Ordering from Lee Valley

[SpinDoctor]

Just wondering what pitfalls I'll need to navigate if I order a couple waterstones from Lee Valley. The cost will be $55USD for the stones and $35USD for shipping, still much cheaper than the £100 plus cost here.

Will I get hit with taxes and duty? And or will the shipping company hit me with hidden charges.

 

[Harbo]

Probably all those.
It's becoming more and more unlikely not to get charged as even the PO have started to add their handling charges too - even when no duties are charge?

Rod

 

[KevM]

It's a racing certainty that you'll get hit for import duty & VAT; LV are a reputable dealer so they're scrupulous about completing export paperwork correctly.

It's also increasingly common to be charged a fee by the courier in this country as a disbursement to cover the onerous task of collecting the taxes from you; Royal Mail charge £8 for this over and above anything else (I've had to pay £8 to pay £1 tax before now). Don't forget your credit card company will also want to wet their beaks for a foreign transaction, not much but another few percent.

With USD90 coming in at ~GBP53 at the moment you'll probably still come out ahead, and no worse than even, but it won't be quite such a bargain. In my experience Lee Valley do have almost fanatical customer service so I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them as a vendor.

 

[SpinDoctor]

It was an interesting conversation with UPS regarding extra charges. I had repeated self 3 times, each slightly different that the last asking what were the charges UPS would be demanding from me once they arrived at my door... Throughout the conversation the woman was adamant UPS doesn't charge anything other than what is "negotiated" with the shipping company... Negotiated was a key word that I thought was a dodge... Then when I said can you put it in an email that UPS won't be charging any other cost other than the quoted shipping charges she suddenly changed her stance and admitted there was a £11 brokerage fee charged over and above the shipping costs "negotiated with the shipping company... My next question was why were you avoiding telling me that when I asked you originally... For some reason she stopped answering my questions.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

It may be worth calling one of their UK dealers to see if they can order it on your behalf with a batch of other things. I've done that with products from Oneway before where there was no stock in the UK but a regular Oneway dealer ordered it for me and some of those extra costs were buried in his larger shipment. Of course I had to pay his margin but I didn't have all the hassle of self importing.

It strikes me there is an opportunity for a larger importer of Lee Valley/Veritas products as they're often very well made and are in general a very highly regarded company and yet getting much of their less well known stuff here is a nightmare.

 

[carlb40]

Try this for the VAT/import duty fees.

http://www.dutycalculator.com/new-impor ... lculation/

 

[RogerP]

According to the calculator...



Total customs value (CIF): £52.87 This is the amount that customs values your import at
- Duty: £0.00
- VAT: £10.57
Total import duty & taxes due: £10.57 This is the amount that needs to be paid to customs
Total landed cost: £63.44 This is the total cost of importing, including product, shipping, insurance and import duty & taxes at exchange rate of 1 GBP = 1.7 USD

Notes on duty & taxes rates and compliance
Woodworking Plane has an import duty rate of 3.7% and a VAT rate of 20% .
Notes on import taxes due
Duty result is nil because the total value of the products does not exceed £135.00
Please include the costs of insurance to assure correct import tax calculation
Please note that your shipping provider may add an additional handling fee

 

[SpinDoctor]

It strikes me there is an opportunity for a larger importer of Lee Valley/Veritas products as they're often very well made and are in general a very highly regarded company and yet getting much of their less well known stuff here is a nightmare.

I wouldn't hold your breath on that. In modern business allowing others to sell your product at a fair price to the consumer is going to have an adverse effects on your profit margin.

 

[Harbo]

Having been to LV's store in Toronto a few times, the range of stuff they sell is just amazing and a lot of it low value. Importing such a variety would not be practical or very profitable allowing for shipping costs etc.
The UK distributor is Brimarc (Axy) who already import a wide range LV tools.
A similar situation arises with the American Co Rockler which also sells a vast range of products, but sadly no UK distributor?

What would be really nice is if the set up a store in the UK or Europe?

Rod