Shipping Costs to UK

[nativepaul]

I've bought from Mike a couple of times, and if I recall right he used tracked and insured Fed Ex both times, which is a good thing from both view points on the insurance (I know some sellers do but I certainly wouldn't sell anything untracked or uninsured as it leaves you open to unscrupulous people ripping you off), and I expect they pick up orders form Mikes house/workshop daily giving him more time to make the goodies that we want. Despite Fed Ex being a nice fast service the tracking doesn't seem to work well with the UK post office both were tracked into UK customs but stayed there on the tracker after I got a note through the door and didn't change till after I had picked them up from the airport.

I think some of the high price is paying for the Fed Ex service which just doesn't work over here USPS is much better for me, maybe cheaper too, I could have certainly bought similar packing and sent the same weight and size insured tracked and insured for £100 to Mike for little over £10 via royal mail, but its also a 10 minute walk down to the post office and if I charged him my hourly rate for walking down there or driving and parking fees it would not be far short of $28.

Unless the item is marked as a low value gift we will have to pay import duty on it too and as Mike is selling things it would be illegal for him to state that, and as he is selling lots of things, its very likely that someone would figure it out and catch him, so if the value is over the threshold you will have to pay customs duty (around 10%) $2.5 in your case, which is no big deal, however parcelforce will pay this for you and you pay them when you pick the parcel up from them and charge you about £14 admin fee for doing so.

While I like the stuff that Mike makes, would like to support him by buying the stuff he sells, and understand why it is so expensive to get it to me, it is just not financially viable to do so, as you can see from the above example of $25 parts cost + $28 postage + $2.5 customs + $21.5 admin fee = $77 + a trip to the post office for a pinion and 2x drive cups. because of this if I can source it over here, or make it myself I will do so. This is not Just for Mike but the same goes for any relatively cheap product from USA.

edit: arct1c posted that it's UPS that Mike uses not Fed Ex while I was typing, either I am mistaking him using Fed Ex for OSE, or he has changed couriers (a welcome change if that is the case), I think it's the latter as I don't recall ever getting anything via UPS, either way my complaint about Fed Ex tracking not working in the UK is invalid, but my main point of the price of ordering from USA remains.