Hobby Search

[brill27mcb]

So are the DHL shipping prices up (I'm guessing so) or down (I'm hoping so)?

 

Rich K.

[bill937ca]

9 minutes ago, brill27mcb said:

So are the DHL shipping prices up (I'm guessing so) or down (I'm hoping so)?

 

Rich K.

R G Rokko has a similar message on their site.

 

"Due to an increase of transportation costs, we have no choice but to conduct shipping fee revision. However, we have been working hard to revise them slightly. Thus, we would like to inform you that we make an alteration to our shipping expression from "Weight" to "Package volume". We appreciate your understanding in this issue."      https://rg-rokko.com/

 

This seems to indicate a change in the method of charging for shipments.   

Edited January 13, 2023 by bill937ca

[cteno4]

Air freight is usually more dependent on volume than weight. Sounds like the air carriers are adjusting their calculus for how to max revenues… may also be increasing levels of passenger traffic which some air freight does slip in on and may be different fee structure. Sadly I doubt they are going down.

 

jeff

[Cat]

But fortunately, volumetric pricing is very friendly for throwing books and magazines into the package while you're at it!

[jappomania]

6 hours ago, Cat said:

But fortunately, volumetric pricing is very friendly for throwing books and magazines into the package while you're at it!

 

I agree, but not so much if you need only books and magazines

depend if the seller use a bubble wrap envelope or anyway the standard box like HS, in 20 years I think I moved 150-200 SAL boxes empty at 90% (just japanese air and wrapping paper for monthly magazine shipping RM-Model + Rail Magazine), I asked many time to change the packaging but they never did it

whit SAL shipping it was not a big trouble, but with COVID shipping suspension and the latest changes I stopped all because every magazine at the end cost 2-3 time the cover price.

 

 

[Tony Galiani]

I just checked my recent HS order.  Shipping and taxes accounted for a bit more than 25% of the cost.  Seems like a lot to me - I probably need to be a bit more thoughtful about my orders to make them more reasonable in light of these recent cost increases.

Trying to convince my wife it it better for me to just fly to Japan every so often for train shopping!

Ciao,

Tony

[bill937ca]

2 hours ago, Tony Galiani said:

Trying to convince my wife it it better for me to just fly to Japan every so often for train shopping!

Ciao,

Tony

Good luck with that!

[cteno4]

Good plan tony! I’ll give you a list to fill as well and drop down for a beer after you get back to pick stuff up!

 

jeff

[MeTheSwede]

5 hours ago, Tony Galiani said:

I just checked my recent HS order.  Shipping and taxes accounted for a bit more than 25% of the cost.  Seems like a lot to me - I probably need to be a bit more thoughtful about my orders to make them more reasonable in light of these recent cost increases.

Trying to convince my wife it it better for me to just fly to Japan every so often for train shopping!

Ciao,

Tony

 

On the contrary, if you are less thoughtful and spend more money, those 25% will be enough to cover travel expenses, and your wife must surely agree that you need to go to Japan more often. 😎

 

[chadbag]

On 1/13/2023 at 8:04 PM, Cat said:

But fortunately, volumetric pricing is very friendly for throwing books and magazines into the package while you're at it!

 

My experience is that "volumetric" pricing really is "by weight" and then "volumetric" if the volume is too high for the weight.

 

[cteno4]

Yeah when ever volumetric comes in each carrier seems to have their own formulae.

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

Another dirty deed. 

 "For customers from New Zealand, we will begin GST collection for orders charged from 7th March, 2023 onwards."

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/tax_collection_e.html

 

We are finding that a number of countries are introducing laws, requiring for the oversea shops to collect VAT and GST etc. on behalf of their customs authority.We intend to comply with such laws, and will be collecting such VAT and GST etc. from customers in the applicable countries.

 

Countries we are currently collecting taxes for:

Australia

New Zealand (from 7th March,2023)

EU countries (IOSS program)

USA (18 states)

California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin

 

Countries we are working to collect taxes for:

United Kingdom

Norway

Singapore

 

We will be making announcement of actual date that we will start collecting taxes, for each countries that we are ready to collect for.

