Buying Festool Direct from Germany

[Jake]

Add duties and VAT and the lump sum parcel farce stick on it for 'handling' and you'll be lucky to save anything

This is within the EU, Tony.

 

[Anonymous]

Add duties and VAT and the lump sum parcel farce stick on it for 'handling' and you'll be lucky to save anything

This is within the EU, Tony.

I know, but charges will still have to be paid (except import ) and I suspect the saving will not be particuallry large. I have bene 'burnt' a couple of times :roll:

Then there is warranty and the faciltiy to send/take to back to the seller..............

 

[tnimble]

I know, but charges will still have to be paid (except import )

But also if buying nationally. The only thing is that UK tax is a bit lower than German taxes.

and I suspect the saving will not be particuallry large. I have bene 'burnt' a couple of times :roll:

Indeed and for the example tool german retail prices are hugher than the UK retail prices which is gennerally true for all tools and wood.

Then there is warranty and the faciltiy to send/take to back to the seller..............

Only for the 1 year (or what ever is given on a tool) merchant / 'factory' warranty. Besides any given warranty the manufacturer has to make a product that is safe, functional and meets general accepted expectation.
Besides that also the normal warrenty can be used 'worldwide'. Some brands even promote this. As an example with Canon you can get a repair or product swap no receipts or questions asked at any location worldwide.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Hi guys
I know that some will groan at this, some will laugh and some will swear loudly, but I am in the fortunate position of being about to visit the Festool factory in Nuremberg. There are a few of us woody journalists going, and I'm going with my British Woodworking hat on, as Nick is just a tad busy.

So if any of you have any questions (other than "Why is Festool stuff so *$£%^&* expensive?"), I'll be delighted to ask them on your behalf and if I can get an answer, I will. You have 36 hours, I fly Sunday afternoon.

On an earlier point, about getting a VAT registered mate to buy for you; he has to charge you VAT. If he doesn't, he is committing an offence, and VAT pays my wife's salary, thank you very much!

Cheers
Steve

 

[pooka]

Then there is warranty and the faciltiy to send/take to back to the seller..............

My understanding is that you can take a Festool (and many other brands) to a local agent if it needs to be repaired, even under warranty, regardless of where you bought it. I asked a supplier about this before buying some Bosch and Festool kit (mind you, the supplier is obviously biased in favour of making the sale so it may be worth double checking on this).

For what it's worth, I recently bought some Festool kit from the UK for about 20% less than I would have paid here. The current exchange rate accounts for some of that difference, but mostly the prices in the UK just seem to be better (or else the prices here are just significantly higher than elsewhere). I feel uneasy about not "spending local" but when the price difference is that significant my ethics are drowned out by the desire not to feel ripped off. I am curious to compare local prices here with those in Germany but I expect to be annoyed by the difference there too

 

[monkeybanjo]

Interesting, I was looking at this just last week but i was wondering about importing from the states where the festool stuff is cheaper still.

I'm living in Switzerland at the moment which seems to give people the right to charge ludicrous prices even though the VAT equivalent here is only 7%. A Festool 2000W router here costs around 1250 swiss francs vs 500 dollars and the current exchange rate is very close to 1 for 1.

Has anyone imported powertools from the states? The main reason i backed off was because i'm unsure how i would use them safely. I assume the whole 110v vs 220v thing would result in a nice firework show if i attempted to plug it into the power supply here

 

[bigjoe]

With regards to the 240v-110v question you just need to replace the us plug with a uk 110v and use a site transformer,ive got a few us tools and they work fine (as far as i know! :shock: )

Regards

Joe

 

[carlsberg]

I once tried to buy some HEPA filters for my CT33, from a dealer in the USA.

I got an email telling me they were forbidden to sell Festool items outside of the USA, and that I should try locating the item in the UK.

I did a quick search, but could not find the HEPA filters for sale over here.

carlsberg

 

[mrwilby]

I've just bought a rather large Festool order from this company:

http://www.entenmann-werkzeug-shop.de/

They speak sketchy English, but we managed via Google Translate and the odd bit of English here and there.

They answer emails very fast and can order the entire Festool range, as well as stocking quite a lot of it.

I now live in Finland, so they are shipping to me here, rather than to you lot in the UK ;-) but I would assume they'd do that too.

I negotiated on price and managed to get a good deal I think...

If you supply them with a VAT number they will sell exclusive of VAT.

 

[monkeybanjo]

Hi Bigjoe,

Thanks for the advice. Hadn't thought it would be that simple. Looks like i might have to get my credit card out :-D

 

[aurrida]

i live in germany, email if i can help you. generally fixed price here so dont bother looking for discounted sellers. no import or vat.

delivery: dhl insured 3 day http://www.dhl.de/dhl?tab=1&skin=hi&che ... le=3001057

min. 15 x 11 x 1 cm
max. 120 x 60 x 60 cm

5 kg 17€
10 kg 22€
20 kg 32€

 

[Scott]

I'm living in Switzerland at the moment which seems to give people the right to charge ludicrous prices even though the VAT equivalent here is only 7%.

Know what you mean! I keep looking at Festool kit in Geneva ... but only in "Ho, ho, ho, isn't that ridiculous!" kind of way!

 

[AndyBoyd]

Ther are quite a few on ebay.de just check out the feedback i get my stuff via this one:

http://stores.ebay.de/maschinen-shop24_ ... idZ2QQtZkm

I have no association
ebay in de is very well regulated by the authorities

regards

Andy

 

[aurrida]

as i said before the prices are fixed here, no discount. the price on ebay are list price festool. if you buy a lot from a supplier they usually throw in something free and festool have there own reward points that convert to cash.

check out www.idealo.de but again i would be surprised if cheaper

http://www.festool.de/