Have you ever imported physical goods from another country?

[W1zzard]

Have you ever imported physical goods from another country? This includes hardware, cameras or similar products, but not software (immaterial).

Tell us about your experience with shipping, customs and warranty - or the reasons why you choose not to shop outside of your country.

 

[W1zzard]

bought two cameras and a camcorder in the states because no taxes, and dollar exchange rate.

however, my next cam (canon eos 5d mark ii) i preordered here in germany because the price difference is not that much and i prefer the full warranty for such a large amount of money.

all my shirts except for three or so are bought overseas. when travelling i enjoy to go shopping and it's a bit like a souvenir

 

[Frick]

Some books from the US because I couldn't find them anywhere.. The taxes I have to pay when the goods arrives rarely makes it worth it though. But it worked out great.

The shirt I'm wearing atm is actually bought in Lansing, MI.

 

[Zehnsucht]

Bought from Petras Tech Shop to Norway. No problems whatsoever. Bought it at the time while the dollar was very low. Got a nice deal for a complete water cooling setup.

 

[rampage]

i havent bought anything from overseas and dont see my self doing it any time soon, the australian dollar isnt that strong and it often works out more expensive to buy things from overseas, also there is the issue of warranty and having to send things half way around the world

 

[Triprift]

I have bought mostly albulms and the odd book. There are the odd albulms that miss Australia and i end up ordering em from Muses Within Temptation Black Symphony for example. Normally the costs aint much more than here so i dont mind if its something i really want only the time to wait wich can be 3 or more weeks can be annoying.

 

[DaMulta]

I have to say that I don't recall ever importing anything before, but I have exported many things.

One time I sent a 1950XTX to the UK. I marked the box as parts as I normally do with a low value. Needless to say that the person that sent me the address had it off by one number. Then I turned around and happened to get that number he sent me wrong turned into another number.(So only one number was wrong on the address).

Here where I live addresses work totally different, and they can be a little wrong and they always make it on time. From what I understand now is that the UK does it totally different.

So in that it scared us, one he wanted his hardware, and two I wanted to keep the money. Now if the address is wrong and they can't find out where it went it normally shows back up at the senders house. This time the package just disappeared, and weeks and weeks went by. About a month to a month and half went by and neither one of us gets the package.

It did have a happy ending. I went to my usa post office, and asked if I could track down an International package to the UK. She told me that it could be done, but not very easily and for me to wait another week or so. The person that was buying the card went to his post office, and accused them of stealing his video card(was highly upset towards them). The following day the package made it to his door, and it had never been opened. He was happy, and I was happy.


Normally when I do send packages over to the EU they get to the person in a day or two with Air Express government mail.



I normally never see a need to import anything into my county(USA), because I normally can find it online here cheaper. The only times I think about it is when new tech comes out in the EU, or Japan before the US gets it 6 months later.......but I still have not imported anything yet.

 

[Sasqui]

I know this isn't really much, but I bought SDS hammer drill bits from Canada via eBay. No problems. Also sent a laptop PSU to AFPO (military) in Afghanistan from the states, no problems.

 

[The Witcher]

i bought a lot of pc hardware's like mobo,ram...etc

 

[lemonadesoda]

I've shipped from the US, HK and Australia to the EU.

I got a "US mail bag" of second hand training books from ebay. Got stuck at customs. Had to go pick it up in person. They demanded "receipts and invoices" blah blah. What a waste of time. For a few second hand books.

I got some memory and some PDA accessories from HK. All shipped VERY VERY fast. No customs problems.

I got a digital scanner from Australia. Complete rip off. It was missing the software, didnt work (required an HP engineer to replace the "formatter board") and cost a fortune in shipping and customs taxes.

 

[Kreij]

No, because I've never really had a reason to do so.
I've brought physical items back from other countries (Fiji, Tonga, Curacao), but those were souvenirs and not tech items.

On one occasion I exported a high end GC (at the time) to the Ukraine.

