News - Bundle Box takes the guess work out of U.S. imports

[HEXUS]

Fancy yourself a Zune HD, or found a product cheaper over in the U.S.? Bundle Box can import it for you.

Read more.

[OilSheikh]

Good stuff. Need to see how much they charge for shipping, etc.

[Yorkieshaman]

This sounds like a great idea. Will be interesting to see if they can get round the usual grey importer legal hassles by acting as a personal import business - I remember laserdisc companies doing the same thing back in the day

[Stoo]

Sounds good.. the trouble is, more and more US online retailers are not accepting non-us based credit cards :/

[snootyjim]

It'll be hilarious when they go bust with everybody's expensive hardware sitting in their warehouses, awaiting the visit of the taxman's bailiffs :/

[watercooled]

It's funny how they say they calculate import charges after the warehouse receives your goods, in other words you have no choice but to pay...

[chrestomanci]

Originally Posted by Stoo

Sounds good.. the trouble is, more and more US online retailers are not accepting non-us based credit cards :/

Or they won't deliver to PO boxes, which is basically what this is.

[aeonf242]

Originally Posted by watercooled

It's funny how they say they calculate import charges after the warehouse receives your goods, in other words you have no choice but to pay...

I'm guessing this is also to do with exchange rates....in the last month the $ has been up and down between c$1.58 and $1.66....so if you're paying taxes on imports to the UK on a $100 the taxable amount could vary between £60.24 and £63.29 etc

[koocha]

parcel2go.com have been doing something simlar for a long time now:

https://www.parcel2go.com/import-services.aspx

don't know how it compares though.

[chrestomanci]

Originally Posted by snootyjim

It'll be hilarious when they go bust with everybody's expensive hardware sitting in their warehouses, awaiting the visit of the taxman's bailiffs :/

The warehouse will be in america, so I doubt that UK costoms would be allowed to visit, even if they where interested, which I doubt.

Even if they had a warehouse in the UK they would still be OK, as they only have to declare it as a bonded warehouse, and charge tax on anything that leaves.

Originally Posted by watercooled

It's funny how they say they calculate import charges after the warehouse receives your goods, in other words you have no choice but to pay...

If you are truthful about how much you have paid for each item and what it is then there is no judgment on their part, they are just applying the rules from the revenue. Normal import companies do the same calculation all the time. In theory you could do the same calculation yourself, and if Bundle Box have any sense they will put an online calculator on their website so you can pick the type of merchandise, key in the value and immediately see the tax that will be added.

Overall, I can't see the taxman on either side of the pond being upset about this. At the moment a huge amount of stuff gets brought online and shipped to the UK with no tax paid at all. Hardly anyone will volunteer to phone up their local tax office and tell them what they just brought and ask how much they need to pay, so people don't bother and the tax man looses out. The only problem with the current system is that occasionally you can get stung for an unexpected bill.

The tax man will be hoping that companies like Bundle Box become popular because that way they get all the tax owing instead of the current widespread causal evasion. Personally I can't see it happening as people won't want to pay extra to Bundle Box, and will prefer to take their chances on import duty.

The one area where I think Bundle Box may be useful is with retailers who flat out refuse to ship internationally, or who have very high international shipping charges. There have been many occasions where I have seen something online in the $10 range, and been about to buy when I discovered that they either don't ship internationally, or insist on charging $100 or so for an expensive DHL overnight airfreight shipment.

Bundle box could cut that shipping charge down to a few pounds if they fill shipping containers in their warehouse in the states, send them across the Atlantic by ship and then post them out from a dispatch center in the UK, effectively running their own international postal service.

Edit: I tried their shipping calculator to see how much they would charge for a hypothetical $10 200g item, and the calculator did not work, but elsewhere on their website they say that their standard delivery charge for items under 1kg is £17.35, so scratch that idea. They really need to add a slow but very cheap shipping option for such items.

[alpha channel]

I'd really like to believe this works but there's always going to be a catch (I've my eye on a certain Adobe bundle, via this lot it would save damn near a £1000 on the price and that's after VAT, postage and insurance has been added).

[TheBloodyNine]

Had a quick look with their estimate tool

From Amazon.com

Zune HD 32GB : $289 = £175

+

Total estimate including import duty & VAT:
£91.96

Total cost = £266ish

Direct from UK retailer + £219 inc free shipping (actually £217 when I just looked as a random £2 discount was applied to mine?)
http://www.crazycameras.co.uk/zune-h...ct_100410.html

So on that case it looks like it would be much easier to buy from an importer.

[aceuk]

Originally Posted by koocha

parcel2go.com have been doing something simlar for a long time now:
https://www.parcel2go.com/import-services.aspx

I would highly recommend people steer clear of Parcel2Go. They are a bunch of utter morons (and that's putting it VERY politely).

I used their USA import service for the first time way back in July 2006 and they lost my parcel (worth around £80). I sent their import manager (Anneka Adams-Mercer) numerous e-mails (and many phone calls) spanning almost 6 months trying to claim my money back for both the cost of the import service and the parcel itself and got absolutely nowhere due to her ineptitude. The whole ordeal caused me so much stress that I just gave up in the end. However, if I had the time and patience I would have definitely taken them to court as I can't stand companies that do this to people.

It seems I'm not the only person who thinks the same...
http://www.parcel2gosuck.co.uk/

[snootyjim]

Originally Posted by chrestomanci

The warehouse will be in america, so I doubt that UK costoms would be allowed to visit, even if they where interested, which I doubt.

Even if they had a warehouse in the UK they would still be OK, as they only have to declare it as a bonded warehouse, and charge tax on anything that leaves.

Eh? It's nothing to do with the UK customs - I'm fairly certain that if BundleBox went bust you wouldn't be getting your stuff posted to you by their administrators.

[chrestomanci]

Originally Posted by snootyjim

Eh? It's nothing to do with the UK customs - I'm fairly certain that if BundleBox went bust you wouldn't be getting your stuff posted to you by their administrators.

Thats an interesting point.

Your stuff in the Bundle box warehouse belongs to you, and even if Bundle Box went bust it would still be yours, so the administrators would not have the right to sell it off to clear other debts even if they wanted to. You would only be a creditor of Bundle Box if you had paid for membership or shipping in advance. In that respect Bundle box are like any other shipping company.

I would say that if they went bust, the administrators would not automatically send you your stuff, instead they would probably offer to post it to you anyway, at a higher cost than you expected. Even if you decided to abandon your stuff rather than pay the higher postage rates, the administrator would probably have to give you all the money they get from re-selling it rather than sharing between creditors.