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.

Having done a little research into this, I understand it as follows:

You can 'import' from any EU country without duty or VAT, so this would exclude Gibraltar. However, small countries, principalities etc, (e.g. Isle of Man) have special clauses so often as if in EU. The EU defines the import duty levied as a percentage of the goods value, including shipping. This duty is specified in TARIC (I think).

Specifically, a Camera or other camera related goods (but not a lens) are currently charged at 3.7% duty. Lenses are charged at 6.7%. (based on import from the US).

This duty, plus VAT, are payable to the delivery man when he brings the parcel to your door. Many, if not all, delivery companies will also charge a fee for handling the duty & VAT payment with customs. This is between 8 and 13 GBP for Parcel force.

I think that you can defer payment of the duty and VAT for 30 days if you agree to pay by direct debit. There is a form to be filled in, and worth finding out about if importing a 600mm f4. I have no idea how this works though.

The gift allowance for importing parcels is 36 GBP. So a company that marks a parcel as a gift can, in theory, only insure it for up to 36 GBP. Also, if customs deem the parcel contents to be worth more than that, you are responsible for paying the full import duty and VAT.

Cheers, Mark.

For UK residents,

Not sure if this link will work pasted within this forum but here goes:
http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsP...HMCE_CL_001454

If not, go to http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ and type "shopping on the internet" into the search box. There's full details of duty rates and the goods they apply to. Remember, the VAT is charged on the value after the import duty, if there is any on the item in question, has been applied. So, you pay VAT on the import duty! I came perilously close to making a loss (compared to UK high St. price) on a tripod head I bought from Canada by the time all the tax and fees had been added.

Duncan.

Edit: Whew! The link works!

I used Digatal rev to purchase a Sigma 120-300 f2.8 & some other items - The lens came with a no VAT guarantee. I was charged only around £60.00 by UPS which was refunded in a matter of days. Even though this was the only lens that I purchased with the guarantee the other 3 were items were at my expense.

I do not know how the import duty works as my total order value was £1600

I would highly rate this service I saved around £600 on the lens - they seemed very professional if a little difficult to get hold of because of the time difference.

I do not know about the warranty - has anyone claimed?

With regards to International Warranties I picked this up on Sigma's UK website.

"Sigma Imaging (UK) Ltd does not condone the avoidance of the payment of VAT and import duty. Any claims on our 12 month International Warranty from the owners of products not imported into the UK by Sigma Imaging (UK) Ltd must therefore be accompanied by proof of payment of import duty & VAT."

Well, it arrived....

Ordered 11th, shipped 13th and arrived 17th.

A saving of £21 with shipping considered compared with the lowest U.K. mail order/Internet price.

I am happy but I would not risk anything over £50 - I am just cautious.

That's enough to put me off buying any more Sigma. Nikon offer full worldwide warranty on all of their products, though I've heard of some problems US users have had with Nikon USA and grey imports.

YMMV.

As Sigma placed this on their website, it suggests the number of people purchasing from abroad is significant. I read about one chap who purchased a Sigma lens from HK which failed 11 months afterwards. He shipped it back to receive his warranty and was returned repaired, suffice to say he was happy.

I too have had good trading experience with DigitalRev. I bought a Canon 100-400 lens with the promise of no import duty. This I was charged on delivery, because I paid by bank transfer, the £53 duty was repaid the next day into my bank on emailing a copy of the Import duty receipt to Digital Rev no qualms or problems. Even had a courtesy phone call the following day from their agent in London just to confirm I had received the money back and detailing how to contact him if I had any problems with the lens.

The bit people should be aware of when getting items from overseas is the 'gift' 'no market value' declaration from the seller.

"Note: Some unscrupulous overseas suppliers openly advertise on the internet, or on their web-sites that they will deliberately either misdescribe items or underdeclare their value in order to evade customs charges that are legally due on importation.

You should be aware that although the foreign sender may have completed the customs declaration form on the parcel you are regarded (in law) as the importer of the goods and responsible for the information on the declaration, and any customs charges that may be due. This means that if you purchase goods from these suppliers and the declaration is found to be false or misleading you may be liable to financial penalties or criminal prosecution.

Furthermore the goods themselves will be liable to forfeiture. It is in your own interests to ensure Customs declarations are completed properly."

Be careful buying some things out of the far east on Ebay. I ordered 4 batteries for my 4500 at very good prices. I asked that they be shipped in one package, hoping to save on shipping. The company sent them in one package alright but charged me four shipping fees. Still a good deal but it eroded my savings plus really p****d me off. Then there was their Feedback policy!:mad:
Moral: read the fine print!

Must admit the prices are tempting given UK prices but member experiences seem very hit and miss.

In summary I haven't got the bottle.

Peace of mind is worth a fair bit to me. I also like supporting independant U.K. photography shops, though loyalty vs ££ can only go so far.

:) Andy

Yes, the exchange rate is not at good as it was so it makes it easier to be chicken!