Importing to uk

[Madhatter]

Does anyone know what costs are associated with importing two 16pc circuit boards only with heat sinks plus cd plus whole house fm transmitter. not just postage but costs at this end, customs, vat etc, I've no idea how it works and no one else seems to either.
Thanks in advance.

[Richard Hamilton]

Madhatter wrote:

Does anyone know what costs are associated with importing two 16pc circuit boards only with heat sinks plus cd plus whole house fm transmitter. not just postage but costs at this end, customs, vat etc, I've no idea how it works and no one else seems to either.
Thanks in advance.

Hi Madhatter,

Not sure about importing to you. I go the opposite direction a lot. I get stuff from music friends in London. With about 10 shipments of varies goodies over the last year, I have not had any customs issues. Since I had to pay the shipping, I used the UPS online shipping calculators to figure out what it would cost, and it was quite accurate. On the few occasions that I ship stuff to UK, I also used the UPS calculator. There was no customs cost.

[Peter B]

Madhatter wrote:

Does anyone know what costs are associated with importing two 16pc circuit boards only with heat sinks plus cd plus whole house fm transmitter. not just postage but costs at this end, customs, vat etc, I've no idea how it works and no one else seems to either.
Thanks in advance.

Hi Madhatter,

I live in Essex U.K. I purchased a Director card only and got stung by Customs (Duty) and Royal Mail (handling charge) of £35.00. :(

Last year when I purchased a CTB 16D with heavy heatsink I paid no charges. Ordering all this in one go, yes will save you some money on shipping but undoubtably you'll be stung heavy from Customs and the delivery people.



Hope this is of some help,

Pete. :cool:

[Madhatter]

Which is what worries me about ordering the fm transmitter. I don't understand how they calculate it at this end, how do they know how much to charge. Do they open the packing note and see how how much the orders worth .
To be honest I'm not impressed with the pre sales support, a company that claims that they've got several UK customers already should know exactly what costs should be added, postage,duty, vat and riyal mail, which is £18 per package where duty is charged. I can't find the duty rates but from memory the list is incredibly long and confusing. Vat I assume is 17.5%. This is starting to look very expensive.

[Peter B]

I will try and give you a rough costing, but please don't take it as sealed in stone.

will send you a PM when I have worked it out. please tell me exactly what the items are with cost excluding postage and then including postage. Please also tell me where in the U.K. this will will go just the post code.

I will try and help!



Pete.

[Madhatter]

Thanks Pete I' will, msn maybe easier. I'm still not sure of the packing, i think its was something like 60 dollars for two 16 cards with heat sinks only, which i queried cos that seems expensive for what are essentially two pcb's. I've still not had a reply over a week later. If that's the customer service here I think I might go to another company.

[Madhatter]

've waited nearly two weeks off support to confirm the postage on two q6 channel pc boards but still no reply.

so here's the prices I got so far...

Hello again john,
Could you quote for me for the following inc postage.
SPK-ST with booster and on cd if possible.
two PC-CTB16PC with high power heat sinks.
I'm not sure how heavy the whole house fm transmitter is so if you could tell with and with out that please.
Whole House fm Transmitter

Also how do I pay and what sort of delivery time should I expect, days, weeks?
thanks, joe.


Hi Joe, Thank you for your interest in our products. We are currently shipping order outside the in about 1 week This is the postage for the package with a FM transmitter. The Postal service Express takes approximatly 6 days at $60.30. For Priority mail 6-10 delivery days the postage would cost $52.70. The Packae with out the transmitter is $56.45 for express or $48.75 for priority mail. If you place an order in the webstore Please put in the comment section how you would like the package shipped. This will help speed up the process because I will not have to email you the rates again. Please note if you use PayPal and I am unable to reauthorize for a higher amount due to the shipping fees I will send you a seperate request. Kind Regards, Mary




I've asked for confirmation that they've quoted just for the boards with sinks not the box as that seems expensive to me for two boards and a cd.

[Madhatter]

I think I can just about safely say that LOR have now lost my order and all future orders due to their lack of pre sales support. I don't think I've ever encountered a company that blanks potential customers , especially during a down turn. If the pre sales support is this bad I dread to think what the after sales support is like. The only support is from other users.

I couldn't possibly recomend this company to anyone.

[LightORamaDan]

Using the email address for Madhatter registered on this forum I could not find any emails to Light O Rama... However I do recall someone asking a simular question in an email so perhaps it was placed using a different email address.

We do not know anything about import fees to countries and unfortunatly we do not provide that informaiton. We do when requested, attempt to provide different shipping options and the shipping costs.

When it comes to pre-sales we do make every attempt to answer questions but honestly at this time of year if we find ourselves over taxed we will slip on pre-sales support to focus on supporting our existing customers. It makes no sense to sell more stuff if that means you relax your support for those who have already purchased the product. As far as I know, we are keeping up on support emails and phone calls so I do not have an excuse as to why your pre-sale emails have not been answered.

Send an email directly to me: dan@lightorama.com

Dan

[RobMaxTom]

In support of Madhatter and Dan/Mary, can I just add that I purchased three boards and a starter kit from LightORama a couple of months ago and had them imported into the UK, in readiness for the festive season. Mary answered all of my queries/concerns within a timely manner and sorted out collecting the extra shipping via paypal.

