BUYING INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTS ONLINE

Let me preface this post by saying that this is not directed at any one individual (nor at a group of them) and is not in defense to my own company’s practices. This is rather an attempt at educating those that are not fully aware of what to expect when purchasing international products online. This attempt is not only to help the consumer know what they are committing to before they do so as well as the attempt to spare many companies that deal with unruly consumers that expect the world but don’t understand that some rules cannot be bent and that many things are out of the supplying company’s hands. Let me reiterate that this is not pointed at anyone (not any of my customers at least) but rather sparked from the amount of things that I have read online directed towards other companies. As someone who owns a retail company selling products online and sees how things work from the other side of the table, I thought that I would share my point of view….. 

I hate unnecessary taxation as much as the next person does. I hate unexpected invoices with ‘money due’ as well. We all do. It’s only natural to not want to have surprise costs, to know exactly what you are paying while you are paying for it. That is the beauty of shopping in-store. There are no hidden costs. There is just what your receipt tells you. But this is not the case when purchasing online, especially when doing so internationally. The rules change as you are crossing international borders/laws/regulations etc. and this is where things start to get tricky as there is no black and white, but mainly a lot of grey. And we have international customs agents to thank for this as they are the ones creating that grey.

Shined up shoes at Zimmermann & Kim

Considering that most of what I read in response to getting hit with custom’s fees comes from the US/Canada, I will write this post in reference to being a consumer there purchasing products sold from the EU. So, when you are on a site like my own, you should realize that most of us will list the European price. What that means is that within the EU, there is a 20% taxation on all products sold, known as VAT (Value Added Tax aka Sales Tax). This VAT will more likely than not, be built into the price shown and is the price that Europeans pay. A nice company, as not to confuse their international purchasers, will show a “NON EU PRICE” which will be the price that all of those purchasing and thus shipping outside of the EU, will have to pay. It will always be lower than the regular retail price (and should be by 20%).

So when you purchase that product at less than the EU Taxation price, this means that when the product enters your country, it will then become liable for taxation (as you cannot escape it) and thus subject to the rates of your country. This is where the you either get lucky and sneak by squeaky clean or get hit with a load of duties to pay. BUT THIS STEP IS COMPLETELY UP TO THE CUSTOM’S AGENT AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE COMPANY SELLING YOU THE PRODUCTS. We don’t want you to get taxed loads of money and then be unhappy about it. That doesn’t help us, does it? So please realize that if and when you get hit with custom duties to pay it has nothing to do with the company sending the products to you but rather your countries custom’s officials.