hi anyone from uk buying dvds and getting customs chargers?

M

miss_uk

New Member
hi,
im sarah and im from the uk, got given a cathe dvd- power hour as i love body pump style classes. i thought the dvd was excellent and well taught. i decided to buy some basic step dvds as im hopeless with step routines!

so ive brought basic step& body fusion, and low impact step.
i ordered them on monday and they came today- which i thought was very fast! however the delivery guy said i owed £22.50 in customs fees!! which i guess is nearly 50 US dollars!! ive brought other things from the us before, but first time ive had to pay that.

so if there is anyone else from the uk etc, have u had to pay customs fees?
or is there anyway to avoid it? ive been told that asking for packages to be marked gift stops the hefty duties.

i really want to buy more cathe dvds but i wont be able to afford paying out customs duties :-(

sarah
 
Hi Sarah

Yes I am in the UK and get hit for customs charges when I buy Cathe dvds also. I had a real shock the first time, but now I understand a bit how it works which helps to calculate the best way to buy things and to know what to expect. You are allowed a gift up to the value of £36 or a non-gift up to the value of £18 above which you are taxed 17.5% VAT. Over £200 total value you may also get 3.5% duty. Then Royal Mail or the courier may slap a £5 administration charge on that. To be honest even if the package is marked as a gift they seem to charge the higher rate because they can tell by the official postage etc that it is coming from a company rather than a friend or something and don't believe it is a gift.

So you could buy dvds individually which keeps the cost below £18 and avoids import tax, but pushes up the postage. What I do is to buy from Advanced Workouts - they don't charge postage over $50 worth of dvds which means that although you still get hit for import tax you haven't paid postage so it's not quite so bad. SNM charge very high international postage so I wouldn't buy direct from them.

Hope that helps a bit.
Ruth
 
How Sarah,

I had the same problem here but a very kind Cathe-ite pointed me to [a href="http://www.cksales.com"]CKSales.com[/a], a Canadian company. I've ordered from them twice now and for some reason don't seem to get those nasty custom duties.

cheers,
Shauna
 
Hi

I buy from Collage Video and have never got hit (fingers crossed). I got a package this week of 3 DVDs without any problems. They often route things through Frankfurt which seems to avoid any problems. The only time I have been caught is when I ordered from Amazon US.

It is a real pain (especially the admin charge). The one time I did pay it cost about £17 which was what the DVDs were worth!

Good luck
Ronne
 
RE: hi anyone from uk buying dvds and getting customs c...

thankyou to everyone who replied, i will def look at buying at other places, as will no doubt want to order more cathe dvds. :)

sarah
 
RE: hi anyone from uk buying dvds and getting customs c...

Hello Sarah,

If you buy anything that uses UPS will be hit with the customs fees. CKSales Collage Videos use air mail and don't charge VAT or customs duties for importing into UK.

Yen
 
RE: hi anyone from uk buying dvds and getting customs c...

collagevideo.com. No extre charges. Delivered surfaced mail in about two weeks. Haven't had a lost package so far. No point in paying extra tax unless you have to. This mob in power are sucking us all dry!
 
Hi,
just got my dvd and was also charged £21.50 in customs charges (I am in Belfast). Doesnt seem like such a good deal now and certainly puts me off purchasing anymore. I too have purchased loads from USA and have never been charged before this.
Total cost was $125......
What a total rip off. Should be mentioned clearly when ordering from the site.

Pamela x(
 
Pamela,

We live and learn. It happened to me too when I made my first purchase long time ego.

I would advice never to order from the Cathe.com site again and go to other sites like advancedworkouts.com or collagevideo.com. You don't get the pre-sale price but you don't get the customs charge either. Or if you have a friend you trust in the US send it to them and ask them to send it to you via ordinary air mail. You can pay your friend the postage fees. This is what I do sometimes.


Yen
 
RE: hi anyone from uk buying dvds and getting customs c...

Thanks Yen, just checked out the collage site and will def order from them next time.
Just such a shock to pay out so much post for 1 dvd!
 
Buying a step/ high step in the UK

Hello,

I'm moving to the UK and am having a hard time finding a step like the one use by Cathe as well as the high step. I don't want to order it online from the Cathe.com website for fear of being charged high custom fee.

Any suggestions or places where I can by a step?

Thanks!

Rita
 
RE: Buying a step/ high step in the UK

Rita,

Where are you moving from? The US? If so, I would suggest that you order from the US and bring them over with you. You can wrap the step and risers up and put them through check-in, they are not heavy. They are much cheaper in the US too. The high step like the one on cathe.com is not available here yet. There is an funny bright blue colour but I don't remember which site it is from. You can do a search on this site and find the posts that contains information on buying in UK.

My friend brought the high step over for me on the plane when she came to visit (so grateful to have a friend in US). I ordered mine on the cathe.com web site. It's the best.

Yen
 
RE: Buying a step/ high step in the UK

I'm moving to the UK from the US. Unfortunately, lugging everything will be difficult from here. Did you buy any of your equipment in the UK? I'm looking for the barbell, the step and will have to buy the high step here.

Thank you so much for replying!

Rita
 
RE: Buying a step/ high step in the UK

Hi,

If you're willing to ship the items with your other household goods, I would recommend buying the step and high step from the Sport Chalet store (if you have one where you're at). At the time I bought mine, they were the only store who carried it and it was cheaper than what I would have paid online even without shipping charges. If not, check out this website and see if they'll ship to the UK:

http://www.thestep.com/s.nl/sc.1/.f

As far as the barbell, I actually bought mine at Wal-Mart. There is also a thread about this in "Ask Cathe" where SNM recommended the same one I got from Wal-Mart which cost $19.99 + tax, and it works great!

I hope this info. helped and you find everything you need.
 
RE: Buying a step/ high step in the UK

Best to buy what you need in the USA and use your baggage allowance to the full. Steps are imported to the UK and they simply replace the $ with a £. This plus V.A.T. (GST) at 17.5% you will soon realise what our prices really mean. I was in OZ lately returned with a medicine ball in hand luggage. Cosy $14 in OZ $60 USA or £30 in the UK.
 
RE: Buying a step/ high step in the UK

Rita,

Don't bother with bring the weights. You can get barbell here for £50 for a 50kg set. I got mine from Argos, www.argos.co.uk. The dumbbells are a bit expensive though the Argos set is £200 and it's not complete. The stability and bands can be bought here in any sporting goods supplier or on line. If you really need a dumbbell set, see if you can find out how much it cost to send them over via land and sea rather air. You will have to wait a bit longer, but it might work out cheaper than buying.

Years ago I bought my dumbbells on-line, they were 2kg-8kg iron cast hexagonal dumbbells and were very good price. Unfortunately, the company has gone out of business.

Here are the links to some equipment at Argos. It's the best value for money I have found, and believe me I have searched the length and breath of Britain:

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Brows...0006228>C$cip=1500006269>C$cip=1500006273.htm

The barbell set I use is this one and it's perfect for every Cathe workout. I also bought an extra bar to make life easier.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produ...ent>C$cip=1500006273.Weights+and+dumbells.htm

It might be cheaper to have everything shipped over.

Yen
 
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