Buying In The US Discussion Area

pcg2001

Martin's article states "The European Union (EU) has set a goods allowance of £145 (excluding tobacco and alchohol) rising to £290 next year, on bringing items back to the UK from countries outside the EU".

Has this limit increased already? I can't seem to find the answer on the internet.

Thanks in advance.

pcg2001

pcg2001 wrote: »

Martin's article states "The European Union (EU) has set a goods allowance of £145 (excluding tobacco and alchohol) rising to £290 next year, on bringing items back to the UK from countries outside the EU".

Has this limit increased already? I can't seem to find the answer on the internet.

Thanks in advance.

I will be shortly leaving to the US and would really like to know. Anyone? TIA

Wille9

You need to get something that hides your IPS address. Everytime you log in your ISP addressshows you are a UK rsident so will automatically direct you to the UK site which is really annoying. you can get software that hides your ISP address which means you should be able to access the US site. Alternatively you cah use a US portal address which is basically a US ISP address that is then linked to your own ISP address. all a bit confusing I know and I will report back if I find some simple software as I have been trying to access US sites especially the US Abercrobie & Fitch site where prices are the same in US$ as the are in sterling so still nearly half the UK prices.

marshallsusanp wrote: »

Am trying to place an order on Abercrombie and Fitch US website . However everytime I enter www.abercrombie.com it forces me to the UK site where items are much more expensive. I can pick the order up from a colleague next time I am over on business
Anyone know how I can get on to their US site. Thanks

VITI

arty4 wrote: »

i buy supplements from the USA regularly. as far as i can tell the £18 limit to avoid VAT does not include the cost of shipping. and i have never been charged duty for anything over £7.

I also buy supplements from the usa a lot, from a particular website. I have learnt from my mistakes, that to save money (and most supplements are a lot cheaper) you have to place a lot of small orders rather than one big one. I got a charge of £45.00 slapped on my order by customs, post office and whoever else once. Even paying a lot of separate delivery charges still works out cheaper:T

Amys

pcg2001 wrote: »

I will be shortly leaving to the US and would really like to know. Anyone? TIA

it has not been increased yet

danensis

I've just fallen for the Amazon Marketplace scam. Despite Amazon's Participation agreement saying

2.1 In Marketplace, items are offered by sellers for sale at a fixed price ("Fixed Price Sales"). Unless otherwise agreed by us with the seller in advance in writing, the price of any items sold in Marketplace (including the applicable delivery charge) are displayed inclusive of any customs and excise duty, VAT and other taxes which may be applicable and sellers may not charge or seek to charge the buyer for any customs and excise duty, VAT or other taxes which are additional to the price displayed for the item on the Site.

When the goods arrived in this country I was charged £5.40 VAT, plus the £8 Parcelforce fine.

Looking at the Customs and Excise site, its quite easy for overseas sellers to pay the VAT, and then the Parcelforce fine can't be levied.

If Amazon were advertising these goods in the UK, they would have to make it very clear that VAT was not included. Why do they not have to do this on their website?

AquaDSM

I have been reading and am fairly interested in helping you all or some of you all out. I am in Florida, US and thought I would offer to ship random items overseas for just a few U.S. dollars. I own a business here called Aqualime Enterprises and am a fairly reputable ebay seller. I could use DHL, FedEX, UPS, or pretty much whatever and wouldn't charge a percentage of the price like I've seen others do. I could say the items are a gift or whatever is needed. I'm just trying to make a few bucks here and there to help with some college. I really don't wanna resort to some part time McDonalds job if you know what I mean.

Anyways its just an offer, if anyone would like to take me up send an email to dsm@sonicalliance.com and we could talk and I could answer any questions you have, or most of them at least.

mattmcb

My friend works for a company that can give anyone overseas a US address and you can purchase from any US store to your US address. Once at your US address you can consolidate orders into a single shipping to help cut down on shipping expense.

I don't want to advertise on the board so just PM me if you want more info.

mattmcb

laurmurph wrote: »

I want to be able to shop regularly on US sites for delivery to my mother in New York but with me paying the bills from the UK.

Aside from big sites like Amazon.com, who'll now accept a UK billing addess, the sites i want to use won't. I've been recommended by one company to use which is a mail redirection service along, but would also give me a US address, with virtual credit cards and pre-paid cards. I've never heard of these and i don't like the sound of it. The pre-paid card i looked at was extremely expensive ($620 for $500 pre-pay) and couldn't be topped up.

Is there any other way to achieve what I want? Does anyone have experience of these virtual cards? What about if i applied for a credit card using my mother's address, would that work?

Any help would be really gratefully received: my elderly mother is housebound and has no family nearby. I want to be able to do her shopping online for her (another problem altogether - why don't they have online grocery shopping like we do?) and keep getting stopped at every turn!

Get a US address from a service like US2U and put your US address on your credit card account as a secondary address.

helenbrandon

Been looking to buy electronics and clothes in the U.S. for a while. I think I am ready to make the jump. So, I have read all these pages and it sounds like a lot of work, especially setting up a U.S. mailbox. I prefer to give a moderate fee to someone to buy and ship it all for me. What about the sites that offer these kinds of services? There is a brief mention of these sites without giving too much details. There was one website mentioned that had a link to shopallamericanstores.com that I tried and that quoted me a completely outrageous shipping cost for an ipod (60% of the price of the iPod!) which completely turned me off. there are two sites that were mentioned on some other discussion forums that received good reviews buyamericanstuff.com and allamericanbasics.com). Any of you tried these? How was the experience? Any other sites? Thank you.