The Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a thread)

Just a quick question for someone in the know, how does customs charges or VAT charges work on Amazon UK if ordering from the Amazon US store or being sold by Amazon Export Sales LLC? Is there any?
 
Birdie Num Num said:
Just a quick question for someone in the know, how does customs charges or VAT charges work on Amazon UK if ordering from the Amazon US store or being sold by Amazon Export Sales LLC? Is there any?
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Just from my experience, as others I think have also mentioned, Amazon US will include all the customs costs in the overall advertised price of the item. Currently I believe they are also not charging for postage from the US, so I've recently ordered from them to save on those at least.
 
Geriatric hedgehog said:
Just from my experience, as others I think have also mentioned, Amazon US will include all the customs costs in the overall advertised price of the item. Currently I believe they are also not charging for postage from the US, so I've recently ordered from them to save on those at least.
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Thanks.. I've just ordered Gravity Falls and I don't really wanna pay any additional costs.. I'm gonna order Hinamatsuri as well, that's about £18 at the moment..
 
I've order a decent amount of items from amazon.co.uk of which were from amazon US, and can confirm I have not received any extra charges.
Tax seems to be added into the check out price and postage cost is free (removed/marked as a promotion). I honestly have no idea what courier they assign to it I've had just royal mail, DPS and I think the odd amazon courier.
Maybe not always the best protection, for the best part seems to be a jiffy bag or amazon plastic bubble wrap bag.
And as with US Amazon stock, slip covers are not always in the best condition, but I assume that more or less down to the storage.
 
If I buy a pricey secondhand volume of rare manga from the US am I likely to have to pay customs fees and whatnot? Currently in the process of buying something rare and was wondering? Actually just in general regardless of what country it's from?
 
RadFemHedonist said:
If I buy a pricey secondhand volume of rare manga from the US am I likely to have to pay customs fees and whatnot? Currently in the process of buying something rare and was wondering? Actually just in general regardless of what country it's from?
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Books should be 0% VAT so you should be fine on that, however VAT is now supposed to be paid and declared by the sender so a lot of stores no longer send to us in the first place, and books often get miscategorised as VATable products because people in other countries don't always realise that our rules have these exemptions. This is a UK thing so it doesn't matter where it's coming from. If it's a private seller ask them to call it a book on the declaration (technically they're still supposed to register for UK VAT and make zero-value VAT returns but I doubt anyone actually bothers).

R
 
With it being a seller on amazon you will probably see when your at the final checkout stage that it actually has the VAT already in the total cost. Not sure what it does for books, I assume it will just say it has included VAT no matter the item.

I have only done purchases from one amazon seller and it wasn't a book, but just came straight through to me with no extra charges. and they were all under £15, but i think the under £15 thing went out the window with brexit
 
To those who have the US Blu-ray release of Space Dandy, were the insert songs (in the Japanese audio) subtitled? The UK release by Anime Limited only had the songs subtitled in Season 2 when the characters are actually singing (specifically episode 17), but the insert songs, the opening and the closing weren't subtitled.
 
Birdie Num Num said:
Thinking of ordering a few blu-rays from Japan totaling about £130-140, the question is from where, Amazon JP or cdjapan?
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They're both fine picks, personally I normally go with Amazon as they pre-pay the customs by default (though that might be an option now on cdjapan too, unsure).

Basically Amazon will be faster but more expensive, but you know exactly what you're paying. Cdjapan will be cheaper, but you may get stung by customs which'll slow the delivery down and you may end up paying more with the handling fees thrown in. Amazon also gets an extra point for returns, I've not had to deal with cdjapan returns, but if something under a price point gets destroyed in transit with Amazon they'll normally just refund without having to post back (or at least they did last time I had to!).
 
NoSurprises said:
They're both fine picks, personally I normally go with Amazon as they pre-pay the customs by default (though that might be an option now on cdjapan too, unsure).

Basically Amazon will be faster but more expensive, but you know exactly what you're paying. Cdjapan will be cheaper, but you may get stung by customs which'll slow the delivery down and you may end up paying more with the handling fees thrown in. Amazon also gets an extra point for returns, I've not had to deal with cdjapan returns, but if something under a price point gets destroyed in transit with Amazon they'll normally just refund without having to post back (or at least they did last time I had to!).
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Thanks for the quick reply.. I've read that some people add a magazine to the order so the box sets or whatever they've ordered gets wrapped tightly together so no more damage, have you done this and would you recommend it (and if so which magazine should I order?)
 
