Chinese Amazon (sort of)

pm.

Hi All

This site was recommended by a friend who is addicted to it Its like the Chinese version of Amazon you can buy anything and im told the quality is quite good aswell

http://activities.aliexpress.com/shopping-festival.php

Kristopherus

And get caught for customs duty & VAT:D.

There's dozens of threads about it on Boards. Do a search.

pm.

Buddy of mine uses it all the time hasn't got caught for duty yet. Is there not a limit you have to hit before duty kicks in ?? Also free shipping on almost everything

vicwatson

pm. wrote: »

Buddy of mine uses it all the time hasn't got caught for duty yet. Is there not a limit you have to hit before duty kicks in ?? Also free shipping on almost everything

€22 AFAIK

deadybai

Any one ever buy a mobile off this? Is it all in chinese or does it work properly when you unlock it?

cameramonkey

deadybai wrote: »

Any one ever buy a mobile off this? Is it all in chinese or does it work properly when you unlock it?

i have bought about 10 different items from it. the most expensive was four light shades value 70 Euro.I didn't have to pay tax on any of them. All the deliveries took over 4 weeks to arrive.

I talked to one guy who also ordered from them but never got his goods.

I would use them again.

moodrater

Aliexpress is just a platform for anyone to sell through like amazon marketplace, play marketplace, ebay, ebid etc. Except you don't have the excellent customer service of amazon or the slow but efficient ebay claims process if things go wrong. You can in theory get refunded but I am told you'll be doing the legwork. Can be good for unpopular things - I have bought manufacturer specific diagnostics and electronic repair equipment, paid vat/handling charge on most of them to an post.
Ebay/paypal is generally similar priced and less risk for popular stuff. Things often don't arrive in the 45 day window for making a claim so be sure to keep track.

http://www.trustpilot.co.uk/review/www.aliexpress.com

gerryk

I have bought a fair few (20+) items from Aliexpress. A few points of advice... look for sellers with feedback, try to go for sellers that use Hong Kong post rather than China Mail, you will find multiple sellers selling the same item, so keep looking for better deals.

Shoutcast Ireland

pm. wrote: »

Hi All

This site was recommended by a friend who is addicted to it Its like the Chinese version of Amazon you can buy anything and im told the quality is quite good aswell

http://activities.aliexpress.com/shopping-festival.php

I used to buy runner from there until the last pair were seized by customs due to them being counterfeit,still tho got my money back from ali express.

Dudda

Just bought a cheap spare SD card. 5 days processing and upto 39 shipping..... Thankfully I'm not in a rush. Should have it for Christmas photos.

DERICKOO

I had a look i checked on 4 items that i have in my wish list namely Bluetooth transmitter aptX and Bluetooth headphones aptX. there was no real difference i think you would have to look real hard to find the quality of service you will find on Amazon without the hassle and worry "where is my stuff"

ozmo

I was looking last month - seems great - but what method do you guys pay for the stuff ? - I didnt see paypal listed as acceptable payment type on any of the things I was looking at.

vibe666

it amazes me how many times these things come up and the first thing anyone STILL always says is "you'll get caught for customs".

are there seriously still people out there who have not heard of parcel motel? www.parcelmotel.com

sign up for free, get any stuff from outside the EU delivered to NI and have parcel motel courier it from there to your local PM box here for €3.50 per package for anything that will fit into the PM lockers (which are pretty big).

Also very handy for amazon deliveries which will almost always deliver to NI addresses a lot cheaper than to IE ones. you can also sign up for Amazon Prime and get free next day delivery (for most stuff) to NI and usually anything delivered to PM in NI before lunchtime will be ready to collect in your IE PM box that night or the next morning.

red bellied

vibe666 wrote: »

it amazes me how many times these things come up and the first thing anyone STILL always says is "you'll get caught for customs".

are there seriously still people out there who have not heard of parcel motel? www.parcelmotel.com

sign up for free, get any stuff from outside the EU delivered to NI and have parcel motel courier it from there to your local PM box here for €3.50 per package for anything that will fit into the PM lockers (which are pretty big).

