buying camera equipment in europe

[c0ntr0lz]

i know several of yall live in Europe and i saw in tommykjensen avatar location this "Location: Copenhagen, Denmark where photo gear is almost twice as expensive as in US :-(" every yall ever thought of getting people here in the us to buy things for yall and ship it to you, without all the charges?

I'm not sure what other taxes, or fees there would be but it would be less to get someone to send it to you at a lower cost then blowing tons on buying there in the country or online.

just a thought/question.

[lomond]

i know several of yall live in Europe and i saw in tommykjensen avatar location this "Location: Copenhagen, Denmark where photo gear is almost twice as expensive as in US :-(" every yall ever thought of getting people here in the us to buy things for yall and ship it to you, without all the charges?

I'm not sure what other taxes, or fees there would be but it would be less to get someone to send it to you at a lower cost then blowing tons on buying there in the country or online.

just a thought/question.


Tommy is not far wrong.
A quick example for the "nifty fifty" ;

B&H $75 = £ 41 (aprox)
Jessops UK £80

Almost double. :( ( If you can get it )

Here in " Rip of Britain " we're " BORN FREE, TAXED TO DEATH "


Cameron

[evilenglishman]

You would still have to pay for it, regardless of if its sent from a company or individual.

I got around this once when i was living in sweden, a friend of mine got me a sony pro video camera and he threw away all the packaging bought a case for it and put everything in the case. He wrote on the box "problem repaired and camera now working", which managed to get past Swedish customs okay.

I was producing videos for a company in The US and they sent me 4 DVD's of their work over and Swedish customs wanted $150 for me importing them. They weren't commercial discs but had cases and were printed.
I told them they could keep the discs :D

[neil_r]

BORN FREE, TAXED TO DEATH "

We have to pay for all the security in the House of Commons somehow. :lol:


N

[lomond]

BORN FREE, TAXED TO DEATH "

We have to pay for all the security in the House of Commons somehow. :lol:


N

A pair of tights and a sword. :?: :?: :?:


Cameron

[malla1962]

i know several of yall live in Europe and i saw in tommykjensen avatar location this "Location: Copenhagen, Denmark where photo gear is almost twice as expensive as in US :-(" every yall ever thought of getting people here in the us to buy things for yall and ship it to you, without all the charges?

I'm not sure what other taxes, or fees there would be but it would be less to get someone to send it to you at a lower cost then blowing tons on buying there in the country or online.

just a thought/question. sounds good to me mate,will someone nip down to b&h ,pick up a ef 1.4x 11 and send to me in uk please
:lol: £250 over here.

[neil_r]

sounds good to me mate,will someone nip down to b&h ,pick up a ef 1.4x 11 and send to me in uk please
:lol: £250 over here.

I know I have slagged them off in the past but I ordered a 1.4 x II T-con from 7dayshop.com last week and it arrived in 5 days @ £199.00 incl VAT

Not as cheap as the US but better than most in the UK.

N

[malla1962]

sounds good to me mate,will someone nip down to b&h ,pick up a ef 1.4x 11 and send to me in uk please
:lol: £250 over here.

I know I have slagged them off in the past but I ordered a 1.4 x II T-con from 7dayshop.com last week and it arrived in 5 days @ £199.00 incl VAT

Not as cheap as the US but better than most in the UK.

N thats a very good price for uk,ile have a look at them,cheers :D

[malla1962]

sounds good to me mate,will someone nip down to b&h ,pick up a ef 1.4x 11 and send to me in uk please
:lol: £250 over here.

I know I have slagged them off in the past but I ordered a 1.4 x II T-con from 7dayshop.com last week and it arrived in 5 days @ £199.00 incl VAT

Not as cheap as the US but better than most in the UK.

N have you used this shop before neil?whats the post prices like
:D

[neil_r]

P&P is FREE :D

To be honest the first time I used them it was not great. I ordered a 512 Mb SD and a 1 Gb CF. The SD arrived in 7 days and the CF did not arrive at all, E-mailed there customer service and they gave me an instant refund.

I gave them a second chance and ordered the 1.4 II T-con and some more memory and as I said it arrived within 5 days.

Yesterday I ordered the 50mm 1.4 and the 85 mm 1.8 from them.

Let’s see what happens

N

[Paul_O]

Sounds like a good idea but it would require a lot of trust and I'm sure it would only take one ugly incident to come undone. I just bought a 50mm 1.8 for A$180 (approx US$125.00) us Aussies are suffering too !
I made a similar post recently about the cost of the 70-200 F4 Here they're A$1600.00 (USD$1120).

Paul

[neil_r]

Back to the origional topic (sorry my fault)

Staying away from the moral problem (the duty or not to pay tax) the practical problem is …. To avoid Tax the package would have to be listed as a gift and the value significantly understated. If all goes well then there are no problems, however should there be any damage or loss then you would only have insurance cover to the tune of the stated value.

