Re: OT: Importing Electronic Goods from the US

[Richard Malcolm-Smith <rich@xxxxxxx>]

Robert Chasmer wrote:

> Hi guys.
>
> I've been thinking of buying my girlfriend a Sony AIBO ERS 210 Robot d= og,
> and software for her birthday (tis a secret).  To buy one in the = UK you used
> to go to http://www.eu.aibo.com/
> The price in the UK, with AIBO Life 2 was =A31123.  They relaunce= d AIBO on the
> Sony Style website yesterday at http://www.sonystyle-europe.com/, but the
> price has gone up to =A31270 and increase of nearly 150 quid.
>
> I though I'd have a look on the US site and found I can get the same > products for a total of $1111 or =A3769 a saving of nearly 500 quid.&n= bsp; Does
> anyone have any ideas how much I'd likely get stung to re-ship it from= a
> friend in the US.  I've had a look around on the UK customs site<= BR> > http://www.customs.gov.uk/ = and think I'll need to pay Customs-Duty, Excise
> Duty and VAT but can't seem to find the rates these things are charge = at.

My experiance with NZ customs is this..

Send the gift card to your friend, and get them to make it "Gift Like&= quot;
with wrapping and all that crap, Makes it look a lot more genuine then a factory box with gift scribbled on it..

DONT wrap it in a permanant fasion as it will get inspected if it has
things that look like wires in it. Get the friend to wrap a cardboard
box in nice paper  with the card etc, but use one where the lid is
removable.. have that wrapped in bubblewrap and then brown paper. My
experiance is customs are quite reasonable about re-doing plain
wrapping, but I have seen many cases of butchered nice paper come thru.
They use clear wrapping like for food sometimes so the address etc is
still visable :) looks weird..     

by doing that you are making it quite clear that its a gift etc rather
then a simple scam customs by saying its a gift thing.

Gifts are often free of duty and crap like that but it varies, and they
are wise to the "mark it as a gift scam"

> Anyone with experience importing this kind of thing? I'm also looking = to do
> the same for an Audio Tron.
>
> Thanks
>
> Rob
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