Also very handy for amazon deliveries which will almost always deliver to NI addresses a lot cheaper than to IE ones. you can also sign up for Amazon Prime and get free next day delivery (for most stuff) to NI and usually anything delivered to PM in NI before lunchtime will be ready to collect in your IE PM box that night or the next morning.

What happens if Parcel Motel has to pay customs on it?

Berty

red bellied wrote: »

What happens if Parcel Motel has to pay customs on it?

They won't. They'll refuse it and you're left up sh*ts creek.

That website is as bad looking as iOffer. At least with iOffer you know the stuff is fake.

Cantona's Collars

ozmo wrote: »

I was looking last month - seems great - but what method do you guys pay for the stuff ? - I didnt see paypal listed as acceptable payment type on any of the things I was looking at.

I have an O2 money card that I use for ordering from Aliexpress etc.I've ordered a good bit of stuff from a variety of sellers on it & only had one problem with a DS games cartridge.

irishproduce

So if parcel motel get asked for customs, they won't pay it and just bill it on to you?
So your parcel is lost??

TheDoc

MY understanding from speaking to Parcel Motel last year is if they receive a customs charge they will not accept the package and return to sender.

So it's NOT a workaround to avoid custom charges. It's prime purpose is to receive packages that normally don't ship to Ireland.

Your taking a chance using them for dodging tax. I chanced my arm with some stuff and the package was returned to sender. Got a refund and all was fine, but when I queried why I wasn't just billed, the support staff explained that the purpose of the service is to be low impact and low frills. If they needed to deal with customs and charges it would be a different type of service and the sort of overhead they simply don't want.

Muahahaha

How do customs know of the item is worth more than €22? Do they just value it themselves by referring to what it might cost in Ireland ? Also if a seller offer free shipping then I presume Customs cannot slap VAT on what it would have cost to ship ?

I want to buy a custom mudguard for my motorbike from the US. The price is €100 but if these were available in Ireland they could easily be €250+. The company offer free shipping too. I don't mind paying VAT on €100 but am worried Customs will say its worth €300 and hit me with a €69 Vat bill and also and on Vat to what the shipping might have cost if it wasn't offered bundled with a purchase, the shipping was paid by the customer after all even if the company say 'free shipping'.

eamonnq

vibe666 wrote: »

it amazes me how many times these things come up and the first thing anyone STILL always says is "you'll get caught for customs".

are there seriously still people out there who have not heard of parcel motel? www.parcelmotel.com

It amazes me how many times people ask what happens if there is customs/vat due on a delivery to Parcel Motel.

Berty

Muahahaha wrote: »

How do customs know of the item is worth more than €22? Do they just value it themselves by referring to what it might cost in Ireland ? Also if a seller offer free shipping then I presume Customs cannot slap VAT on what it would have cost to ship ?

I want to buy a custom mudguard for my motorbike from the US. The price is €100 but if these were available in Ireland they could easily be €250+. The company offer free shipping too. I don't mind paying VAT on €100 but am worried Customs will say its worth €300 and hit me with a €69 Vat bill and also and on Vat to what the shipping might have cost if it wasn't offered bundled with a purchase, the shipping was paid by the customer after all even if the company say 'free shipping'.

Two things.

Customs can open the package if they don't know the value and write to you asking you to prove the total cost including shipping.

However with the likes of most developed postal services around the world you must put a value on it. Some sellers refuse to state its a gift or lower the value because that's a felony so if they say its €100 for a custom piece then €100 is what you pay if shipping was included. You also pay an An Post fee for handling the charge.

vibe666

I've ordered at least 50 items from outside of the EU (mostly from the USA or China) at this stage and had them delivered via parcel motel and not a single one of them has been stopped for customs.