N

[lomond]

How about the warranty issue.
Would repairs be covered in the UK ?

Mind you, if I happened to be in the US on holiday I would certainly buy something L shaped and risk customs.

Anonymous. :wink:

[neil_r]

How about the warranty issue.
Would repairs be covered in the UK ?

I bought my 1D MkII from B&H I did a lot of research before doing so and I can assure you that Canon UK will not honour the warranty. I have had to arrange a route back through the US should I have any problems.

N

[lomond]

How about the warranty issue.
Would repairs be covered in the UK ?

I bought my 1D MkII from B&H I did a lot of research before doing so and I can assure you that Canon UK will not honour the warranty. I have had to arrange a route back through the US should I have any problems.

N

The amount of money saved on a 1D MkII must be considerable, and considering a manufacturers warranty only last 1 year, it would be worth the gamble.
I would guess most repairs would cost less than the money saved.

Cameron
( Why do we have to pay so much more ? :evil: )

[Jesper]

According to the law you have to pay tax if you import things like photo equipment. So if you are finding out ways to avoid paying tax, you're really trying to do something illegal...... :?

Here in the Netherlands you have to pay import duty and VAT on goods you import. For some strange reason, the import duty is different for different goods. For example, for 35mm film film cameras it is 4.2% but for digital cameras it is zero; for lenses, it is 6.7%. On top of the import duty we pay 19% VAT. Here is a page (in Dutch) which explains it: Goederen kopen via internet (http://www.belastingdienst.nl/9229237/v/index.htm).

I bought the EF 100 f/2.8 Macro lens from B&H and even with shipping and taxes it was cheaper than buying it in the cheapest internet shop in Germany.

[c0ntr0lz]

man i so love to setup something that would help out those in other countries. I hear alot of yall that are man I'm getting ripped by the prices over here. I know what yall mean by trust, think it would be easy to do through paypal or something, because they have the buyer protection program. I'd have no issues doing this for anyone, I think it'd be cool.

Jesper
but what if you're not importing it, it's getting shipped to you, like through the post/mail service, like a gift or package?

yall wouldn't actually be buying it, you'd just be paying someone to buy and ship it to you. would there be any taxing/charges going on then?

lomond
good ques. i'm not sure, that's something we'd have to look into. I mean if you had troubles we could just ship it back to the buyer and have them send it in, altho that would take a while but it would be covered.

[Mthorpe_Davies]

I just purchased a 24-70 f2.8 from Camulet in LA, (excellent store very helpful staff would recommend to anyone) I saved nearly $800.00 NZD by purchasing in the US. I managed to slip it past customs along with a new watch for my wife. I wouldn't have a problem purchasing more clas from the US, even with shipping and customs I'm going to save about 25 to 35% on retail, however due to manufacturers being bastards I would risk purchasing a body overseas.

[c0ntr0lz]

maybe i should have titled this 'buying equipment from the US and getting it shipped elsewhere'

how did you slip it past customs?

[Mthorpe_Davies]

I put the packaging in a suitcase and the lense in my camera bag. NZ Customs (or any other countries customs depts) aren't going to know if I already had the lense before I left the country. If I had been really smart I probably would have sent the packing home via mail.

[c0ntr0lz]

ah so it's not something we could do to ship to people

[Cadwell]

ah so it's not something we could do to ship to people

Well the standard trick is to say that the consignment is a "gift". That makes it exempt from duty and taxes.

Of course, doing this means that both parties are then involved in a conspiracy to defraud the government. Otherwise known as "smuggling".

[gcogger]

Gifts are not exempt from duty/VAT, unless the value is under some small amount (£36 rings a bell).

[neil_r]

As I said way up in the post mark it as a gift, underestate the value........ and when it gets lost in the post get 30 quid from the insurance :(

Don't think so

N

[sGu]

what about stick a "repaired to working condition" on the package and also with "no commercial value" on the package? Therefore, you not buying it, but it's repaired and sent back to you, also you can insure it up to its cost, will that skip paying import tax/duty while being legit?

we wouldn't be sit here thinking and talking about this depressing matter if price doesn't differ that much ... :evil:

[c0ntr0lz]

i'm sorry to hear it's so sticky to get around this. I'd be fun to help out some of you guys.

[sGu]

I for one is waiting for some money to come in, then i'll pass you a camera shopping list if you don't mind, with money, of course :wink:

[c0ntr0lz]

let me know man.

[antaine]

Canon 70-200/4 L

bhpohoto 483
7dayshop(uk) 633
dublin shop (IRL) 949

all prices in €uro

Ireland is way up there with being very expensive - also the shops sell less volume and are obviously looking for more profit. I hope to get frienss to buy this lense for me at bhphoto.

[c0ntr0lz]

i feel for you guys!!