Purchasing equipment abroad
 

I have been looking into the purchase of more expensive kit and it seems that good savings can be obtained buying abroad. Specifically I am looking at buying lenses in the US. Even after shipping, import duty and VAT, the lenses are cheaper than any 'deal' I have found or heard about direct from a UK supplier.

So, my biggest concern would be about the warranty. I have read several posts on other forums that Canon UK will not honour the warranty on a lens purchased in the USA. This is with a so called 'international warranty', rather than a grey import.

Does anyone have any knowledge about this or know of any other pitfalls?

Cheers Mark.

The Post Office will also charge you a handling fee for collecting the revenue on behalf of the tax man. The amount will vary depending on the purchase price and won't be huge but it's all eating into that virtual savings margin.

I've never had to claim on my warranty with my US sourced Pentax so I have no experience.

Duncan

In January 2004, I was looking for a long Nikon lens but I felt they were too expensive so, I looked and looked and found one in San Francisco via e-bay. I bid and got a bargain, so I thought. Shipping was around £80, a price verified by my lady who works for a carriage company whom could not arrange shipping cheaper. It arrived some 15 days after I bid and it was all good but I had to pay £115 import duty to UPS before they would hand it over.

In the end I did save approx £200 on a new one but it was used. Knowing what I know now I would have searched the U.K. for used.

I cannot describe the stress and anguish I went through for two weeks prior to delivery. This continued when I had it internally cleaned at Nikon late last year.

I often travel abroad through business and I have not found a Nikon dealer offering lower prices after currency conversion, even when I was in the U.S. at a time when the £ was 1.95 to the $.

In my experience I would advise to deal with low-cost online providers in the United Kingdom.

Or elsewhere in the EU. Some of the German online sellers seem to have somewhat lower prices than those in the UK. The Canon 100-400L is available for around €1420 in Germany. This works out at around £980, about 10% cheaper than you can get in the UK.

With no import duty.

Does anyone have any experience with the Hong Kong based Ebay stores. Some, such as Digitalrev, guarentee to refund any import taxes incurred and their prices on lens are often substantially cheaper. They also offer international warranties - are these respected.

Ohhhh,

I just purchased a SC-28 flash lead for Nikon on an e-bay advert that claimed NO IMPORT DUTY.

An e-mail arrived this morning suggesting I may be exposed to £13.50 import duty.

I never read the small print but it does say I am liable.

If I am charged my savings will be reduced to £2.50 compared with the high street!

I'll keep you posted....

I used digitalrev on Ebay to purchase a Sigma 180mm f/3.5 macro lens.
It arrived within one week complete with Int. warranty. Import duties where refunded within one week. Resulting in a total saving of almost £150 on uK prices.

Note however not all items are sold inclusive of import taxes.

In cases where import duty is included in the price you pay, but not collected in the UK could lead to problems in the future when leaving the country, as you will not have an import reciept.

My experience of dealing with this company can only be described as excellent.

Would have no problem dealing with them again, not sure if I would buy a camera though, would have to weigh the pro's & con's.

Harry

I've bought a few things on e-bay from Hong Kong without any hassle, including from Digitalrev, my first digital camera a Fuji s7000, for at least £150 cheaper than I could source it in the UK then. I've also bought items from the USA. I wasn't on any occasion charged tax for any of the items, in some cases the items were forwarded labelled as "gifts"!

I recall reading somewhere that cameras aren't taxed at the same rate as lenses, the latter being higher? I never did find out why this is so it may depend on the item being imported as to how vigourous they impose the duty?

Has anyone found an online supplier from Gibraltar? They are part of the UK so purchasing from there wouldn't be seen as importing and generally many things, inc camera equipment, is substantially cheaper!

the likelyhood of being caught by import duties depends on the carrier. Parceltheft will always take the duty.
USPS does not use parcel force. gifts must be below £30 to escape duty as i recall.