Importing RC gear from the US

[mark christopher]

to confirm i do buy in the uk and suport my local shop, but it bugs the hell out of me the amount of taxes me and the shop have to cope with. the shop owner can not buy it in from uk distributers the same price as he could from hong pong

[modelimages]

the usual six weekly thread reference buying and importing. there is little new here and the same arguments and opinions, equally the same misconceptions, i have said before i do not have a problem with people buying from the US, with currency exchange rate as it is then it does mean those on a budget can race cheaper, where my problem lies is those that use ways to avoid duty and actively tell people how to avoid it, and those that accuse people of ripping the uk market off when actively doing it themselves. for example those that put an order in to losi parts house and then advertise the parts for sale on a home made site. registered for VAT?, registered as a business with customs and excise?, registered with the local authority and paying business rates on the part of the house used for business?, paying business insurance on the part of the house used for business, etc etc, no of course not, but hey without those overheads you can sell really cheaply and pass the discount on can't you?, losi 1201 costs you 2.34gbp plus a bit of postage which is spread over the parts in the order, so whats your price going to be 2,50 maybe 3.00. no what you do is double it and add vat (which as you are not registered of course you won't be passing on to the government) and then sell it for 5.50 still cheaper than the uk rrp so you undercut the shops, so who is ripping who off?

[bert digler]

if the uk market was say 10% more expensive than the us converted prices nobody would have a problem but its supply and demand not the shops fault it should be people higher up the supply chain who should take a little less cake

[modelimages]

why

there in it to make money, as much as they can, that said 10% assumes that you can do business in this country with the overheads and costs that entails. how much is warehouse space in this country compared with the US?, what about staff costs? etc.

how much of the extra money the uk distributors are making is actually profit?, how much is eaten up by the costs of business?

[bert digler]

Originally Posted by modelimages

why

there in it to make money, as much as they can, that said 10% assumes that you can do business in this country with the overheads and costs that entails. how much is warehouse space in this country compared with the US?, what about staff costs? etc.

how much of the extra money the uk distributors are making is actually profit?, how much is eaten up by the costs of business?

you would do a whole load more buisness if uk prices reflected prices globally people would not go abroad for there goods and in the us they have overheads too or do they live on fresh air

[manybodycpa]

Just a little example from my previous experience with dealers in Europe. There was an exclusive distributor for AE in Austria. Prices were calculated as follows (this could actually be found in the shop's catalog): take the recommended sales price from the AE parts catalog, and multiply by 20 to get the price in Austrian currency (no Euro at that time). Remarkably, this "method of calculating prices" did not take into account exchange rates, especially as the USD exchange rate dropped from about 1:16 to 1:12 around that time. Moreover, in the US, you rarely pay more than 60% of the recommended prices in shops. The results was that parts were usually half the price (or even less), without resorting to any tricks with VAT or duties (being 20% and 8% in Austria!).

Now, I don't know whether this specific example has any relevance to the UK market, but it shows that not every shop owner / distributor is living on small profits. Anyway, the shop I'm talking about lost most of its customers and is out of business by now.

[losixxx]

Originally Posted by manybodycpa

...a hot topic - sorry about having started a new thread.

I have never tried to get a shop to change the value of goods as declared on the invoice, but I know this is a widely-used trick when bringing back stuff from a US trip. But even paying VAT and duties in Austria it was often way cheaper to order kits or electronics from the US.

I understand that it is important to support local shops, but (having run a small shop a long time ago) I also know that there is (was) a lot of profit on gear imported from the US (batteries, motors, etc.).

I don't have a problem buying a kit (such as a B4 for GBP150) here in the UK, but I have noticed that the cheapest 6-cell packs start at around GBP50 - this is much more expensive than in the US.

top matched cells advertised on oople for less than that!!

[mark christopher]

Originally Posted by manybodycpa

Just a little example from my previous experience with dealers in Europe. There was an exclusive distributor for AE in Austria. Prices were calculated as follows (this could actually be found in the shop's catalog): take the recommended sales price from the AE parts catalog, and multiply by 20 to get the price in Austrian currency (no Euro at that time). Remarkably, this "method of calculating prices" did not take into account exchange rates, especially as the USD exchange rate dropped from about 1:16 to 1:12 around that time. Moreover, in the US, you rarely pay more than 60% of the recommended prices in shops. The results was that parts were usually half the price (or even less), without resorting to any tricks with VAT or duties (being 20% and 8% in Austria!).

Now, I don't know whether this specific example has any relevance to the UK market, but it shows that not every shop owner / distributor is living on small profits. Anyway, the shop I'm talking about lost most of its customers and is out of business by now.

buy an associated part in the uk and the packed maybe marked $4:99 and we pay £4:99, now the exchange rate is roughly 1.8$ to the £!!!!
so when im on my hols in the usa i can BOGOF

[bert digler]

Originally Posted by mark christopher

buy an associated part in the uk and the packed maybe marked $4:99 and we pay £4:99, now the exchange rate is roughly 1.8$ to the £!!!!
so when im on my hols in the usa i can BOGOF

just remember the importers pay no where near list us price so tax an duty is bugger all

[MikepRP]

My 2 pence. The effect it has on local RC shops & Distributors is quite obvious, and buying outside the UK on the net is a 'thorn in the side' for many people trying to make a living from this sport in the UK. My opinion - quite simple. Support your local RC Shop

[DCM]

Originally Posted by mark christopher

buy an associated part in the uk and the packed maybe marked $4:99 and we pay £4:99, now the exchange rate is roughly 1.8$ to the £!!!!
so when im on my hols in the usa i can BOGOF

Thats a good idea.... oh, you mean Buy One Get One Free lol

[gramey]

My son & I started RC racing just over 3 years ago with the ubiquitous Tamiya TL01 followed by a TB01 bought from our LHS. At this time spares for these models from our LHS were plentiful and seemed reasonably priced.
We stuck with Tamiya's through the Evo III Surikarn onto TRF415's followed by TB Evo 4MS's and now TB Evo 5's. The problems started with the Surikarn which I purchased from Fusion Hobbies. The car was great but trying to get spares here in the U.K. was hopeless. Our LHS told us that the U.K. importers did not suppport the high end models as there was no profit in them. They made far more out of kids buying and trashing TL01's in their local Tesco's car parks than they did supplying a small number of parts to those wanting to race. As a consequence we resorted to the internet and, although a few model shops over here are now stocking items for some of the better Tamiya cars, it was so quick and easy to order from HK that we rarely order any Tamiya spares from the U.K.
If our LHS/UK suppliers can provide what we want we're happy to support them, after all it's not their fault we have to pay VAT etc.
In the past 10 months we've bought 4 1/10 electric off road buggies and 2 1/8 th scale nitro truggies from our LHS. We've also bought our Nosram BL systems, countless spares/hop ups, motors, wheels tyres, cells etc. both from them and other U.K. based model shops if our LHS did not have them.
The big advantage of dealing with our LHS is that you can do a deal with them which you can't do buying abroad. With our LSP truggies we didn't want the radio gear or the stock servo's. They gave us an allowance back againts these items helping to keep the cost down of the servo's and Spektrum receivers we wanted instead, which they fitted while I waited.
Basically the bottom line for us is that if our LHS can supply what we want or need then we'll happily use them but if we need to we'll shop abroad. We do however try and avoid ordering from the US as dear old HM C&E seem to take more of an interest in stuff from there than HK or Japan for some reason?

[Welshy40]

well there are a few US model shops that do not add a price to the package, and if you can add comments they can do it as a gift so the UK tax man doesnt rip us off any more than they already are.