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Wondered what most people experience when buying from abroad (within the EU) in terms of prices? I have done this in the past but wonder if currently, the prices quoted, are the prices you pay - are there any additional hidden extras?
Cheers
All of the ones I have used have had the local version of VAT included so there is no duty/tax when it arrives in the uk.
Cheers, has been the same for me in the past but wondered if anything had changed..
Have to pay for postage so check what this is as I remember this being quite high for one store. Prices are currently very good for things like schwable tyres.
No hidden extras in Europe at all.
For now..... 😆
The price you see before clicking "confirm" or whatever is the price you pay. VAT from most of the larger retailers is likely to be the UK rate anyway (after a certain limit they have to charge the buyer's home country's VAT rate within the EU).
but there are a three shops in germany I would be careful with
according to the reputation in the german forums
(not because of the prices so..)
unity-bikes, bikeparts-online and truebikes.de
bike-discount.de is great. Good prices - esp on tyres, and speedy delivery.
probikeshop have been dead cheap recently
I ordered a couple of tyres from one of the German stores and had a small currency conversion charge or something charged by Santander to my bank account. Not sure how common that is?
Bought a bike and several parts from Canyon, StarBike, DiscountBike? ... Price always includes VAT when destination country has been set to UK. Shipping is always very reasonable.
my first experience of buying some bike parts (road wheels) from an-online retailer in Europe (A-Cycles, France) has been less than stellar
specifically paid for next day delivery to UK by UPS, wheels were ordered 8.30am
Shipment did not turn up by end of business the next day, and I then found out with some detective work (the tracking number did not work with the UPS link they sent in the order email) they had not used UPS, but used GLS (??) and Royal Mail Parcelforce.
May receive the wheels on Monday, 4 days after they were due.
They are not responding to my efforts to reach them, may have to ask my credit card company to do a chargeback on the UPS shipping I paid for and did not receive!
I've ordered loads of stuff from Bike-discount.de and there ace 🙂
I've just ordered for the first (and on current form last time) a set of tyres from ACycles, talk about pi$$ poor service.
Ordered in the morning (circa 7:15am)on the 14.7.14 and didn't receive anything apart from a account activation email.
I had to call up the UK number to ask for the "invoice / receipt" to be sent to me (wasn't in my spam before you say it) Guy on the phone told me that my parcel would be with me in 2 days.... Great I thought, so I checked online on the order tracking page.... Order STILL shows only 50% processed and no sign of it being shipped or a tracking number !!
I would certainly NOT recommend acycles 😥
only real issue with buying from the mainland is warranty returns. I sent my pikes off 2 1/2 weeks ago and still waiting 🙁
the only 'hidden' cost would be currency conversion fee, either by PayPal or your Credit Card Company. The PayPal will calculate straight away and shows you how much it is, but if you choose credit Card company to do conversion (usually better rates), it wont show until your statement.
I bought a reverb from bike-discount.de and had it replaced under warranty - took a week or two but to be expected really, very smooth indeed