Importing from the US???

[ondablade]

This is just out of curiosity. Several times i've suggested buying tools and equipment directly from the US to a resounding silence, most recently on the Incra rules thread.

So to ask the question: why is this? Is it a matter of import duty, supporting local suppliers, lack of familiarity, lack of awareness or something else?

I've upgraded my shop over the past year mostly from the US, and have found it very well worth my while, even paying import duties which are very low. Exchange rates to the € have been very favourable for the past 18m or so. VAT is a bigger deal, but i can reclaim that on my VAT no. Shipping costs too can become an issue on certain configurations of load.

Power tools and machines are really the only area i haven't bought in the US, and that's only because of their 60Hz power and my inability to be sure what might work and what not - they too are very much cheaper there.

Service from any of the big players (e.g Lee Valley, Lie Nielsen, Incremental Tools, Infinity, Rockler, Woodcraft, Tools for Working Wood etc) is universally excellent. Dieter Schmid in Germany did a very good job too and was well priced on Japanese and German stuff.

I've only ever had a delay with one order, and that was down to a less than helpful or competent and heavily overloaded lady that handled my order, it was sorted immediately once i went above her...

ian

 

[wizer]

When the dollar was much weaker against the pound it was a more attractive proposition. I have imported lots of tools and other stuff from the states. Lately, by the time you have added shipping, let alone customs charges and VAT, it's just not worth the hassle. If you make a saving it's usually less than 10% and you loose the after sales support that you get if buying local.

 

[ondablade]

That pretty much explains it Wiz. I see UK vs US prices through the lens of conversion to Euros, and ignore the VAT - to me the UK seems quite expensive. (exceeded only by our local guys who habitually charge UK plus around 25 - 40%. Don't expect them to have stock either)

I bought a large consignment of Bessey clamps. They cost me €1,950 to buy in the US, would have cost upwards of €3,000 in the UK and an impossible around €4,000 here.

I tried for discount in the UK on a very large order that combined these with another several thousand's worth of kit. Most of the names didn't even reply, several promised a quote but didn't, and one eventually made a big deal of offering 5% discount.

Air freight cost me €500, and duty another 1 1/2% and i got the VAT back - so i saved €600 over UK prices (freight from the UK would have cost about €100) and around €1,500 over Irish prices by buying a German made clamp in the US.

Daft! So much for the Single European Market... :roll:

ian

 

[chingerspy]

I would prefer to spend my £ in a local shop (even if it's a chain) if possible and if not across the pond. At least the shop gets it's markup and I can go back there when I need something in a hurry. I'm just starting out though so maybe my view will change with time. I hope not.

I could gain in the short term but lose out in the long term. I dunno, I get good pre after sale service from the smaller shops too.

To each their own.

Edit: just read your 2nd post... for large savings like that maybe it is worth looking into. I can only dream of having that amount to spend on tools in one hit

 

[Chems]

When it was 2 dollars to the pound I bought a lot of stuff from the states, with shipping and customs it was still alot cheaper than here and I was making a good saving. But not anymore. I got my domino buy buying it whilst I was over there and bringing it back with me and I made a huge saving on that. I think thats the only way to make savings at the moment if your going there on holiday anyway.

 

[ondablade]

We've had this debate over here Chinger due to people nipping to Northern Ireland over the border to shop.

But while i'm all in favour of maintaining local support, there's a point beyond which it goes loopy. In our recent boom we saw prices soar far beyond any Euro or UK norm - even allowing for our slightly more remote location. Even the supermarkets were charging at least UK plus 40%.

The problems include lack of competition, and a punter that's lazy enough to go 'oh well' and pay up - Ireland especially is of a size that businesses in the mainstream areas (oil, banking, grocery, government etc) can easily get hooked up in cartels and screw the punter - aided and abetted an ineffectual government that's easily persuaded (if needed by dubious means) to look the other way, and is itself a major source of runaway cost increases in the economy. (protect the bureaucracy at all costs!!!)

The UK isn't quite so bad (there's more competition), but it's going that way in areas where a few large businesses get control and start to profiteer. (the banks are a case in point, at the stroke of a pen and as a result of lack of competition we'll soon be back into record profits)

This led directly in Ireland into a very high cost of living and wage demands that made the economy uncompetitive - they were in the end unsustainable.

