Quote:
Originally Posted by wasyoungonce
Hate to rain on your parade but have you ever tried to import gear from OS? This is not a trivial exercise from the standpoint of postal charges, insurance and customs fee's.
Then take into account most factories will not sell direct to users and most suppliers are distributors who have sales agreements not to sell to other OS markets (undercut other distributors).
There are a few threads in this forum on buying OS, a search might help you to understand the complexities, downfalls and traps in doing this. Don't get me wrong I'm a supporter of lower prices but IMHO prices in Australia, ATM, from some of the big suppliers, are not that bad (compared to OS).
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There is duty payable on any item over $1000. Customs never policed this too closely but it seems that after a certain billionaire had a very public whinge about people buying OS they are now much more on the ball. Still it was cheaper to buy my Canon 400 f5.6L from Hong Kong than locally.
In the lab we often run into the problem of 'exclusive distributor' and so have to buy locally. Mark ups of 100% are not unknown. These companies generally do not hold stock (so warehousing is not a cost) and just order the goods in when they receive an order. The last case I had was small glass vials we use. The distributor's price was about 40% above the US price, and then they added 'postage and handling'!
I'm not saying don't try to buy from OS but do be aware of the problem you could face.