amercian) we live in the US, and everything we send over for the family's B'day, Christmas, etc, gets ding'ed by the customs man...even when they are REALLY gifts!.

[Possum]

....

USPS is the best cheapest way to ship from the US. UPS is horribly expensive. I use an internet mail service called Endicia and they use their own private insurance company. The benefit of that is I can put a low customs value yet insure the product for full value, this never appears on the form. I lost a package in NewZealand and insurance covered it all.

If you ship to Paypal addresses or do Ebay sales one word of warning, some bozos don't update their profiles so Paypal/Ebay sends you an invalid shipping address. So the package goes overseas and someone gladly signs for a free present from the US or the driver sees that person doesn't live there and put the package in his personal stash to take home. Verify Ebay and Paypal addresses before shipping to avoid lost/stolen packages.

Endicia costs $15 a month but, being a nite owl, I do all my shipping at nite, print the postage out, slap it on and drop the packages in the nite box at the post office, no lines, and their insurance is better...

[David Schwab]

I'll have to look into that.

I do all my shipping on line. I was using the PayPal USPS service, but the tracking is slow to show up, so now I do it right from USPS.com.

I order the free boxes, so all I have to do is pack them up and print out labels and then drop off the boxes.

[Possum]

.......

Endicia.com is the only one I could find that has a Mac app and it works flawlessly. For PC users there are more choices. You can still get your free USPS packaging, Endicia has all that set up in their system, their flat rate shipping stuff etc. I really hate dealing with the postal people especially if there's a problem so with this I never have to go there, I can even print stamps. Its just very fast and easy for me with my weird hours....

[ken]

I just got an email from a customer today from Europe that wants me to send his pickups as a gift. He never bought any pickups from me before, and he actually specifically states in both of his emails to me that he wants to avoid paying any tax.

I don't know, but my paranoia gland just hit hyperdrive. What do you think?
Me, I think I smell a rat.

ken