Buying equipment outside of the U.S.

ACWild · September 2005

I've heard some of you say that it's tough to find guitars and equipment from the U.S. Why is that? If it's just a matter of shipping, it's easy enough for me to ship things all over the world. I do that often when I sell things on E-Bay.

ne1roc · September 2005

It does seem to be difficult to order equiptment from online stores such as Musicians Friend and have it shipped outside the US. The reply I got from Musicians Friend was that they don't have the rights to ship certain brands into Canada. I don't know if thats true or not. I don't think they want to deal with all the Customs paperwork. On the other hand Samash does ship to Canada? I am lucky because my local guitar store will order and match the price for anything I see at MF.

Ebay is another story. You as an individual can ship whatever you want. One thing that you may not know is that if you send something to Canada via ups, the receiver gets duty charges added to the bill based on the amount of the insured sale. If anyone knows how to get around this, please let me know. The only way I know how is to value the shipment at $1.00 or claim it as a sample.

Thomas · September 2005

Not more difficult per se. Just that the stores have to relate to rules for import and export and you have to deal with customs. It can become quite the affair, so if it was my business I would avoid sending shipments out of the country. Another issue is payment coverage. As part of the policy of not shipping abroad the major online stores do only accept US credit cards. I once tried to pay for a guitar with my Norwegian creditcard at americanmusical.com but the had to decline and asked for a US card instead, despite the fact that I was using VISA... Oh well... Yeah it is certainly cheaper buying stuff in the use, but when you pocket out the extra for shipping, customs and all that other fun stuff, your end price won't be that far from what it would be to buy it in your native country (at least that applies for the Scandinavian countries). Then I'd rather pay the extra $$$ and have customer support nearby. If I buy stuff back home, I always go to my regular music store, which I have been using for the last 20 years and they always cut me a good deal anyway

HTH,

Thomas

D.Alexander · September 2005

AC i was selling guitars on EBay for a while. Sometimes 4 or 5 a week. It is actually quite a fun little hobby, with the shipping being the most annoying part of it. I never shipped around the world but i did ship to Canada fro a while but eventually with all the new forms at UPS (cheapest in the U.S. but USPS is cheaper for international) it just become too much of a hassle.
Here's a hint if you are buying and selling, buy in off hours. People post their auctions to end in the middle of the night :roll: and you can pick stuff up pretty cheap at that time of day.

ACWild · September 2005

Hey, that's a good tip! I don't have any problems getting gear, it's just that I read some guys can't seem to get a good deal where they are and pay exorbitant prices.

iced · September 2005

well exorbitant would be a lil less than the price i paid for my gnx4, which i bought just a month ago... i paid 880$ for it excluding the cf....

-for the shipment 1st of all they dt cover all the countries...in fact they only cover so lil countries.... and 2nd, the gear shipped will not be guaranteed to arrive safly: my friend bought a gibson bass for round 3k usd onlin..... and he recieved it broken!

-in my country i ct find ne genuine stuff.... only stuff fabricated outside us... coz it's so sooooooo expensive to get a good gear..... so next summer..... i'm goin to us... buy fender parts with dimarzio h/bkrs and gather it myself.... and belive me still with the ticket and the parts price...it'll still be a less expensive deal for me!

aRcTuRuS · September 2005

USA is NZ's best friend when it comes to scoring musical gear haha. I scored my explorer for $1250nz (with $300us shipping haha) which would have cost me $2500 over here. Then i scored my RP200A for $300nz which included a custom made power supply which i would have paid $600nz over here. Then just recently i scored my GNX3k off ebay for roughly $750nz which they dont and wont have here in NZ for probably another 2 years haha. They still dont have the GNX4 yet i dont think, and their GNX3 is $1250nz, so the GNX4 will be more expensive than that. I will leave you to do the math of our markup... GNX3 over here = $1250nz, Imported GNX3K $750nz.

However online stores are getting harder and harder to get items shipped internationally due to the manufacturer agreements. A year ago i got my RP200A no sweat from music123, though this time it was a NO. Ebay sellers with \"international shipping\" are tops \\m/

ACWild · September 2005

Hey, I'm one of those E-Bayers! No wonder I get so many international bidders for my stuff!

I ship stuff often and visit shops as much, so we should start a list of wanted gear. If I or someone else gets the time, we can get it to our fellow forumites who live outside the U.S.

drew · September 2005

ac you will be to tempted to keep it :P

freter · October 2005

I'm in a completely different boat altogether. I live in Germany, work for the Army, and have an APO (American Post Office) box. The prices that online businesses in the US advertise are significantly cheaper. If these companies are willing to send someone to the Post Office to mail it to me, then my s/h charges are a package to NY. If I were to use UPS, FedEx, etc. it would cost too much. As someone else said, by that time I could have bought it locally for the amount spent. This is also a challenge to convince those Ebayers to go to the PO and not sit at home and call for a p/u. What I did w/ my GNX4 was to finally find someone @ ebay to mail it to me, then went downtown and bought a 220 volt ps. Works like a champ. If any Europeans are interested I could be persuaded to let you order stuff with my APO and then send it to you as a gift. That way we/you would save on the customs and tax. Just a thought. The one draw back is, with USPS it can take a whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile to get it.

Also, this is my first post on the 2.0 forum. Just like to say Hello to everyone.

Tschuss!

freter

Buying equipment outside of the U.S.

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