I'd much rather take the tiny (possibly non-existent) risk and save myself some money.

in the highly unlikely event that anything does ever get sent back then i'll get a refund or replacement as the item has not been delivered.

eamonnq

vibe666 wrote: »

I've ordered at least 50 items from outside of the EU (mostly from the USA or China) at this stage and had them delivered via parcel motel and not a single one of them has been stopped for customs.

I'd much rather take the tiny (possibly non-existent) risk and save myself some money.

in the highly unlikely event that anything does ever get sent back then i'll get a refund or replacement as the item has not been delivered.

TheDoc wrote: »

Your taking a chance using them for dodging tax. I chanced my arm with some stuff and the package was returned to sender.

Some people have all the luck apparently, I would not be inclined to take the risk.

Berty

eamonnq wrote: »

Some people have all the luck apparently, I would not be inclined to take the risk.

I'd not be with Chinese orders anyway because it takes a month before they even arrive usually so waiting for them to go back is a pain.

I'm currently waiting on 3 "gifts" from china.

AlanS181824

I ordered off this many times. You might get caught with VAT of the price is high enough but if you've a month to spare for delivery then by all means order away!

January

Ordered two android tablets with cases from Aliexpress for the kids for Santa presents in December just gone. Used express shipping and had them in less than two weeks via DHL. I had to pay customs charge of 25 euro but still worked out cheaper than buying two of them here (160 total including customs).

They girls love them.

zarquon

vibe666 wrote: »

I've ordered at least 50 items from outside of the EU (mostly from the USA or China) at this stage and had them delivered via parcel motel and not a single one of them has been stopped for customs.

I'd much rather take the tiny (possibly non-existent) risk and save myself some money.

in the highly unlikely event that anything does ever get sent back then i'll get a refund or replacement as the item has not been delivered.

Why would you use PM for China shipments? Surely most suppliers will ship to UK and Ireland at the same cost

unkel

vibe666 wrote: »

I've ordered at least 50 items from outside of the EU (mostly from the USA or China) at this stage and had them delivered via parcel motel and not a single one of them has been stopped for customs.

I bet you didn't order a tablet from China then in recent years

AlanS181824

unkel wrote: »

I bet you didn't order a tablet from China then in recent years

^^
When I bought my tablet I think I was caught with €22 or €20 customs.

eamonnq

zarquon wrote: »

Why would you use PM for China shipments? Surely most suppliers will ship to UK and Ireland at the same cost

The poster believes that he is less likely to be caught for customs by using Parcel Motel, however the problem arises if any fees are due on the delivery, Parcel Motel will not pay the fees and will refuse the parcel.

zarquon

eamonnq wrote: »

The poster believes that he is less likely to be caught for customs by using Parcel Motel, however the problem arises if any fees are due on the delivery, Parcel Motel will not pay the fees and will refuse the parcel.

Clearly he is also buying lower cost items also which imo negates the need for PM. I buy something from China and Hong regularly and often these items are in excess of the customs cut off values but i have never been caught for duty except for high value items (several hundred euro) which require me to furnish revenue with things like paypal receipts as proof of cost.

I personally think using PM is unnecessary as a tax avoidance scheme as you are liable to have the same level of sucess for direct shipping.

If you are trying to gain a lower UK VAT rate on your orders then PM will work but that is assuming that local EU VAT is applied on an order which is certainly not the case for U.S or Chinese orders.

ozmo

zerks wrote: »

I have an O2 money card that I use for ordering from Aliexpress etc.I've ordered a good bit of stuff from a variety of sellers on it & only had one problem with a DS games cartridge.

