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Cheapest way to bring a bike in from USA??

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Preston72:
Wonder why it's shot up in price, you'd have thought the yankies would be wanting to help all forms of international trading ???

Robmac:
The US post office was losing money, so everything went up lots in the last year or 2.

I've never had any issues bringing stuff through customs. The allowance used to be something like 180quid, but it went way up a couple of years ago. I think you can bring goods for yourself up to about £600 quid or maybe more now. I stand to be corrected, but in any event I've never been stopped going through the green channel anyway. Even if you told them an old bike frame was $700 they'd never believe you  :idiot2:

If the seller in the US has a UPS account that is much cheaper than them just walking into a UPS store to ship it. As someone else said, all international cheap options with the post office(USPS) are finished. FedEx are not too bad either, again cheaper for account holders understand.
It's not a cheap job any more and can really kill what was a good deal.

You generally pick up a handling charge (£8 to £14 plus duty (normally only a few percent of the value) but the killer is the 20% vat.
Of course it helps if the sellers declares a low values the customs form, but less people seem willing to I do this nowadays.
Hope that's some use, even if it's not good news.

Gnarlyscoots:
Sorry guys for late reply, lots going on at home and in life at the moment.

The best way to ship a complete to the UK from the US these days is in two parcels.

Parcel 1 - Wheels, cranks, pedals, seat, stem, seatpost and brakes.

Parcel 2 - Frame, Fork, bars, tyres, and the rest of the small bits.

Each parcel will be approx $80 (£50) as opposed to $180 (£110) for a complete package.

Each parcel needs to be packed as tight and as small as possible with no movement inside.

To avoid a huge customs charge and handling fee, you need to have the help from the seller for this, and trust both ways. Each parcel needs to have the declaration form completed as below:-



Each package should arrive to you within 10 working days from intial postage. If it has not arrived in that time frame, it means they have had severe weather disruption or, it is being processed through customs and you will receive a charge. This will only happen if it's not marked as above i.e the merchandise box crossed or nothing crossed. You can have a gift item come to you with a declared value of up to £39 ($65) but I always have them marked at $40.

Contrary to all the discussions about the customs charge applied to a parcel, you will only get charged if the above is not applied to the declaration form.

I have had many items now and the only time I get charged is when the seller has not followed my instructions and marked the box as Merchandise or Other, and/or with a value larger than $65.

Returned goods is no longer a guaranteed option to evade the Customs charges.

Postage costs do not come into play unless a charge is applied via customs. For example, I had a frame, fork and bars plus a few small items enclosed, sent to me recently with a declared value of $40. The postage cost was $74. No customs charges applied and I received it within 5 days.

Anyways, I hope that helps you all  ;)

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