[beakaboy]

Yes. I noticed this announcement some months back. 15% GST. I have stopped ordering from HobbySearch quite some time ago as I have slowed up on new Japanese prototype purchases. I also found Plazajapan and other retailers who didn't charge GST. I had an idea that they only needed to collect GST if they had sales over NZ$20,000 per annum to New Zealand, but could be wrong.

Edited March 5, 2023 by disturbman
unnecessary quote as answering previous message

[disturbman]

11 hours ago, bill937ca said:

Another dirty deed. 

Why dirty?

I'm not sure I understand why some of the Anglo posters get so annoyed with this. If HS is collecting GST, it means that that tax is due and you would need to pay it when picking or receiving your package. And often, carriers that collect GST on package usually collects a processing fee as well. In that case, isn't it better to have the tax collected at the source, without having to pay additional fees?

[bill937ca]

Well, maybe I shouldn't have said dirty.  I would be OK with paying HST as that would eliminate the handling fee and processing time in Customs. (EMS parcels  under the $40 threshold clear customs in one minute. Items over the threshold have taken up to nine hours to process.) I'm not sure a company in Japan will get the fine points correct.  If I buy a book or magazine there should be GST but not the rest of the HST I would otherwise pay. So on a $100 it would be $8 for GST on a book but $13 HST for a train or other product. HST= Harmonized Sales Tax which is a combination of the old federal GST and provincial PST.

 

In North America there is a strong culture in favor of tax cuts.  In that sense adding tax is a dirty deed, although I think an argument can be made that taxes aren't high enough given some of the underfunded problems in the world--homeless population, drug addiction.  But that's not the purpose of this forum.

[cteno4]

I think part of it is some countries are just not use to paying duties for imports and sales tack on stuff shipped to them domesticity. But the latter has been changing domesticity so I think the feels like a new duty/tariff when they now pay sales tax on an import. Nasty ness for the retailers then to get all the rules right for everywhere. I dropped doing any clients selling stuff when sales taxes were collected here in the us as it’s so different place to place and big headache to deal with…

 

folks in the us seem to have adjusted fast that sales taxes will be collected on their imports just like all their domestically bought stuff. Nice thing is for most personal stuff we don’t have any duties/tariffs and a higher exclusion on the few things that might. So we avoid those hassles and potential fee costs for the most part.

 

jeff

[Giugiaro]

My only concern here is with how shipping will be handled once the parcel arrives at the destination country.

 

AFAIK the expectation is that a parcel who'se VAT and HST has been collected at the source has a green light to go straight to delivery.

But how is that green light present on the parcel? Does it have some sort of "Import Tax Paid" sticker stamped?

 

I've had experience dealing with VAT+HST with the shipping service as the item is being sent to my country.
So far it worked well, bar some hiccups here and there.

 

The only time I had VAT+HST taken care of at the source was with Amazon US, but I'd call that cheating since UPS was the service who shipped my parcel.
I'd be hard pressed to believe that the experience would be so smooth with the regular postal service... 🤔

[katoftw]

13 minutes ago, Giugiaro said:

My only concern here is with how shipping will be handled once the parcel arrives at the destination country.

 

AFAIK the expectation is that a parcel who'se VAT and HST has been collected at the source has a green light to go straight to delivery.

But how is that green light present on the parcel? Does it have some sort of "Import Tax Paid" sticker stamped?

The invoice attached to the parcel with your address on it also shows tax paid.  This isn't a new deal.  Has been going on for 3 years depending on the country.

[bill937ca]

Going on much longer with eBay and Amazon.

[marknewton]

17 hours ago, disturbman said:

Why dirty?

In the case of Australia, GST was imposed on low-value imports as a result of the then governing party being lobbied by one of their biggest donors to protect his business from competition.
 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

Edited March 6, 2023 by marknewton

[disturbman]

That’s your experience/point of view as an Australian, but Bill is Canadian 😉

[katoftw]

13 hours ago, disturbman said:

That’s your experience/point of view as an Australian, but Bill is Canadian 😉

And Bill commented on the New Zealand tax system requirements.

[katoftw]

Just had another sale start.

[ianlaw]

Just received the first parcel from them since they started pre collecting the EU tax for Holland.  Very convenient. Saved a week and the 7 euro tax collection fee. 

[cteno4]

That’s nice! 
 

jeff