NoSurprises said:
They're both fine picks, personally I normally go with Amazon as they pre-pay the customs by default (though that might be an option now on cdjapan too, unsure).

Basically Amazon will be faster but more expensive, but you know exactly what you're paying. Cdjapan will be cheaper, but you may get stung by customs which'll slow the delivery down and you may end up paying more with the handling fees thrown in. Amazon also gets an extra point for returns, I've not had to deal with cdjapan returns, but if something under a price point gets destroyed in transit with Amazon they'll normally just refund without having to post back (or at least they did last time I had to!).
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i don't think Amazon Japan does prepaid customs, i'm pretty sure a british youtube i watch ordered a couple things from amazon japan over the last couple months and talked about being charged for customs when it arrived but it is shipped by DHL so it might be the case of getting double hit
 
Birdie Num Num said:
Thanks for the quick reply.. I've read that some people add a magazine to the order so the box sets or whatever they've ordered gets wrapped tightly together so no more damage, have you done this and would you recommend it (and if so which magazine should I order?)
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If you're ordering a few blu-rays they'll probably box them up. I've never used the magazine trick myself, but I know of it, so I wouldn't know what to suggest, sorry! The few things I've recieved in jiffy bags (sometimes I get a box sometimes a bag for single blu-rays) from them have always held up for me, DHL don't appear to mash (at least my) packages.

Edit: I must admit, my last order was a little while ago
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Looking now 'Import Fees' doesn't appear to be part of the shipping breakdown anymore
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So my customs info may be out of date, apologies!
 
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I order from CDJapan and I've never been stung by customs and you have an option to mark it as a gift and that seems for me to have got through custom free, although I've never spent £130-£140 in one go though.

Whenever ever I've ordered BD from amazon Japan import tax has always been apart of the total at the checkout same with amazon US.
 
Speaking from a recent experience, I did spend over £100 recently from CDJapan on a few things and it didn't appear to be hit by customs. Though for all I know there may be a customs form just waiting to be sent to me at some random time a few weeks later.
 
Takei Daloui said:
Speaking from a recent experience, I did spend over £100 recently from CDJapan on a few things and it didn't appear to be hit by customs. Though for all I know there may be a customs form just waiting to be sent to me at some random time a few weeks later.
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Unlike FedEx where they ask for payment after delivery, Royal Mail and Parcelforce hold your items hostage until you’ve paid.

I find it also depends on how you get it sent. EMS which goes through parcelforce is likely to get caught while if you go registered airmail/SAL (when it was an option pre COVID) was likely to slip through the customs net.
 
Gemsy-chan said:
Unlike FedEx where they ask for payment after delivery, Royal Mail and Parcelforce hold your items hostage until you’ve paid.

I find it also depends on how you get it sent. EMS which goes through parcelforce is likely to get caught while if you go registered airmail/SAL (when it was an option pre COVID) was likely to slip through the customs net.
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Might be why it got through. Though I've once or twice had things go through Royal Mail without getting caught. Not really sure how so those were probably lucky cases.
 
Thanks everyone for the advice and letting me know your experiences. I might go with Amazon, when choosing the shipping option it does say:

If you choose Amazon Global overseas shipping, Amazon Global will take care of the customs clearance. If import tax is applied, the estimated amount will be charged as a prepayment.

So from the sound of it, Amazon does take care of customs.
 
Birdie Num Num said:
Thanks everyone for the advice and letting me know your experiences. I might go with Amazon, when choosing the shipping option it does say:

If you choose Amazon Global overseas shipping, Amazon Global will take care of the customs clearance. If import tax is applied, the estimated amount will be charged as a prepayment.

So from the sound of it, Amazon does take care of customs.
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Based on recent experience with Amazon Japan, it seems that on checkout, the VAT is already applied to the individual items (for references, the prices for the individual items are slightly higher on checkout than they are on their listings).

If I'm correct, aren't overseas companies supposed to charge VAT upon purchase under the VAT laws implemented on 1st January this year (the reason why JB Hi-Fi stopped shipping to the UK from that date)?
 
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