Which US sites is it worth ordering from to save money (e.g Benefit, Aveda)?

[chonky]

Following on from the Benefit thread, I've realised that even with shipping the current FX rate makes it absolute sense to order Benefit stuff from the US.

Anyone order from any other US sites?

Watch you don't get stung by customs duty. I thought I was getting a bargain with cds from the US but this was mostly wiped out by customs. Twas a few years ago but I dpn't imagine it's changed.

Not sure what the limit is though before duty has to be paid.

oh - great idea though - hmm, benefit....

I think Strawberry.Net is a good one.

aaah - good point about the customs...grr, I knew it had to be too good a plan!

here's some info . Import VAT on goodc valued at £18+

Customs duty is payable on packages above £18 (I think), but it won't always be charged. I order a fair amount from the US and I find that I get charged duty on about 1 in 6 of my packages. Depending on how much the delivery charge is it might be worth while splitting the order up into 2 or 3 to make it less noticable to the customs people.

here

Actually, according to the table on that site cosmetics are duty free!

2.7% due on baseball caps though

You could still be liable to pay VAT (at 17.5% AFAIK) even if there is no excise duty to pay.

oldnavy.com for baby and children's clothes (adult clothes too)

If you use any European brands (Dr Hauschka/Weleda for instance) then it's well worth ordering them from an EU country as it's generally quite a bit cheaper and there is no duty or VAT to pay. I save a fortune by ordering my Dr Hauschka stuff from Germany.

Bran - where do you get your Dr. Hauschka from? Can you link a site please?

I think it only works if you know someone in the US already who can bring it or send it across for you as used goods - no duty on that.

Sites, please, bran!

This is where I get Dr Hauschka from Bella-donna . Most things were the same in euros as they are £s from the Dr Hauschka UK website, eg Rose day cream is £16 in the UK and 15.30 euro (£10.42) from the German site. You would probably need to order at least 3 or 4 items to be worth your while as there is a delivery charge. They also sent quite a few little trial packs of other products (Dr Hauschka or Weleda) which was quite nice as they are £3 each from the UK website. The products are all labelled in German, but you can always look up the Dr Hauschka UK website if you need usage instructions.

As an aside, on the Strawberrynet website they have Rose day cream for $37.50 (£19) so it makes sense to only use US websites for US products as European products are more expensive there.

There is also this website which Rojak recommended. It has cheaper shipping (7euro compared to 13 euro for Bella-Donna) and the products are about the same price. I found it a bit of a pain to navigate though.

Link to Rojak's recommendation thread here .

frickin clinique site makes me go to .co.uk rather than .com.

grrrrr

If anyone finds a US site that will ship Burt's Bees products to the UK then I would be interested to hear about it. The price difference is so huge that even if I payed import duty and VAT I would still be quids in (eg Pomegranate shampoo £11 here, $8 in the US ).