Buying From An American Website

Silver_Lilly

I want to order some publications of of an american web site.what is the best and cheapest way of doing this?

Silver_Lilly

I cannot get the books in the uk.but what i want to know how i pay for them ie bank cheque with the currency converted into £'s?

Andy_L

credit card is the safest & easiest method. The USD price will be automatically converted into sterling.

You can sometimes buy just a PDF (electronic copy) & print off you own copy

alanobrien

For anything above £18 assume its going to cost you 30% more to cover customs duties. A lot of people miss this and even assume VAT isnt payable on second hand items...it is.

Andy_G_3

You pay VAT 17.5% on books (although some books are VAT exempt) that are over £18 or £36 if marked as a gift on the customs form.

You pay no import duty on books (which is normally around 5% for most goods)

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/downloadFile?contentID=HMCE_PROD_009989

Search http://www.hmrc.gov.uk for a list of VAT exempt books or contact them direct.

If you use the standard US Postal Service then the parcel will be handled by Royal Mail / Parcel Force and they will charge you a fee for picking up your book(s) and sorting out the customs paperwork. From 2nd April 2007 the handling fee was £8 with Royal Mail :eek: add the VAT to the £8 - quite a hit if the item is £18.01 :mad:

Other couriers charge as well.

Hopefully your order is under £18 so all the nonsense can be avoided.

Andy_G_3

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageVAT_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_000102&propertyType=document

Found the above link about which books are exempt.

soolin

Silver_Lilly wrote: »

I cannot get the books in the uk.but what i want to know how i pay for them ie bank cheque with the currency converted into £'s?

It's probably best to ask the site owners themselves what payment methods they accept first before looking at the best method, if they are set up to ship internationally they are bound to have an easy system somewhere for overseas buyers.

However, generally a cheque drawn for you in the UK in US dollars is likely to cost between £7-£12 from a high street bank (it depends where you hold your personal banking). Credit card would be best as you also have an element of protection if the item fails to arrive, a cheque would not of course give you any protection at all.

soolin

diesel9181 wrote: »

watch you dont get screwed at customs! if they mark the parcel as a gift you should be ok, otherwise your sometimed cheaper buying in the UK.

Marking a purchase as a gift would of course be fraud and HM Revenue and customs take fraud against them VERY seriously indeed. Best not to post illegal options on this forum, we might want to save money but not end up in trouble.

Tomarse_2

Andy_G wrote: »

If you use the standard US Postal Service then the parcel will be handled by Royal Mail / Parcel Force and they will charge you a fee for picking up your book(s) and sorting out the customs paperwork. From 2nd April 2007 the handling fee was £8 with Royal Mail :eek: add the VAT to the £8 - quite a hit if the item is £18.01 :mad:

Other couriers charge as well.

Hopefully your order is under £18 so all the nonsense can be avoided.

I've heard of a way of getting around this though which seems to work. Apparently, postage is paid by the sender for the US postal service to deliver an item. The Royal Mail then technically force a sale with the receiver which is illegal practice. When you get the invoice from the Royal Mail, call them and argue it.