Importing from China

Mikex

Thinking about buying something on Ebay from China and needing reassurance, never done it before. The item is £18 and will be sent by SpeedPAK. As over £15 I will have to pay the VAT. Additionally Royal Mail will charge their standard handling charge. £8 ish?
As it is under £135 there will be no duty to pay.
Just wondering if someone conversant with these transactions can confirm whether I have understood correctly.
Thanks
Mike

forgotmyname

£18 posted its likely to be marked down as $10 or $15 by the seller.

Spoonie_Turtle

Mikex said:

Thinking about buying something on Ebay from China and needing reassurance, never done it before. The item is £18 and will be sent by SpeedPAK. As over £15 I will have to pay the VAT. Additionally Royal Mail will charge their standard handling charge. £8 ish?
As it is under £135 there will be no duty to pay.
Just wondering if someone conversant with these transactions can confirm whether I have understood correctly.
Thanks
Mike

That is correct but in reality as forgotmyname says it's likely to be marked a lower value (and may well be marked as a gift on the form too) which is incidentally a main reason there are plans to scrap the low value threshold and charge import VAT on everything at some point in the not-too-distant future.

However ultimately you do need to be aware that this might be the one extremely rare exception that is correctly declared and is charged - it is a miniscule possibility, but a possibility nonetheless.

couriervanman

If its a Chinese knock off spend the extra and buy the original........lots of people will try and avoid Chinese tat now myself included

forgotmyname

couriervanman said:

If its a Chinese knock off spend the extra and buy the original........lots of people will try and avoid Chinese tat now myself included

Except the knockoff tat maybe the exact same product. If your buying by the container load you maybe able to do
some quality control or spec it your way. A lot of the dearer stuff is in the same packaging as the cheap tat.

Bought some fairly expensive ring pliers from a well known UK shop/supplier. Utter junk. The 1/4 price
items from an ebay seller in China were better quality.

Mikex

couriervanman said:

If its a Chinese knock off spend the extra and buy the original........lots of people will try and avoid Chinese tat now myself included

Thanks.
Just had a look on ebay.
The item is an outboard motor carb for Mercury 2.5hp 2 stroke price £19.23 Part number 3FO- 03100 (seller ATHLETICSSHOP2018). The item is available from a UK seller for circa £75
I am unaware how you would determine which of these is the genuine article and which is fake. Perhaps the UK seller just buys from ATHLETICSSHOP2018 for £19 and sells for £75. Impossible to know I guess.
Mike

forgotmyname

Not everything made in China is tat.  I bought a branded OBD scanner which was less than half the price of UK sold items.

It must come out the back door at the same factory or something because its identical in every way except the lack of a serial
number. Company must have realised, to get updates now you must register the serial number.

You can buy some items from major manufacturers that are only sold in China. All proper stuff just different spec.

bris

I bought 5 items from China recently, they were bought individually @£17.49 each, 40cm Buxus balls they came within 3 weeks over about 4 days by speedpack but no charges. The customs value on the items packaging was valued at just over £3 the postage was god know what as it didn't say. Not sure if that was the true value of them made in China or the seller was doing me a favour as I was expecting some charges. 

They are bloody good, I bought 1 as a test first because @just ove £17 I thought they would be crap as a 40cm ball over here is about £40 to £60. 
Maybe your one will be marked with its true value rather than the purchase price and you will get away with it.