HELP Question about shipping internationally.


Hello all,
I live in the USA. I have never shipped any gear internationally. I know some/all countries have import duties, taxes, VAT in Europe, etc. on foreign products when they arrive in their country. If I were to ship say a used cd player to another country would these "charges" be part of shipping costs on my end or would the person receiving it pay them when it arrives at its destination? I wanted to know before I list the item. Also are there any other problems or hassles I might encounter shipping internationally that any of you might know of?
Thanks a bunch everyone,
Jeff
nomad
Hi!
If you ship some gear to Europe, the person who will receive the goods will have to pay some customs taxes + VAT (which is about 19% of the value, if I recall well). To minimize this, what I do is that I lower the total value when I am ready to ship...
But, sometimes, it is possible to "get through" and the "receiver" has nothing to pay at all, it happened to me many times.
Hope this helps.
You need to contact UPS and get to their customer service for international shipping and tell them you are shipping the unit back to your customer that you repaired. There is special language that you can write for customs. Put in the value box the price for the repair and make sure you state this in the information box. That way you will reduce the fees to the person who receives it, this is different than the insured cost, get it?
Make sure that you understand about dimensional weight. I just shipped a mint McIntosh piece to Europe in the original double boxing and the economy price came to over $200. If it went by weight only, which you can't do anymore, it would be about $75. Caveat "shipper."
OK. Sounds like taxes have to be paid on receiving end. I thought that was the case but wasn't sure if I had to figure it out in advance and pay it on my end before the item would be allowed in the destination country.
The "declared value" is the figure used to calculate the import duties/taxes. Gotcha!!!
The dimension in addition to the weight of the item because cargo air costs/space not cheap.
I really appreciate all of you responding. I haven't decided how I will list it yet but I see there are some things I need to consider. I bought all my stereo equipment used from sellers in the US (Audiogon & eBay). I hadn't really thought about duties/taxes it until my girfriend said I better check before I list it. 8-)
Do any of you know how much tax we in the USA have to pay on imported stereo equipment? Is it a set percentage? Perhaps I need to start another thread. Thanks again!!!
Be seeing you
Jeff