brand prices

Jan 05, 2010 12:04 CET
The value of goods that travellers can personally bring
into the UK from a non-EU country, or receive through the
post without needing to pay customs duty, has increased.
Travellers arriving in the UK by commercial sea or air
transport from a non-EU country can now bring in up to
£390 worth of goods for personal use (excluding tobacco
and alcohol, which have separate allowances, and fuel)
without paying customs duty or VAT. Those arriving by
other means, including by private plane or boat for
pleasure purposes, can bring in goods up to the value of
£270.
Individuals who buy goods over the internet or by mail
order from outside the EU will now only be charged
customs duty if the value of the package is above £135,
and the actual amount of duty due is over £9.
Although the duty limits have changed, import VAT is
still due on packages valued at over £18. However, if a
package is received as a ‘gift’, VAT will only now be
charged if its value exceeds £40.

One of our club members ordered some stuff from Harken in
the USA as it worked out a fair bit cheaper, a week after
it all arrived he got stung with a bill for the VAT making
it about the UK price!!!

For those of you who don't know, I'm over in Hong Kong for a few months on a work placement. Today I went into a chandlery and the ronstan hardware they had was significantly more expensive than in the UK (900HKD - roughly £75 for a 55mm orbit autoratchet). The harken stuff on the other hand was say 20% cheaper than the UK (710HKD - £59 ish for a 55mm carbo autoratchet)

I thought ronstan was aussie, in which case surely it should be cheaper here? Harken being USA would have been relatively similar I would have thought. Or is it going to be more a case of the HKD - USD exchange rates?

Anyway, all this rambling, is it really worth bringing stuff back or would I ultimately be better ordering it from the US?