Buying equipment from the USA - any experiences?

[Simple Simon]

Has anyone purchased scopes and/or accessories direct from the US?

What kind of problems typically arise from doing so? Eg Breakages in transit, Customs Duty, service issues...

Are these difficulties outweighed by the savings? Whilst I tend to prefer to keep my money locally if possible, I am not against saving a bob or two.

I'd be interested to hear of your experiences/stories.

[Starkler (Geoff)]

The sites search function will find a lot of reading material for you on this subject as there have been many threads before on this.

As for me I have bought a number of eyepieces from OS and saved a lot of money

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Keep it under $1000 total (incl shipping handling etc) to avoid customs duty or other taxes.

I bought a few small items: eyepieces, filters, and a binoviewer. No breakages, and usually here within 10 days or less. But I found that some reputable dealers will dismiss any complaints you have, while others are happy to address all your concerns and go out of their way to do so. I would not expect any after-sale support when buying from OS.

[TidaLpHasE]

I have had good service from o/s companies, and would buy from them again without a problem.

Depending on the total cost of your purchase in AU$, if under $1000 as mentioned, you will not pay any extra on top of the suppliers price to get it here.

If it is over the $1000 mark customs and the government stick their hands out for their cut of the pie.

As far as damage is concerned, if it is clearly faulty on arrival, email the supplier with info and pics straight away, maybe an idea would be some kind of postal insurance, again that would be dependant on the items cost.

When it comes to after sale support, i would be asking that before the purchase if it is not advertised on their site, again, with small purchases, forums like this one can be better than a boomerang of emails in cyberspace, to get the answers and support needed.

To be honest, apart from my purchase of the ED80, from a good supplier here in Melb, and Syd, i have had better service from the o/s companies, but thats another story

[74tuc]

Please do your sums.

Air freight is a Killer. Taking into account the exchange rate and import duty I use the rule of thumb that the American price in US dollars must be around half the price in Aussie dollars.

Try Singapore.

Jerry.

[GrahamL]

local and o/s have been good to me

price of shipping is something to consider from o/s as it can be quite pricey
an example my son ordered a kite from cali end of sept
tracking logged it accepted on the 29th , but it didn't leave the US until the
15 th of oct..for global priority this is pretty slow IMO
and no better than a standard air parcel service which is much cheaper.

[74tuc]

To clarify my point above the if something is sold here for $A100 I would only buy it from the US if it was $US50.
Take care buying cheap books - check the Edition # and printing dates.

Jerry.

[spacezebra (Petra)]

Totally agree - watch the exchange rate and freight and postage costs.

Cheers Petra

[g__day (Matthew)]

Actually this is something I'm going to look into closely after today. I caught up with my nextdoor neighbour from our last place today. Rod runs an importing consulting business (BSM Global www.bbssmm.com ) and has been in the import/export market for 15 years. I asked what it would cost to import at 50kg package of reasonable dimensions costing say AUD $3,000 from the USA to here and he said a surprisingly low number.

I asked about import duties and customs etc, and he said - no declare it as a personal item and you can avoid nearly all taxes and duties...

I'm going to do a follow-up session with him next week, 'cause this is an area I'd really like to understand better.

[Simple Simon]

Hmmm... you could be onto something there g_day!

Please be sure to fill us in, once you know more on the subject.

[74tuc]

In my experience (many trips and flying in books, eyepieces and a couple of wind generators) I have yet to find "cheap" freight and handling.

50KG - Lead or Cornflakes ??

Lead: Import , Cornflakes: Buy here.

Re: Customs.

You get the cheapest rate (tax free) when you accompany the item (ie. travelling OS) and currently it is $A1000.00. If you go above $A1000.00 you get "hit" for the whole amount.

But $A3000 - A bit risky!!

Regards to all,

Jerry.

Once upon a time you could get away with a small parcel marked "Unsolicited gift" or "Used or secondhand item"

[74tuc]

The lead/conflakes bit is meant to show that the volume ang dimensions has a huge influence on the cost of freight.

Jerry.

[Striker (Tony)]

Classing an item as personal makes no difference to GST or custom fees.

If custom's have any inclination that false info is being declared they will simply open the box and inspect the goods then you will have to provide information regarding the purchase and value to have the item released.

Has happened to me approx 5 times....that is they have inspected the contents and placed the appropriate sticker notifying me the box has been opened and inspected.

Another query should you be asking is for the retailer to use USPS for items under $1000AUD value as a lot use UPS.

I recently just purchased the Lumicon AOG direct from Lumicon.
Value $399 USD and quoted $106USD for postage...I replied back and said please quote me on USPS postage not UPS and the postage cost went down $52USD with the same service and insurance.

UPS is great if value is over $1000AUD..otherwise use USPS.

[g__day (Matthew)]

Guys I am making no claims here, I expected say a CGE mount costing Retail USD $3,000 or AUD $4,000 to have a landed cost here around $5,500. I am going to ask an expert in distribution logistics and importing what the best way and minimum cost to legally get the gear here.

His first thought was around $500 which seems way low to me, so I wanted to provide him with all the relevant details then let him explain the best way and costs incurred (freight, insurance, import duties, customs, sales taxes etc). If there are legal means to import and greatly reduce costs legally I am sure we will be all very, very interested in this.

Right now I am trying to find the exact weight, cost and dimensions of the CGE mount, bar and counter weights so I can pass this on to Rod and let him educate me / us as to how to best import an item. If it is only marginally cheaper than buying direct - well that's good to know - find a good distributor / retailer. If the is a means to reall save then know that too!

* * * *

Anyone actually know the dimensions and weight of the CGE as a test case?

[74tuc]

Hi Tony,

RE: "I replied back and said please quote me on USPS postage not UPS and the postage cost went down $52USD with the same service and insurance"

Super point- I will be trying this in future for my purchases.

Yes- Customs trust no one.

Rgds,

Jerry.