Experience regarding buying lenses from the USA?

[hansvanhunnik]

Fellow aviation photographers,

I'm about to buy the Canon 100-400 lens.
Present prices in Holland are 1400 euro and up.
Website below offers this lens for 1400 USD, that's around 1000 euro.
Including shipping, it will cost me around 1021 euro.

What are the problems I will face with customs,taxpayers en warranty overhere in NL?


Are their comperable prices elswhere in Europe?

Anybody experience with buying from internet from bhphotovideo from NY?

Looking forward for your input.

Viper610,

[SPERX]

Fellow aviation photographers,

I'm about to buy the Canon 100-400 lens.
Present prices in Holland are 1400 euro and up.
Website below offers this lens for 1400 USD, that's around 1000 euro.
Including shipping, it will cost me around 1021 euro.

What are the problems I will face with customs,taxpayers en warranty overhere in NL?


Are their comperable prices elswhere in Europe?

Anybody experience with buying from internet from bhphotovideo from NY?

Looking forward for your input.

Viper610,

I bought my 100-400 from this guy on EBay :-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BRAND-NEW-CANON-1 ... .m14.l1262" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

He was very good to deal with and the lense was perfect and fast to arrive. Best of all, he is in the Uk so you would not get hit for Customs duties. Its probably more expensive at face value than shipping in from the States, but if your Customs intercept it, I guess teh Duties and VAT will eliminate your savings.

Cheers

SPERX

[Redskin]

What are the problems I will face with customs,taxpayers en warranty overhere in NL?

If your lens is intercepted by customs you will have to pay taxes and most likely a fine.
Warrenty you can forget in europe, since the lens is sold in the USA. Canon is very clear about that, warrenty is only valide in the continent where the lens is sold. If you have a problem with your lens you must send it back to the USA.

[sharpshooter]

Taxes are around 1/3rd of the totals filled in by the seller...!!
That can really be a boner!! I've several "bad" experiences. So for buying from the USA, Keep that extra costs in mind! If you can't afford or willing to pay the extra 28% or so, than try to forget!

1 Hint is: Try to persuade the seller for filling in a very low value or anything like that on their customs paper....
That helped me too in a few occasions!

Setback for the seller would/could be in case the item gets lost... but that's another problem.

Peter

[Arnold ten Pas]

As far as I know, BHPhotography has to report every sale they make and shipments made by DHL/UPS etc will certainly be "intercepted" by Customs. Basically this means that the extra cost are:

- VAT (19%)
- Import Duty (depends on the type of equipment you buy).

Depending on the dollar/Euro rate, it still might be interesting to buy from the USA. A while ago I calcuted what it would cost me to import a 580EX and came to the following calculation:

1 Dollar = 0,639 Euro (again, it was some time ago)

............NL...............USA
Price......375.E..........409 USD
Transp.......0.E..........40 USD
Import Du...0.E..........14,36 USD (6,7 %)
Total......375. E........296. E
VAT..........incl..........56,34 E (19%)
Total.......375 E........352 E

Not a big difference, but for more expensive buys it might be worth considering.

[Wildpicture]

Import duty on lenses from outside the EU is 6.7% on the total of sales price and shipping costs. That amount is the amount on which VAT (BTW=19%) is counted. So normally you should count on about 30-35% on top of the sales price. This means that right now it is usually better to just buy a lens here in the Netherlands.

On the B&H website, I saw this lens for 1500 USD. Cheapest shipping costs 73 USD. Counting the USD at 0.7 euro, this is 1100 euro. With above mentioned taxes this totals 1398 euro. Here in the Netherlands you can buy it for 1399 without any hassles.

[Iwan Bogels]

Well, why not buy a ticket and pick up your lens in the USA yourself ? I found a ticket to New York for about Euro 400. In that case you would only have to pay 8.375% sales tax over the listed sales price.

In the end you might be paying about the same as in Holland, but you'll have a free weekend in New York as a bonus.

Sounds cool to me. I did it once !

Cheers,
Iwan

PS: And there are even ways to avoid the sales tax, and cheaper ways to get to the States (found a ticket for Euro 316 last week)