[Mocking_bird]

I'm not talking about buying say... Games or expensive stuff, just like little bits of jewellery i've seen which is insanely cheap (£1 and free P&P, how do they afford to do this? :|).

But my question is, are there hidden costs that i'll get slammed with when it arrives, such as import costs or something, and how much are they usually or where can I find out?

I've tried looking through the sellers feedback but it never mentions anything about extra costs - which i presume is a good sign?

[Jaidenh]

I bought 40 pairs of eyelashes for 99p from hong kong loool was free pp too and didn't get charged anything extra.

[rjm101]

From my experiance your tend to get charged customs duties only on items I have paid around £90 and up. All the small items of hong kong Ive bought dont land me with customs duty to pay. Also on top of the customs duty the parcel company responsible for handling your item also land you with a customs handling fee. This amount will depend on a number of factors which I wont explain here. If customs had to open up your item and actually inspect the parcel they will also charge a fee for that too. These days they really seem to be chasing customs charges now. Before they only used to do it on a couple of items out of 10 I bought but now if its a sizeable item they will charge me. I cant tell you how much because it depends on the following factors:

What parcel company is delivering the item
Whether if customs inspected the item
The category the item falls under (electronics etc)
The price you paid for the item
Whether if the item picked up from customs was the only item to be picked up by the delivery company

[Mocking_bird]

Thanks very much
Will try one thing and see how the experience goes with that, then order more if its alright

(p.s i didnt neg you, seems like a pointless neg to me.. will pos it to even it out.)

[RainPours]

(Original post by Jaidenh)
I bought 40 pairs of eyelashes for 99p from hong kong loool was free pp too and didn't get charged anything extra.

You don't need eyelashes, you're beautiful they way you are

But still a good deal though

[catastrophe]

I buy a lot of small, cheap things on ebay from Hong Kong/China and have never had a problem. The things you can get for just £1 on ebay are crazy! The only annoying thing, or downside, is the waiting time .

[T-Toe]

I buy a lot of stuff from China/Japan on Ebay. They sell things that are insanely cheap.

China's economy is quite outstanding (probably because they make most of their own products) so it's no surprise why things there are cheap.

[Mocking_bird]

Yay, thanks for the replies
I cant believe how much nice stuff there is for a quid... stuff you would pay like £10+ for here.

[philistine]

No, you don't.

I know for a fact that all goods coming from China (at least, small goods) are marked as gifts, and so avoid any additional charges completely.

Source: I've bought hundreds of things from China.

[Emma:-)]

I havent brought anything from homg kong/china or anywhere like that myself, but my grandad has brought loads of different things from places like that over the past couple of years, and he has never had any problems.

[swaggiee]

(Original post by Jaidenh)
I bought 40 pairs of eyelashes for 99p from hong kong loool was free pp too and didn't get charged anything extra.

Are they any good?

[swaggiee]

the first thing I do when I search for items on ebay is tick the 'UK only' option

[hannahchan]

is it safe to buy from china?

[Indo-Chinese Food]

(Original post by T-Toe)
I buy a lot of stuff from China/Japan on Ebay. They sell things that are insanely cheap.

China's economy is quite outstanding (probably because they make most of their own products) so it's no surprise why things there are cheap.

And maybe becuase 15 year old chinese teens do 18 hours a day in sweatshops for £3 ph so you can get cheap fake eyelashes.

It is an outstanding economy though!

[T-Toe]

(Original post by Indo-Chinese Food)
And maybe becuase 15 year old chinese teens do 18 hours a day in sweatshops for £3 ph so you can get cheap fake eyelashes.

It is an outstanding economy though!

So what do you propose we do, boycott China?

[Mocking_bird]

(Original post by hannahchan)
is it safe to buy from china?

Read the replies? If it wasnt safe people wouldnt have replied so positively...

[Indo-Chinese Food]

(Original post by T-Toe)
So what do you propose we do, boycott China?

of course not, iwas just clarifying for you why they were so cheap.
if you want to boycott fake eyelashes though be my guest, they look silly to me.

[beccafairy]

whenever i've ordered things they've been fine, as mentioned it's quite a long wait for the items to arrive but you can't complain! and you can always look at the seller feedback, obviously if people are saying they were charged customs don't buy from them, they seem to be mostly fine though.

[T-Toe]

(Original post by Indo-Chinese Food)
of course not, iwas just clarifying for you why they were so cheap.
if you want to boycott fake eyelashes though be my guest, they look silly to me.

If there was no intention of causing an affect, why mention it?

The vast majority of Chinese factories operate on high ethical standards. There are however a small handful (which this media keep sensationalising) of companies that exploit children, these need to be dealt with. Proceedings are going on, but very slowly.

I wasn't the one who brought false eye-lashes.

[joey11223]

only thing is the shipping time, it can be anything from 10 days to a month. Though I find sales from Chinese ebay sellers arrives quicker then buying from Chinese online retailers (dealextreme for example).

You won't face any additional charges unless your order is worth over £15, in which case you'll pay import VAT at 20% on the item. If it's over £135 you get customs duty slapped on as well, though if your custom duty was going to cost £9 or less, they'll wave it anyway.

When it comes to ordering from China though, even big companies, let alone ebay sellers, often lie about the value of the product when filling out the declaration. I've ordered quite a few things and say I've paid £10, which wouldn't have been taxed anyway, I'll notice that the seller will claim the value in HK dollars(lots of places based in Hong Kong) is say 45 or 90, which is actually much less then what I paid in pounds. Also most say it's a gift, which ups the threshold of import VAT to items valued something like £40 or more.

Basically they do it to make themselves more popular, people like not having to pay tax to put it bluntly. You won't get in trouble for that, HMRC aren't exactly bothered about little Chinese gadgets and fake jewellery which might be a little undervalued, they have much bigger fish to fry.