Yes, the shipping is pricey (it is AirMail from the States) and yes, UK Revenue and Customs take their cut and yes, the UK handling agent take their cut BUT..., I'm almost done preparing my 40 channels and I must say, it is well worth the extra cost!

Regardless of the price, there is no comparable system available to purchase within the UK and utilising a PC to fully control and sequence lights in a domestic setting is still a very uncommon thing to do here in the UK - although I am sure it is getting more popular year on year.

Keep up the good work LightORama.

[Madhatter]

Well I think it's too late now to order and get delivered for this year and set up sequences.
But I want to know if the above shipping charges are for the boards with heat sinks without boxes and leads or are they with boxes because they seem a lot to me.
Also you should know exactly how much duty there is to pay on a product, customs need a product type to charge the correct duty. Then I get charged vat and a post office handling charge per order. If I know what code it is, and therefore you should know what cose it is too, we both can find out exactly how much duty should be paid. On electronics, cd's etc it's high, but I don't know exactly how much.

I strongly suggest that you get yourselves sorted as I suggested in my email because your company has an oportunity to break into the as yet untapped uk market. This is just coming in here but as yet only people that can be bothered to pay and import from america have done so. You need a uk agent and support and ship it in by the pallet load.

It's a shame because it looks like I'll have this year only to decorate a block of 6 flats,would have looked good. I've been given a break on the health and safety this year, next i've got to use a tower or cherry picker, and I can't be bothered. I'm decorating high street areas and get blocked instead of helped by local authorities.

[Dale W]

Madhatter wrote:

Also you should know exactly how much duty there is to pay on a product, customs need a product type to charge the correct duty.

My company frequently ships overseas and I never ask what the customs will be. If I get within $100 US on shipping quotes, I am happy.


With a little legwork, you could research this yourself and tell us all what it costs.

[evan.a]

Madhatter wrote:

Well I think it's too late now to order and get delivered for this year and set up sequences.

Joe not to be nasty. but maybe start a little eariler, november is not the time for fast shipping because of the holidays coming.

Lightorama has great service and a sales in June. so maybe you should read the forum. learn. and try to be ready for 2009.

[Madhatter]

If a company doesn't know what it's shipping abroad then it shouldn't be shipping abroad. I can't research it , i don't know what a companies products would be classed as when they ship them abroad, only they'd know that they are shipping them. if they ship them as plastic boxes when they are clearly classed as electronics or hifi then I'm gonna get fined, I don't know what an fm transmitter is classed as.

Evana I've waited over a month and still no reply, they're a waste of time. If they could be bothered I've still got 2 weeks. They are the ones that claimed in the first email that they already have several uk customers that have bought off them. I don't see them.
Yes i'm angry cos I've bought 500 pounds of lights that I wont be able to use next yr because of council health and safety. lights I bought to use with this controler this year.

[cmoore60]

Madhatter wrote:

They are the ones that claimed in the first email that they already have several uk customers that have bought off them. I don't see them.

I guess you don't read the thread that you started. The third Post is from Peter B. and he says he is in the UK.

Chuck

[Madhatter]

I guess you don't know what several means

[RobMaxTom]

LightoRama will readily supply the shipping charges to the UK depending on what has been ordered and the type of shipping required. The only problem is LightORama have no control whatsoever on what any agency or organisation will charge once it is out of the U.S. and out of their control.

I ordered from LightORama on the understanding that when my goods arrived in the UK they would, without any doubt, be liable to import VAT charges and also agency fees for handling the parcel in their customs sorting office. This is an unavoidable part of importing goods. I can only suggest contacting HM Revenue and Customs with the approximate value of what you are trying to import and they should supply the charges.

For a guideline, the UK Post Office charged me around £14 to handle my order from LightORama. The Tax charged will be dependent on the value of your good of course.

Ref: http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageVAT_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_000199&propertyType=document#P37_3735

[Madhatter]

The value charged is a post office charge, which I understand to be £18 and a customs charge which will be raised to something like 105 pounds on december 1st, so any order under that value won't attract a charge at all, and vat which also drops on dec 1st, the value of that customs charge is dependant on the purchase price and a goods code which should be supplied by lor. They are posting the goods, it's their responsibility to tell customs what they are sending.
The problem I've got is that I don't know if it would be more expensive to send the two pc16 boards and the usb connector that comes with the software and fm transmitter seperately or together.
Plus something else I've thought of, part of the software charge is for the connector part is for the software, so how does that work , i shouldnt pay on the whole amount.

[RobMaxTom]

Even if you download the software you are strictly still buying it from outside of the UK and it will still be liable to taxes.

The only thing I would be concerned about is if the post office charge a percentage based on what is physically handled - and yes, as the software strictly hasn't been handled by them, it shouldn't make up part of their fee.



Rob

[Madhatter]

do you think I should still order or is it too late? I'm a person that likes to be sure of what he's getting and i'm not getting any responses from LOR which is why I've not ordered. I wanted to order this year because I'm going too have tobuy and use scaffolding or a cherry picker next year and have over 200 sets of lights tested, I'm not sure I can afford it but can do the pub next year with lor which with its twin gables I'm sure will look fantastic. If its a big process setting it all up and takes longer than a few days its not going to be worth it cos it will take 2 weeks to get here.