[Elecraft] INTERNET PURCHASING

[Stephen Prior]

And, I'm bound to say that it seems to hurt most when buying from
Elecraft!  Some overseas purchases get in 'under the radar', including high
value items at times.  What really hurts though, as Geoff has written, is
the fact that the UK government earns 20% of the shipping cost too! Other
EU buyers will have the same gripe.  Which brings me back to an old topic
of shipping costs from Elecraft.  I have bought quite a lot of stuff from
the USA over the years, and have even posted stuff home to the UK when I
have been in the USA, and it has never seemed that expensive to me.  I have
raised this with Sales in the the past and have been told that it will
probably end up being cheaper to ship than the original figure quoted, but
that doesn't seem to happen in practice.

As an exercise this evening, I priced up buying a KX3 from QRP project in
Germany and compared it with the total cost of buying it direct.  I have
done this sort of comparison before and found that the convenience of
buying from a european reseller comes at a premium, but since the exchange
rates have moved in recent weeks (and in my opinion only back to where the
pound:euro should be), it is now cheaper to buy the KX3 from Germany rather
than direct.  How long that situation will last is anyone's guess!
 Equally, whether the same will be said of Waters and Stanton's pricing
remains to be seen.

Finally, it has always seemed to me rather bizarre that someone buying
something in the USA from another state does not pay sales tax.  So I have
every sympathy with the 'small town' shopkeeper losing sales.  Personally,
so long as I don't think I'm being really ripped off, I will buy from the
local store every time.  It's unfortunate that the sales tax system in the
US appears to discourage buying anything 'in state'.

73 Stephen G4SJP

On 30 May 2012 22:01, Geoffrey Downs <geoffreywd at madasafish.com> wrote:

> Dear Kent,
>
> Internet sales are not tax free in the UK. Nor, I believe, in the rest of
> the EU. We do not have local sales taxes in the UK but we pay national
> Value
> Added Tax of 20% on purchases of all goods (with some exemptions) whether
> from local businesses or from internet vendors - even on purchases direct
> from from Elecraft. This is 20% of not only the purchase price but also the
> shipping costs.
>
> 73 to all
>
> Geoff
> G3UCK
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: KENT TRIMBLE
> Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 8:26 PM
> Subject: [Elecraft] INTERNET PURCHASING
>
> Internet sales are almost universally tax-free
>
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