Flying the Atlantic backwards

[Happy Jack]

Imagine a box or package whose dimensions are not a million miles away from a Fender hard case in a cardboard box. Doesn't matter what it really is, that gives you a decent steer as to what I'm talking about.

This box or package is in New York, in the possession of a well-known, reliable, and completely trust-worthy seller. This is someone I've dealt with before.

The seller provides an estimate of $800 - $950 to ship it to me in London. Bear in mind that the exchange rate today is £1.00 = $1.40.

Erm ... what? Shurely shome mishtake. That's enough money to buy me a return ticket from Heathrow to JFK and collect in person.

The seller checks, an replaces his estimate with an actual quote. The very cheapest he can manage is $733, which is with a UPS economy service. He sends me a copy of the UPS quote.

OK, that gives me everything I need to run the same request, but using the UK website for UPS of course.

So ... precisely the same dimensions & weight, the same origin and destination but flipped around so I'm shipping to him, and up comes a screenful of options using various UPS services.

The most expensive one there is £183, the cheapest is £135.

I take a screenshot and email it to the seller. The seller re-runs his own request and also takes a screenshot of his screenful of options. He sends me his screenshot.

The cheapest option is $733, the most expensive is $1200-ish.

That's the same package, being sent by the same courier firm, almost certainly on the same aircraft.

If he sends it to me, it costs me £524 (i.e. $733 / 1.40). If I send it to him, it costs him £135.

Only it doesn't cost me £524, of course. I have to pay 3.7% Import Duty on the entire cost of the package, including courier costs, so that makes it £543.

Only it doesn't cost me £543, of course. I have to pay 20% VAT on the entire cost of the package, including courier costs and Import Duty, so that makes it £652.

I can't help but feel that I must be missing something ...

 

[Dad3353]

I've all but given up on getting stuff from the US of A, exactly because of shipping costs to France. To be fair, I've completely given up on getting stuff from the UK, for the same reason. Shipping within the EU is OK (always too expensive, whatever, of course..!), but acceptable. Shipping from the Far East is ludicrously cheap (but slow...).  I bought a 'box' from the US in November; it finally arrived beginning of April, after much hassle for all parties concerned, and still had to pay import duties on top. I sometimes think that there's a tramp steamer still operating the Atlantic route, using dollar bills as fuel. Shipping..? It's a lottery.

[HazBeen]

Don't get me started..... I could write a book titled "the trouble with buying and selling stuff overseas", I literally think certain individuals within the postal service do this to take the piddle.

I can send small packages to the UK for 20-30% less than the other way around. Get into bigger territory (say a bass) and all of a sudden I am paying 30-40% more than if I were shipping UK-NL. USA is much the same.

Best way forward is to become a pirate and pillage  what you need

[Lozz196]

On a similar vein we had the possibility of a gig in Vegas, looked at flights, cheapest we could get would take 26 hours. I mean you could take off and hover and get there quicker. I think their theory was take off and go extra fast over Europe/Russia/China/The Pacific, rather than just head out the other way..........

[Hellzero]

@Happy Jack Ask him to get a quote by USPS, you'll be amazed by the difference. That said, apart from BestBassGear shipping to my wife's sister in France (as it's free over $100 USD and the French customs don't tax the way the Belgian ones do), I don't buy anything anymore in the USA. Period. Oups, bought a second hand Michael Manring / Thonk bass transcriptions book through eBay USA and just received it today without any hassle.

[dannybuoy]

If you'd have gone with Interparcel or the like you would have got an even cheaper quote than from going to UPS direct in my experience. I wonder if there are similar services based in the US? But agreed, that takes the piddle. If you buy a brand new bass from a store that will ship to the UK (look on eBay for example) you can see shipping charges are usually under $100.

[Hellzero]

@dannybuoy USPS as I wrote.