Ok - looked into that - 10 for the O2 card and you pay charge each time you topup - and has to be 20 at a time. That would more than triple the cost of the small electronic component I wish to purchase

vibe666

zarquon wrote: »

Why would you use PM for China shipments? Surely most suppliers will ship to UK and Ireland at the same cost

give or take, yes, minus the customs cost, which has been my entire point.

unkel wrote: »

I bet you didn't order a tablet from China then in recent years

actually, yes I did for my niece xmas before last. i think it was from buyincoins rather than aliexpress and only about €70 at the time, so nothing overly fancy, but i didn't have any customs issues with it.

i also had a kindle fire and kindle touch delivered from the US with no issues the week the Kindle Fire was released in the US, but that was usiing viaddress in the US.

and I had £109.68 of replacement parts for a broken smartphone from a HK based ebay seller just before xmas, so it's not just the cheapo bits either.

eamonnq wrote: »

The poster believes that he is less likely to be caught for customs by using Parcel Motel, however the problem arises if any fees are due on the delivery, Parcel Motel will not pay the fees and will refuse the parcel.

i've been doing the majority of my shopping online for several years and when didn't start having customs issues until after the recession hit when revenue got a lot keener on catching people and i was getting caught a good portion of the time when getting stuff from outside of the EU.

since i started using parcel motel i've never had any issues with customs for anything from outside the EU when getting it delivered to the north and i've used it a lot as i've already said. if it wasn't having a lot more success with PM in NI than I was having with getting things delivered directly, I wouldn't be using it, it's as simple as that.

having said that, my biggest savings have definitely been with using amazon prime and using the free next day delivery which usually includes NI addresses. i've spent over €3k with amazon in the last year and the relatively small cost of the amazon prime subscription plus parcel motel has saved me a small fortune on delivery charges and gotten things to me much faster the majority of the time.

Jaybor

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/USB-flash-drive-512GB-to-64gb-metal-usb-flash-drive-silver-memory-disk-stick-gift-usb/1702560005.html


Really???

vibe666

Jaybor wrote: »

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/USB-flash-drive-512GB-to-64gb-metal-usb-flash-drive-silver-memory-disk-stick-gift-usb/1702560005.html

Really???

there is that old saying that if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is.

i wouldn't buy flash memory off anyone i didn't trust, particularly when they're making ridiculous claims. it's far too easy to reprogram a usb stick or sd card to report a bigger capacity than it actually is.

ED E

Something along the lines of this (but with a key)

vibe666

Yep pretty much. I've seen several fakes, so I just don't take any chances in that kind of thing any more. 7dayshop is usually good, or Amazon, but you can't always be sure of the marketplace sellers. Again, parcel motel is invaluable.

One of the last times I got caught for customs was through 7dayshop as they are in the channel islands. I'd bought a twin pack of sd cards and although they normally ship everything individually, someone there decided that they'd tape my two sd card packages together and the two packages became one and the combined value put me over the limit for paying duty and I had to go halfway across Dublin to pay the €9 I owed even though I was living 5 minutes from my local depot as they apparently can't take duty payments. Lesson learnt anyway and I've not looked back.

gerryk

vibe666 wrote: »

there is that old saying that if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is.

i wouldn't buy flash memory off anyone i didn't trust, particularly when they're making ridiculous claims. it's far too easy to reprogram a usb stick or sd card to report a bigger capacity than it actually is.

Yup. Two things I will only buy from reputable suppliers are batteries and flash memory. Far too easy to fake.

Muahahaha

zarquon wrote: »

If you are trying to gain a lower UK VAT rate on your orders then PM will work but that is assuming that local EU VAT is applied on an order which is certainly not the case for U.S or Chinese orders.

Was just wondering about this. If a parcel is shipped from the US to Parcel Motel in Belfast and the British customs don't stop it for their 19% VAT can (technically) Irish customs still slap their 23% on it if the parcel is then re-routed to the Republic ? Or is it the case that duties can only be applied at the first port of entry into the EU ?

Tayla

vibe666 wrote: »

I've ordered at least 50 items from outside of the EU (mostly from the USA or China) at this stage and had them delivered via parcel motel and not a single one of them has been stopped for customs.

I'd much rather take the tiny (possibly non-existent) risk and save myself some money.

