American shipping to UK?

[Gray]

I have often wondered this, since a lot of products in America are unavailable in England, more often than not they have hugely inflated prices due to import taxes or even some companies flat out do not do it.

Does anyone have any experience of getting a company to send goods to a third party who then in turn send it to you in England? I don't know anyone in America but there are some ComiCon things that I would really like and I can't get them even though they deliver to America! :/

 

[Moriath]

I have often wondered this, since a lot of products in America are unavailable in England, more often than not they have hugely inflated prices due to import taxes or even some companies flat out do not do it.

Does anyone have any experience of getting a company to send goods to a third party who then in turn send it to you in England? I don't know anyone in America but there are some ComiCon things that I would really like and I can't get them even though they deliver to America! :/

You have to kinda lie on the customers declaration and hope no one opens it.

I have american family and if you put the value of the goods being sent on the declaration then you can get a demand from customs on the tax due.

I got stung a couple times cause wife shipped stuff wrongly even tho it was her property.

If they open and check the stuff thats wrongly declared they can come to you for the tax.

If you label it second hand or personal items or something. I dont think they attract the tax. But if they open it to check and see brand new stuffs then they will tax it again.

Its been a few years since i have had it done. So miht be a little out of date.

 

[Moriath]

https://www.reship.com/#/

There are services like this. You wont pay US sales tax but then have to pay import duty

 

[Gray]

Oh that's useful, I did see some of those types of websites but some had flagged up as potential scams.

How do you exactly "know" the box dimensions and weight of box contents without physically being there to measure yourself? I have to potentially "overstate" a box size which could bump up any quotes... I've had to send them a message asking for quotes because they wouldn't give an estimation automatically.

 

[Moriath]

I guess you can ask the original shipper for the dimensions of the box. Say you need it for some purpose or other.

Research that site before you use it. Its just something i googled

 

[Hawkwind]

Similar problems here in US or China to UAE. I use a Shop & Ship service by Aramex and there are tons of those around in most countries. You just ship to local country address and it gets delivered to your door. You have to import tax and the international shipping but a lot of the time I save tons on the prices here.

Although Amazon just took over the biggest online retailer in the ME recently (Souq.com) so prices are getting lower. I just do my research to see whether the shop & ship is better value.

 

[Gray]

I did find Amazon.com to be really cheap shipping certain stuff to the UK. It seems ReShipping (Or any other similar company) have the option of opening the package to repack into more appropriate packaging, thus likely taking out the guesswork.

 

[Moriath]

I did find Amazon.com to be really cheap shipping certain stuff to the UK. It seems ReShipping (Or any other similar company) have the option of opening the package to repack into more appropriate packaging, thus likely taking out the guesswork.

And it says they will remove invoices and such too to try and get youround customs. But i dont think they are that stupid

 

[MYstIC G]

I did find Amazon.com to be really cheap shipping certain stuff to the UK. It seems ReShipping (Or any other similar company) have the option of opening the package to repack into more appropriate packaging, thus likely taking out the guesswork.

Used Amazon for this recently, no issues