Buying from Europe

[Hannibal]

Ohh oui, my experience the past yeaérs was similar:
in Belgium, very cheap shipping costs from England and from Germany, reasonnable from the USA, very expensive from Italy and France (ou neighbours) ...
But today rules have indeed changed, price up from Germany (except some nice and professional sellers, like Jupiter Min.), exploding from the USA, and also more expensive from the UK.
But no tax except from the USA since recently.


But we are all very bad, poor buyers actually !!!! Why are we air shipping flats of 1 to few € or $ or £ and soring them as grey armies in our own cartons for years atfer .... when we are burning stupidely crude oil and Carbon back and forth for thousand miles away, instead of buying from local sellers and inventories, even if we had to wait a couple of weeks o months more ?   What other animal on earth is doing this?


An efficient buyer let his purhcases be shipped quarterly or less, bu surface and post , not by rocket most expensive private servicing... and we should perhaps buy these flat by the weight as bulk products.... (they are most of time even unpainted)....
I use to buy from Benedikt Widmann regularly flats, pay him monthly the value, and let him bring the consolidated box at a show several weeks or months later and grouped ... I assure you, it is cheap and I paint other flats in the mean time.....

[marko]

It is indeed a brave new confusing world.  I have had great success receiving goods from France to the US within a week and very inexpensively.  Most Ebay vendors in Germany generally seem to ship cheaply and arrive within three or forks weeks with others charging 3 x 4 times as much - I don't know on shipping times as I have not tried.

Shipping from the UK seems to have sky rocketed...

I think everyone is just trying to find their way currently.  (I do note most Ebay vendors I deal with seem to be very reasonable, combining postage and truly working to keep their customers happy and prices reasonable.)  Still weird times...

mark 

[maturin]

I was just quoted E26.90 postage and insurance (ex VAT) on an order of E20 from an Ebay seller in Germany. He was apologetic, saying that Hermes no longer ship to the UK, leaving expensive DHL as the only alternative. Ebay confirmed my right to cancel, as the listing stated E13 shipping, but the seller managed to find a Hermes subsidiary offering E15.99 ex VAT so I went ahead


Have Hermes really isolated the Continent?


On a positive note, shipping from the US may be coming down from recent crazy levels. An fairly light A3-sized package was just quoted at a reasonable $25 air freight.
I understand German zinnfiguren seller figures4u_de has resumed shipping to the States - but only by sea!

[Brian]

It probably depends aba, whether you are a private sellor, or a enterprise subject to tax control in hyour own country, with a VAT number and obligeation of annual accounting declarations.  But wiuthin EC, VAT is not applied, as it is for foreign countries ...  So it depends how the seller is declaring himself in his country. (I guess)

Just to show how crazy things are - this year 7 packages from Berlinner Zinnfiguren and Sammelsurium came through UK customs without a problem, one in the past week. Another on the same day incurred 20% import charge etc. Exactly the same customs declaration and lower value than the package which got through. Judging by the tracking data (see image), Customs changed its mind....

Looks like their just making it up as they please 

[maturin]

It probably depends aba, whether you are a private sellor, or a enterprise subject to tax control in hyour own country, with a VAT number and obligeation of annual accounting declarations.  But wiuthin EC, VAT is not applied, as it is for foreign countries ...  So it depends how the seller is declaring himself in his country. (I guess)

Just to show how crazy things are - this year 7 packages from Berlinner Zinnfiguren and Sammelsurium came through UK customs without a problem, one in the past week. Another on the same day incurred 20% import charge etc. Exactly the same customs declaration and lower value than the package which got through. Judging by the tracking data (see image), Customs changed its mind....

[Hannibal]

Keep buying in Europe, aba, flats come from Europe and mainly Germany ... unless they are painted, of course!

[aba]

Yes absolutely for Berliner Zinnfiguren or "Sammelsurium" etc it is not possible but for private sellers there is no need to do it that way. Nevertheless sometimes private seller especially in US activate this eBay options and so some flats of 20 USD have 90 USD postage and custom clearance which is quite crazy.

[Hannibal]

It probably depends aba, whether you are a private seller, or a enterprise subject to tax control in your own country, with a VAT number and obligeation of annual tax reporting obligations.  But within EC, VAT is not applied, as it is for foreign countries ...  So it depends how the seller is declaring himself in his country. (I guess)

[aba]

Dear all,


now when sending flats to GB its just the same as if sending to Switzerland or the US. At eBay there are some sellers who simply switch on the ebay sales system which leads to high postage and formally correct but equally high custom declarations. When you are a commercial seller there is probably no other way offered than to use this system.


But for all private sellers it is still possible (at least if there are not many flats) to send them by using a simple letter or maxi-letter with low postage and no customs. But formally this is not correct of course. Any way it works still very good.

[Brian]

Again today received and package from Jacques in Holland, no problems

[BobLeighton]

Sadly I can remember the days before we were part of a European Union and traded on a normal basis with individual countries . No problems you wrote a letter, waited for a reply, agreed a price including postage, paid by bank transfer and got your goods, all correctly done.
We joined the Union through actions of Politicians who thought they knew better than the common people., and this is the start of the mess.
The EU did not like us taking our money out of the pot and as a act of revenge imposed all sorts of nasty little rules, the result is a steep decline in all trade with the Eu, a decline which will continue, the EU lost not only our input but that of many buyers both trade and public  currently a 40 per cent drop, when the new trade regulation on wine come out the decline will be more marked. The EU hurts no one but their their selves.

[Joerg]

Gentlemen,

I think we are on the best way to crush a good and friendly relationship between us collectors.
It is the same thing I watch with friends / collegues / families as to the Corona-Regime here in Germany.

And I do not like it 

Things are as bad as they are,
and I can see no good in pointing at past decisions.

[fesak_j]

just an example of killing the business combo    hope in the end EU & UK will find some deal about the shopping/ selling

[böckchen]

You now have the result of the European break

[Brian]

I don't get it, I send and recive from Europe and have no problems at all