Cost of postage etc..

[RHEINGOLD]

Buying ANYTHING from the USA is a no no due to cost of postage import costs excise duties etc, but Germany is littlle better with postage starting at abot 8 euros and 13 and even 18 euros not being uncommon on otherwise reasonably priced items.I have even had postage double the entire cost of an item.
What a rip off it has become.

[red_death]

The USA can be hit and miss - there seems to be a wide variation in the postage costs (and below certain limits you don't always get hit by import VAT etc).

As I discovered (to my horror!) when looking at the postage costs for the Pendolino project, postage is expensive particularly if you are shipping anything of any size or weight.

Cheers, Mike

[RHEINGOLD]

Further to my original post I had a trawl through e bay before and saw 3 or 4 rather nice coaches priced variously around £10 or so,I rather fancied 3 of them for certain so a total cost of productsof just over £30,not too bad.
BUT all from different sellers and postage from Germany in all 3 cases just under £14 per item so total cost circa £42 for postage which includung the 3 items a total cost circa £ 72,...not much of a bargain indeed no bargain at all. 

[Malcolm Hunt]

Shock horror! I'm having one of those 'sods law will mess you up because of regulations beyond your control' days today.
(And other shennanigans preventing me shopping locally.)
Upshot: I've been looking at having paint stripper and aerosol paint sent through the post. I thought I wanted that Modelstrip tub from Antics Online that you slather all over the piece to be stripped and seal it in a plastic bag over night, to be washed and brushed off the next day. I'd also like a can of Tamiya maroon aerosol - and that last word sounds like the type of person who makes up hazardous goods postage rules. Royal Mail won't touch it, so it falls to couriers to charge sometimes more than the item itself to shift, even if click & collect from, say, Argos.
Where can I get Railmatch aerosol, and a decent paint stripper in one shipment to minimise courier charges? I'm even considering going down the Dettol route to get the paint off.
Antics, bless 'em, have a helpful, laid back (he'd have to be the way business is going) chap who recommended Howes of Oxford as they make Railmatch paints.

Ps: If admin decide this belongs in the Angry Thread I'll understand, but maybe just a new My Ghast Is Flabbered thread might suffice.

[Railbank]

I buy quite a bit from Germany both new from retailers and ebay for new/used and agree that some postage rates make no sense up to 18 Euro whether you get 1 item <100g or a few up to 3Kg.

I have found a some dealers on ebay in Germany now being more realistic at say 6-8 Euro for small quantities, often combining postage on multiple wins. Some of the larger dealers such as DM Toys also appear to be reducing costs to the UK at circa 10 Euro on my last order.

What I do find that if you are prepared to hunt there and some excellent bargains on the new stuff sometimes up to 30-40% off list.

[Dancess]

Have bought from box shifters in the UK and it's so bad to here in France but Ebay is a real rip off, £12 delivery for a pack of rail joiners! 

[ntpntpntp]

Have bought from box shifters in the UK and it's so bad to here in France but Ebay is a real rip off, £12 delivery for a pack of rail joiners! 

Yeah but that's easy, just don't buy from that seller.  Nothing to get angry about.    I don't think that's necessarily eBay's fault, probably just means the seller doesn't  know how to set up appropriate postage rates for small items.

Mostly I find post costs from Germany to UK from eBay sellers are perfectly reasonable, just a few sellers that seem to have set up excessive rates so I ignore those.

One thing I do notice is when my German friends send stuff over to me it gets here much more quickly than when I reciprocate.