Interest - have you bought from EU Europe in last 10yrs

[calnorth]

Now we have Tusks efforts:

As a matter of interest what do people here buy from EU Europe apart from cars/vans, holidays and villas(?). I have lived there for 7 years way back then so had no choice really and got hooked on VW Beetles. I knowingly bought a Karcher steamer in last 2 years that was £90 cheaper than rip off Britain. Anybody?

[phtumshk]

i bought some vape components from germany.
only did so as i was unable to buy them from china because of a uk company having rights to sell them here.
But when I contacted the UK supplier they said they werent going to be stocking them anyway.

[Perpetua]

Some vaping equipment needless to say, from Vapor Freak as they stocked the Rainbow Heaven GG clones . . . . and what was considered to be ground breaking at the time, a rebuildable atomiser from Cetin!

[Lee]

Having returned from nine years in Spain back in November, we used to shop in the UK a lot
Computers etc were cheaper to buy from Amazon UK due to heavy taxing on anything capable of downloading or recording material
It was part of the national culture there

[Bobsbeer]

Not a huge amount, but I have bought brewing equipment and a couple of atties not available or cheaper than UK. How things might change in the future will very much depend on if we exit. Currently imports are not subject to UK VAT as duty was paid in the original EU country. If we leave and even if we have no import tariffs, the UK will want to charge VAT as they do for USA stuff, but not Chinese for some reason, so I expect a 20% hike in prices, which will make them too expensive in most cases.

[calnorth]

Feb 2, 2016 19:29:12 GMT Bobsbeer said:

Not a huge amount, but I have bought brewing equipment and a couple of atties not available or cheaper than UK. How things might change in the future will very much depend on if we exit. Currently imports are not subject to UK VAT as duty was paid in the original EU country. If we leave and even if we have no import tariffs, the UK will want to charge VAT as they do for USA stuff, but not Chinese for some reason, so I expect a 20% hike in prices, which will make them too expensive in most cases.

Yep...the 20% VAT charge on goods and shipping charge + HMRC handlers fee (£10 Parcelforce) and which I saw often. Not mentioned in debate. Thats stuff declared over £25 as I remember. Extraordinary really since politicians are hell bent on destroying small business in this country against obvious odds.

Anyway, its the intensity of ordinary business we do with the EU I seek. I always found Germany expensive (D Mark days), but I think thats worse under the Euro? Italy is no longer cheap I'm sure?

[pedro]

I buy a lot from europe to be honest most things can be found cheaper even when you add on dhl or fedex delivery. Still get it in 3 days and save a few quid too.

[reefcat]

I tend to buy quite a few things from the UK & get it shipped here to Portugal. We just bought a couple of nice bikes before christmas. Way cheaper to buy in the UK & get them shipped. Much of my mixing concentrates also come from the UK, although they are becoming more common here, albeit very expensive.

[toots]

I was buying quite a few of my concentrates plus little bits & pieces and a couple of mods from Spain fairly regularly till one of the packages suddenly acquired a customs charge of over 17 euros

So now I have gone back to buying those items from the UK as I don't get any customs charges when the UK sends anything over. It's real stooooopid when the Canaries are a part of Spain but we get charged custom fees for stuff bought from Spain - don't make any sense to me

The only other thing I've bought from another EU country, Germany, was a wacom pen for my bamboo designing pad - got clobbered with customs for that too. Damn pen cost 30 euros and I paid another 30 euros in customs fees on arrival, so it cost me double the amount in the end. I found out later I could have ordered one from Amazon UK cheaper and with no fear of customs fees

I don't know what would happen if the UK came out of the EU - I suppose I would get clobbered with customs charges when ordering from there - probably would be far cheaper for me to take a trip to the UK with an empty suitcase, fill it up with litre bottles of VG & god knows how many bottles of concentrates etc than to get the stuff posted out

[phatfil]

Big stainless steel stock pots and insulated thermopots are about 1/2 the uk retail price if bought direct from the german importer..

when smoking most my backy was bought in ibiza/spain

[calnorth]

Feb 2, 2016 23:07:04 GMT toots said:

I was buying quite a few of my concentrates plus little bits & pieces and a couple of mods from Spain fairly regularly till one of the packages suddenly acquired a customs charge of over 17 euros

So now I have gone back to buying those items from the UK as I don't get any customs charges when the UK sends anything over. It's real stooooopid when the Canaries are a part of Spain but we get charged custom fees for stuff bought from Spain - don't make any sense to me

The only other thing I've bought from another EU country, Germany, was a wacom pen for my bamboo designing pad - got clobbered with customs for that too. Damn pen cost 30 euros and I paid another 30 euros in customs fees on arrival, so it cost me double the amount in the end. I found out later I could have ordered one from Amazon UK cheaper and with no fear of customs fees

I don't know what would happen if the UK came out of the EU - I suppose I would get clobbered with customs charges when ordering from there - probably would be far cheaper for me to take a trip to the UK with an empty suitcase, fill it up with litre bottles of VG & god knows how many bottles of concentrates etc than to get the stuff posted out

That customs fee isn't right unless the shipping docs show no german vat charged at source? Looking at stuff of minor value quite closely..aren't they? 

If we go out of the EU I would have thought that VAT would not be double charged, then it moves to import duties.  

[digicig]

Vaping kit mainly - Spheroid, MarkBugs, Vapor Freak, Pink Mule and a couple of others including Inawera flavours from Poland.

Aside from that maybe a couple of bits from ebay - and indirectly the French Aroma Zone Organic VG from taobao.com over here in China.

[snow]

I've bought a few bits and pieces of vaping gear from Ireland and I do buy Folks eliquid from Vape Artists in France on a fairly regular basis.

[Bobsbeer]

I'm quite sure if we leave HMRC will just assume no tax has been paid at the seller end and charge VAT as they do with USA imports. Of course some EU exporters will change their system to sell without adding VAT, but that may take a while, or may stop exporting to the UK.

[Lee]

Spain were on a downer with vaping
From memory, they were trying to put a stop to online sales
www.linkedin.com/pulse/law-electronic-cigarettes-vaping-spain-ivan-vaper