 

[BrooksyX]

I've imported a few things, some from canada and some from the Hong Kong. But luckily prices are pretty good for the most part in the US still. Lets hope it stays that way...

 

[mrw1986]

I have imported a few things (I trade on www.alibaba.com), but I have never exported. I haven't had a problem with customs or anything yet. Granted, shipping takes about a week longer than it would domestically.

 

[ThomasDM]

A lot of things from other European countries and other continents (America and Asia):

DVDs, books, digital camera, small consumer electronics, clothes, shoes, gifts and many other things.

 

[Fitseries3]

I ship things to people overseas all the time. other than the cost i have never had any problems other than twice when customs messed things up making shipping take 3 weeks.

both times my paypal account was locked and i just had to sit and wait. eventually the stuff arrived and everything went back to normal.

i shipped a mobo to canada once.. literaly a few 100yards from the canada/US border and the person had to pay $65 duty on it.

 

[King Wookie]

Bought some fans and general cooling bits from the U.S.

Takes a while, but at least the costs are not too bad.

 

[Deleted member 3]

Vinyl mostly from .de/uk. Small electronics (converters, cables, etc) from .hk, and as long as I don't get ripped off on shipping I really don't care where items are located.

And of course Russian brides.

 

[Darknova]

One time I sent a 1950XTX to the UK. I marked the box as parts as I normally do with a low value. Needless to say that the person that sent me the address had it off by one number. Then I turned around and happened to get that number he sent me wrong turned into another number.(So only one number was wrong on the address).

Here where I live addresses work totally different, and they can be a little wrong and they always make it on time. From what I understand now is that the UK does it totally different.

You could mark a package with only the house number, postcode and UK and it would make it to the right address over here. It would take longer though, as they'd have to put it through a seperate system to get the correct address.

As for my experiences, where should I start.

RAM
Graphics Card
Motherboard
CPU

And that's just PC stuff.

I've had many many phones (around 12 this year, 8 or 9 were imported)
Lots of Japanese anime stuff from HK
Zune from the US

Only been hit for tax twice. on the RAM, and some of the Japanese anime. Totalling £70 in charges. For £thousands worth I'm doing really well.

The delivery times can be a bitch, especially from the US, 4+ weeks sometimes. HK 2-5 days lol.

 

[MilkyWay]

ram, cpu, t shirts, games thats about it
i mostly buy from TPU if im buying from the US

 

[DrPepper]

No because after shipping and tax its only marginally cheaper, a few quid at the most.

 

[yogurt_21]

bought souvenirs from 15 different countries in europe as well as wine, olive oil, other spirits. bought and shipped a bunch of hardware back and forth, though most often I ship things to europe. mainly cpus

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Whats the shipping like on a russian bride dan? might gt me one of them kournicova look alikes

 

[Black Panther]

Bought the parts for my desktop pc in May 2007 from Germany for 860 Euros because from Malta the quote was 1515 Euros... About the warranty, I never needed to rma anything but last time I checked their web-page was inexistent though I do have fax and phone numbers if they still exist...

Bought XtremeMusic X-F1 from OcUK. Same reason because it was much cheaper.

Bought 8800GT from OcUK because it hadn't yet been released in Malta, and when it came after 2 months that I got it it was like 50 sterling more expensive.

Bought laptop in system specs from notebookguru.de
Including Vista it was 3120 Euros, shipping only 25 Euros. From Malta the same specifications in a laptop would have set me back 4500 Euros... :shadedshu

All items I ever ordered from EU countries arrived within a week or so, and shipping was always very reasonable. There is no customs charge for goods coming from an EU country.

The USA has better prices, but then there's customs charges... and the hassle of clearance which put me off.

 

[Castiel]

Used to buy Cocaine from the UK before. It was easier to find over there than here since it was banned. But now I just buy it over the internet from some reseller because of the whole currency exchange.

Edit!: Cocaine Energy Drink

 

[Black Panther]

Edit!: Cocaine Energy Drink

I guess that's not hardware...
Unless you use it for your liquid cooling system..........