I'm thinking of a titanium driver head from SMT, which seem to get good reviews, for £50 which when you factor in shipping costs the sum will raise to around £90. Factor in a shaft, rifle steel £25 and hey presto, a new titanium driver for £120 notes.

Now then and here's the question, anyone know what Customs & Excise costs I'd be liable for if any?

I was looking into this myself a few weeks ago and actually phoned C&E to find out. The person I spoke to told me that if you get the item shipped to you, and its value is over £18, you have to pay 2.5% duty + 17.5% VAT. If you go to the US and bring something back with you, you are allowed up to the value of £145 before you are liable for (the same rates of) duty.

Hope this helps!

Paul

You will pay the following

1 Vat at full rate. 17.5% This is calculated by adding the cost of shipping to the declared value of the item. So its higher than people expect.

2 Non eu goods import tariff. This is the 2.5 % identified by the other poster. It’s a tad higher on assembled clubs.

3 How are you paying?.... you will pay a foreign exchange transaction charge on a credit card. Visa is about 2.7%. Debit cards are slightly lower.

4 Custom clearance fee. I think you only pay this if your box is pulled.. a certain # are pulled for random inspection… ive been told about 1 in 5…im not sure whether it’s a % or flat fee… could be about 5%... check it out

The rule of thumb is to ad about 24% .

The real problem here is fed ex! I bought a head direct from SMT about a year ago and they shipped Int. priority which is hellishly expensive… you will be billed by Fed Ex UK on top of whatever SMT are charging you!

My advice would be to buy from a SMT dealer who will ship International
And who uses UPS Standard takes about 10 days but you will slash your shipping bill

Thanks Paul and Scott - I'll now start the maths although I'm still sure it'll be less expensive than buying a branded driver like Mizuno, TM etc. I do realise though that the risk of not liking the club is extremely high.

hi i just bought a 430 cobra clone head and a nike oz putter clone from diamond tour golf in the us.The heads were about £50 with £30 delivery by ups and duty was £25.Then i had the shafts fitted at my local golf shop
hope this will help
shaun


ps The driver is beta titanium and goes for miles (well almost)

I got that at 105 bucks, plus what £80 for a good shaft?

£185 - Is it worth it for a clone? You can get the real thing for a few dollars more.

The £105 was for the driver and the putter head and a steel shaft and grip in the putter was £20. The driver was a aldila reg shaft and grip was £30, or a ust pro force shaft was £40
cheers shaun

This is also interesting to me as i am thinking of importing clubs from US.

Say you buy something from someone on e-bay and it costs £100 all in. How do the customs people know how much you have paid for the item so that they can work out their duty?

Also how does the system work? Would teh goods be held at custom in UK until i have paid duty, or do they get shipped to me as usual then i get sent a bill from customs?

24% extra, is that a pretty good estimate?

Andrew

Here's the email address of the local to me C&E department; ask them and they'll give you a definative answer. Really quick they were in replying.

enquiriesnw@hmce.gsi.gov.uk

Thanks Paul