There's nothing wrong with local distribution making a fair margin, but for example why should UK buyers pay US prices in Sterling £? i.e. full US retail (which includes a mark up) with a mark up on top of that. Why should Irish punters pay yet another mark up again on top of that? I know there's economies of scale involved, but they can't account for that much.

I bought my Hammer machines in Ireland last Summer, but only after a long wrangle where despite my starting by making it clear that i wasn't paying over the UK price he quoted full local whack. He ended up backing pretty much all of the way down - but with little grace, and after months of delay. Despite repeated requests he wasn't able to justify the price difference. The factory got involved and it was sorted soon afterwards. This was to his advantage as far as i can tell, because shortly afterwards he was offering similar factory discounts to the UK. But i'm left to suspect that it wouldn't have happened without pressure....

I'd have to say that i'm very much in favour of anything that reduces additional costs beyond those of the manufacturer to the minimum necessary....

ian

 

[eoinsgaff]

Ian,

I've bought practically nothing here in Ireland. Crazy prices and sales people with a blind spot to reality.

I get the best deals from the UK, especially when buying second hand.

Last year I bought a new Record Bandsaw - BS500 - along with a nearly new drill press for less than €900.00 to my door. The best price I could get here was €1200 for the band saw alone. Not delivered. I bought a ex demo Startrite tablesaw lately for €1600 delivered to the door. €4000 new here.

I find that with a good bit of shopping around I get about €150 - €200 average per pallet shipping from the UK to North Kerry.

Every time I buy something I try here in Ireland first. I'm a patriot but I'm not in the mood for spending an unnecessary two grand to help stimulate the economy.

Even all my hand tools are shipped in. I tried the US a few times but I found it better to stick with the UK. I'm experimenting with the continent as we speak. Thinking of getting a few bits and bobs in Germany to see how things work.

All just food for though

Eoin

 

[woodsworth]

I bought a large consignment of Bessey clamps. They cost me €1,950 to buy in the US, would have cost upwards of €3,000 in the UK and an impossible around €4,000 here.

I have to know. When you buy this much over seas what is the Duty on it. I've bought some things from the USA. They have all been under a hundred bobs though. So you get the usual note from Parcel Force holding it ransomed for the VAT and and extra charge for charging me VAT. If you import something bigger is there more charges? How does it actually work?

I want to import a Delta Uni Saw, but i'm worried about the cost of duty. I can see paying VAT and the surcharge to collect it and give it to the government but any more wouldn't seem right.

I've done the cost analysis on a Powermatic saw and it came to £2200 delivered from the USA, but now i'm not sure about the difference of quality between that and the SIP saw. If the SIP turns out to be a good machine then I won't bother importing the Powermatic or the Unisaw. I seen the 12 inch SIP with carriage on e-bay for £1600 and i'm sure if i shop around i can get it cheaper.

Any how, how does the Duty work on big items?

 

[SVB]

I bought some LN planes from Woodcraft in US when they had a 20% off sale.

I paid 3.5% duty and then the VAT on top (including on the duty!!! :evil: ).

Still worked out a good deal with the £:$ at 1.8.

S

 

[woodsworth]

So basically we can say that it is 21% on top of the price? is that how it works? So can you just order and know that when it arrives someone is going to bill us or do we have to make declarations of some sort?

 

[SVB]

No self declaration I am afraid.

The sender puts several copies of the invoice in a plastic pocket on the outside which was opened before my parcel arrived and I had a bill from FedEx approx 3 weeks later.

Not sure if the opening of the invoice pocket was related (surely these things are electronic now??).

So, you will automatically be taxed on the invoice value. Some have asked the supplier for this to be artifically surpressed or marked as samples but this is tax evasion / fraud. You may get away with this with a small or private sale from the US but I can't see larger US companies being willing to play this game and indeed many e-business systems may prevent this happening.

Also worth checking how customs will categorise your intended purchase as there are different categories with different tax levels. I can't remember whether mine was described as 'woodwork tools', 'hand tools', or 'workshop tools'.

Hope this helps,
S

 

[woodsworth]

So an example of a Lie Nielsen no. 8 plane.

