Reply To: [unofficial weekender] A civilized discussion is a nice thing to have

[blinky465 17028xp 4]

• Has Brexit changed your online shopping behaviour?

It has in that many of the sites I use (including the evil Amazon) have far fewer items available to UK customers. It has certainly changed my “sending random shite to people in boxes” behaviour (since a few times I’ve landed family with a hefty import/handling fee to receive one of my boxes of delights, so have stopped sending quite so many). I’ve been reading reviews of Firefly guitars and went looking for one and ended up on the Thomman.de website, checking out their Harley Benton semi-accoustics. I couldn’t help myself (especially since I just won a couple of mini painting competitions and had a hundred quid in my paypal account!) and have taken a punt on buying my first EU-sourced “stuff” since the new year.

Interestingly, their website does warn that their prices are “plus VAT” and that for UK customers, the VAT is charged by the courier, not by them (which makes their onscreen prices incredibly low, but even with 20% on top, they’re great value guitars!). But there’s also warning of a 2% import duty (UK import duty on stringed instruments is 2%) and a handling charge of around £11.50 (though I’ve heard reports of UPS charging £18). And then some other random “courier charge” of 2.5%

Thomman.de use UPS exclusively – so I phoned UPS, showed them the guitar I’d bought and asked what their final invoice would be. The couldn’t tell me! So I’m just waiting for the guitar to arrive, with invoice attached, before I even know what the total, final cost will be. Fingers crossed…..

 

• Have shipping and taxes ever held you from buying something you really wanted?

Only in that when I’ve decided the shipping and taxes are too high, it turns out that I obviously didn’t really want it that much!

 

• How could small, one-man-operated companies band together to get their stuff to people outside their “tax-zone”?

The only thing I could think of would be licencing designs (to have them made inside the EU). Or – just maybe – running stuff through a company in Northern Ireland which – for the next four years, apparently – are in a unique position of being inside both the UK and EU trading zones. It’s all far too complicated to fully understand though (since there are rules about sending stuff from mainland UK to N.I. now). Maybe the guys at OTT would be better placed to explain/understand that? Or, possibly even, benefit from it?

Music? Here’s a song with a great guitar riff in it:

Pledge? I started painting one of the Raging Heros pirates the other day for no other reason than he had a dog’s head and nice billow-y frock-coat to try my “adding extra contrast after using contrast paints” ideas on. I guess I should finish him?