Buying in UK

[woodfarmer]

In my case the air freight charge included the handling fees and import duty.. I have no idea if you can order from Amazon. USA to UK but you can to France.

I would order a gross or two of Mason jars if the freight wasn't so expensive

Have been importing stuff from USA since the mid 1970's mostly at the time high tech stuff as built my own first computer back then and that was the only place I could get the bits.

 

[marcros]

Yes you can. The last time I did you paid the import tax to amazon and the price you pay is the full price, all in.

 

[themackay]

Ok Marcos that probably works out better as there will be no handling fee or is there

 

[marcros]

I imagine it is in there somewhere, although maybe reduced due to amazon efficiency- it was a while ago to be honest. But there was nothing extra to pay after paying amazon so all thought you did not get the lottery of will I get away with it or not, at least you knew the full price it will cost before you buy. I find with the USA these days that nothing much gets through like it used to.

 

[themackay]

I dont mind so much paying the duty but it is annoying when you buy something and pay a couple of quid duty and 10 quid handling fee.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

An Epson black ink for our printer is £13. We've just got in the post from H.K. (and we've had ink from this manufacturer before, for my daughter's printer) 2x magenta, 2x yellow, 2x cyan, 2x photo black and 2x black, inc. P&P -------£3.99!!! How's about that then?

 

[iNewbie]

I dont mind so much paying the duty but it is annoying when you buy something and pay a couple of quid duty and 10 quid handling fee.

If the paperwork for importation isn't sorted out before the goods arrive and PF have to do it for you why shouldn't you pay for their time - I bet you don't offer your services for free.

 

[themackay]

As someone previously posted very little gets through nowadays could this not be because the handling fees are a nice little earner for the Post Office much profit for very little work.rip off Britain in action again

 

[Rhossydd]

An Epson black ink for our printer is £13. We've just got in the post from H.K. (and we've had ink from this manufacturer before, for my daughter's printer) 2x magenta, 2x yellow, 2x cyan, 2x photo black and 2x black, inc. P&P -------£3.99!!! How's about that then?

Almost certainly not genuine ink.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Of course not - but we've had them before so we know they work perfectly well.

 

[Rhossydd]

Of course not - but we've had them before so we know they work perfectly well.

So your point is that you can buy counterfeit products from the far east for less than genuine parts in the UK ? Hardly relevant.

"they work perfectly well" unless you expect the colour to be accurate or consistent and you don't care about the implications of poor quality control.
At best counterfeit ink carts give similar results to the genuine article, at worst they give grossly wrong colour, terrible longevity of results and will likely cause premature failure of the printer.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

No, my point was that if they can produce and sell a product that works perfectly well and send it half way around the world for about 5% of the cost of a product that probably didn't cost any more to produce, we are being seen off by the sellers of the original product. You can bet the original inks don't sell for anything like the same cost in the U.S.

 

[Rhossydd]

No, my point was that if they can produce and sell a product that works perfectly well and send it half way around the world for about 5% of the cost of a product that probably didn't cost any more to produce

They're not selling the same product though. Counterfeit ink doesn't deliver the same performance or quality. The counterfeiters also haven't had to make any investment in R&D and it's well known that inkjet printers are sold below cost price and the manufacturer's make their profit from selling the high quality supplies for them.

 

[themackay]

I bet the original inks only cost a very small fraction of their retail price to manufacture

 

[Stu_2]

No, my point was that if they can produce and sell a product that works perfectly well and send it half way around the world for about 5% of the cost of a product that probably didn't cost any more to produce

They're not selling the same product though. Counterfeit ink doesn't deliver the same performance or quality. The counterfeiters also haven't had to make any investment in R&D and it's well known that inkjet printers are sold below cost price and the manufacturer's make their profit from selling the high quality supplies for them.

I don't buy this whole counterfeit nonsense. Ink is ink, and has been around for a very long time. If it works to the satisfaction of the buyer, job jobbed! Printer ink here is rip-off. I can't believe people fall for the b******s spouted continuously by manufacturers that their printers will be damaged in some way unless we all keep filling their coffers.

 

[themackay]

The last inkjet I bought after much research was a disaster cost a fortune to feed it ink gave it away in the end.we used it sparingly only switched it on print the job switch it off.I eventually discovered that a large percentage of the ink was being used in a cleaning cycle when you switched it on,also microchips in cartridges which decide when cartridge is empty.Use black and white laser now.

 

[Racers]

I had one at work where it used so much ink in the cleaning cycles it filled up the bottom of the printer, it eventually started to leak out, must have been thousands of pounds of ink.
Colour laser printers are cheaper in the long run.

Pete

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I see a while ago that a geek in the US worked out that the govt. could save $250,000 p.a. on ink by changing the font on all its official paperwork.

We know the o.e. manufacturer does the research and that the profit on the ink subsidises the machine's sale price, but my point on the H.K. stuff was that it draws attention to the actual production cost - where is the branded stuff made? Probably in the same place. You can bet your bottom dollar that the o.e. ink (probably made for much the same price, and even with one hell of a mark up) is nowhere near the price in the rest of the world that it is in this country.

 

[John15]

I dumped my fairly expensive printer a couple of weeks ago due to the excessive amount of ink it used. What bugged me more than anything was that one colour or another was about to run out even though I only printed in black. I've got a cheap £45 machine now and will be looking overseas for it's ink and hope it's more economical.

John

 

[woodfarmer]

I dumped my fairly expensive printer a couple of weeks ago due to the excessive amount of ink it used. What bugged me more than anything was that one colour or another was about to run out even though I only printed in black. I've got a cheap £45 machine now and will be looking overseas for it's ink and hope it's more economical.

John

No need to go directly overseas, much cheap stuff is about even on Amazon.co.uk I used to rate HP really highly, then the last three printers I bought from them all died before the ink cartridge that came with the printer. Each time though I thought (because the instructions said so) it was the ink cartridge. £30 down for a multicolour cartridge and each time the new cartridge went with the useless printer into a bin. When the fourth one stopped printing, I looked at it a decided to junk it and bought an Epson as they use 4 different cartridges one for each colour. £30 to take a chance on the HP (again) or £65 for a new printer with ink !!! The Epson has worked for lots of years, but printing is now smeary so no good for photos.. Time to buy again.