Is $475 us dollars converts to £364.52 with VAT and import tax before shipping.

So it would be close wouldn't it.

So it would seem one has to make a decision to buy local and put up with the fact that they have calculated the most they can get for the product or just buy it from the USA to make the point that we won't put up with that sorta thing.

I know when i make decisions like that I let who ever might of got my business that this was the deciding factor in my buying abroad, but i imagine that most people don't so they don't get the benefit of knowing that they lost a sale because of their practices and i think even more people just buy from them because it is bought in the UK and they get it sooner.

Some things to consider.

 

[ondablade]

Some thoughts on this based on my own experience:

An important issue in this is to be registered for VAT, that way you can reclaim it unless there's some sort of reason not in the UK. The excise is quite low at about 1 1/2% (but varies a bit for different categories of apparently similar goods) and isn't a big deal.

Don't forget if you get stuff from the US that you don't always (i gather) get intercepted for duty and VAT. I don't know what the hit rate is, but it's about 50% over here.

You will always pay duty and VAT if you have a sizeable shipment and use a commercial air freight forwarder - most here have a customs guy who drops in to clear their shipments.

The exchange rate is another factor. The credit card companies tend to give a lousy rate, it tends to be worth on a big order organising a bank transfer. (you need account details from the company to do this)

The other potential killer is the cost of air freight - which might make organising a buying trip maybe a worthwhile option?

Some are better than others in this regard, I've had Incra go to quite a lot of trouble to come up with a commercial forwarder rather than a courier company option on an order of about $1,200 which saved me a bundle on bringing in a router table and a positioning system.

Panalpina can be very competitive in this regard and give very good service to here, UPS i like best of the couriers - but a lot depends on who your supplier routinely uses as most won't go off their standard. You may need to set up an account with them.

Small individual packages tend to be proportionally expensive, even air mail for a padded envelope costs about $30. Likewise high volume low weight low value boxes are a bust - in this case the airlines apply what they call a volumetric weight (they multiply the cu metres by a nominal assumed kg/cu m figure, and then apply the normal per kg rate unless the actual weight is higher - in which case they use that) so it's very uneconomical to ship lightweight cheap stuff. (e.g. i was looking at well over $220 to ship in Camfil filter cartridges for my dust system - but luckily found a local Donaldson branch)

The shipping seems to be most cost effective for quite heavy stuff like hand tools and clamps, especially in decent quantities as in e.g. a sizeable group buy, or kitting a shop out like i was, or even shipping a crate home after a group buying trip?

The high end hand tools are rarely discounted, but on the other hand are significantly better priced in dollars. Power tools are especially cheap, but there's the voltage and frequency questions.

In the case of my clamp buy i searched around until i got a company offering a good price. I don't want to name them in public, but i bought at the regular web shop price. (some of the big sellers offer good prices on specific sizes to suck you in, but can be very expensive on the other sizes if you need to buy a range of sizes and can't wait for a discount opportunity)

As before with one exception my experience of service levels has been exemplary - slicker actually in my experience than the big UK web sellers. I've never experienced a issue with fraud or dishonesty on the US side in bringing in stuff for many years from the US (i'm into motorcycles too)

It seems fairly clear that the retailers pitch to get just over what a single tool purchase costs, it probably takes a bit more setting up than that...

 

[big soft moose]

The other potential killer is the cost of air freight - which might make organising a buying trip maybe a worthwhile option?

if you are bringing in a lot of stuff, is sea freight a cheaper option ?

Ive thought about trying importing the dewalt scroll saws from the US - as there seems to be a ready market for them and they asrent distributed here anymore, but like you ive been put off by the electrical variation.

 

[ondablade]

I never checked it out properly BSM. I did once for one shipment, and it was cheaper, but not as much as you might expect. It'd probably be worth properly investigating though with somebody who knows international shipping as my sense is that if you don't mind waiting it can be done very cheaply.

Insurance can be a bit of an issue too while i'm being negative, a commercial forwarder won't offer insurance beyond the Warsaw convention cover, and brokers don't usually cover single shipments so unless another angle can be found you may need a supplier with cover to take care of it...

 

[woodsworth]

When i was looking into the powermatic import I was offered $225 dollars shipping plus $50 if i wanted it insured so some companies do offer insurance.