In my experience the risk of being stopped for customs is still tiny if you are getting stuff shipped via USPS, I order from the USA all the time and have only once got charged customs duty once on a purchase and that was around 5 years ago. I always email retailers in advance to make sure they are using USPS.

vibe666 wrote: »

having said that, my biggest savings have definitely been with using amazon prime and using the free next day delivery which usually includes NI addresses. i've spent over €3k with amazon in the last year and the relatively small cost of the amazon prime subscription plus parcel motel has saved me a small fortune on delivery charges and gotten things to me much faster the majority of the time.

How has it saved you money on delivery charges? Pretty much everything on Amazon that is sold directly by Amazon themselves qualifies for free delivery, yes it might take longer to get here but it's still free.

zarquon

Tayla wrote: »

In my experience the risk of being stopped for customs is still tiny if you are getting stuff shipped via USPS, I order from the USA all the time and have only once got charged customs duty once on a purchase and that was around 5 years ago. I always email retailers in advance to make sure they are using USPS.





How has it saved you money on delivery charges? Pretty much everything on Amazon that is sold directly by Amazon themselves qualifies for free delivery, yes it might take longer to get here but it's still free.

Parcel motel won't really save you anything on delivery charges from Amazon. What it will save you is vat. Ireland orders include irish 23% Vat whereas the UK is 19%. This will save you 4% on any order but means the VAT goes to UK revenue instead of Irish covers. If your order is a few hundred euro you will save more money than the €3.50 cost for using parcel motel.

If Vibe spents 3K on amazon orders to PM, then he only paid 19% UK Tax. If he purchased directly he would have paid €3100 therefore he saved €100 on vat but this is offset by how much he spent on Parcel Motel. So if the placed say 10 orders then his actual saving is about €65.

It's a lot of effort for small orders, but if you place a very large amazon order then it's worth it.

It should be noted that the savings are small percentages though so it's certainly hyperbole to state it's a small fortune.

zarquon

Muahahaha wrote: »

Was just wondering about this. If a parcel is shipped from the US to Parcel Motel in Belfast and the British customs don't stop it for their 19% VAT can (technically) Irish customs still slap their 23% on it if the parcel is then re-routed to the Republic ? Or is it the case that duties can only be applied at the first port of entry into the EU ?

If british customs don't catch it then no additional Irish VAT will be applied on the parcel motel package.

PM will not look for VAT receipts or report to revenue as they simply forward a package with no duty attached.

In vibes experience he is basically saying that british customs is easier to flout than Irish customs. Certainly revenue have been making more effort the last few years here - generally though if the shipper will not mark the value or apply insurance on snail mail like china post, USPS, etc then you will not get caught by Irish customs unless you are ordering large containers of items.

I order constantly from China and Hong direct to my home and never get caught and that's often with large, high value items.

Tayla

zarquon wrote: »

Parcel motel won't really save you anything on delivery charges from Amazon. What it will save you is vat. Ireland orders include irish 23% Vat whereas the UK is 19%. This will save you 4% on any order but means the VAT goes to UK revenue instead of Irish covers. If your order is a few hundred euro you will save more money than the €3.50 cost for using parcel motel.

If Vibe spents 3K on amazon orders to PM, then he only paid 19% UK Tax. If he purchased directly he would have paid €3100 therefore he saved €100 on vat but this is offset by how much he spent on Parcel Motel. So if the placed say 10 orders then his actual saving is about €65.

It's a lot of effort for small orders, but if you place a very large amazon order then it's worth it.

It should be noted that the savings are small percentages though so it's certainly hyperbole to state it's a small fortune.

I don't think Vibe was taking the VAT difference into account though, he just seemed to be saying he was saving on delivery charges because it was free with Amazon prime.

For some reason loads of people don't seem to realise that Amazon delivery is usually free, on another forum I use people were using parcel motel for small orders all the time thinking they were saving on the cost of shipping when they could have got their order shipped for free...plus as you say the revenue goes to the UK then and not here.

That's one good thing about companies like Amazon, people complain about online shopping killing small towns but online shopping is here to stay so at least with large companies the VAT still goes to your own country.