Just thought I'd pass along my data point of buying from this European designer e-trailer, since I see questions occasionally about ordering designer brands from from Europe.
I am not employed or affiliated with these guys in any way - just trying to provide some information to the forum.
The Bad:
The Good:
Here's the jacket I bought, made by Valentino:
Price was pretty steep for my blood - 1026 euros on sale, or about US$1300, plus 6% duty.
For a whole week my wife was giving me the gears about ordering such an expensive jacket and not being able to return it. She was convinced I would find some reason not to like it and end up losing a lot of money. When it arrived, I pulled it out of the box and put it on. She takes a look and says "Hmm, pretty nice. Looks like you got lucky." I think the quality and fit are great, so overall it was worth it.
How to calculate duty
Before ordering I asked what the duty cost would be and Giglio couldn't tell me.
I did a bunch of searching and basically everything leads back to this thing called the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. It's a gigantic list with basically every type of product known to man. It's pretty difficult to navigate, but eventually you might be able to find the type of clothing article you're buying (I recommend the search function).
Turns out leather jackets weigh in at 6%, but cotton jackets are a whopping 27%, which is what UPS originally charged me.
The problem is that the tariff schedule is pretty tough to read, and a customs broker might have a different interpretation of what category your item should be in, even if the contents are described accurately. I would probably be more willing to order stuff DDU if I could figure out definitively in advance what the duty would be.
Ok.. long post.. that's the end of my buying-expensive-shit-from-Europe experience. Hope there's some useful info there.
tellure
I am not employed or affiliated with these guys in any way - just trying to provide some information to the forum.
The Bad:
- Their sale items seem to top out at a meager 30%
- They don't offer any returns on sale items (ouch!)
- You need to pay duty on the product when it arrives in the US. They ship 'DDU' (Delivery Duty Unpaid) unlike some other European e-tailers which ship DDP (paid) and build the duty into their price.
- They didn't label the contents of my order correctly, so it got charged too much duty (which I was able to get corrected by talking to UPS)
The Good:
- Even 30% off can be hard to find sometimes on these brands, or at least for a fashion noob like me
- Free 3-day shipping to the US for orders over 500 euros (I should hope so at that price)
- They have very responsive customer service - before ordering I asked for measurements on the jacket I was buying. They responded within 1 day and sent measurements on each size they had in stock.
- When I let them know about their mistake in labelling the order and the extra time/hassle it took to get the duty corrected, they apologized and refunded 100 euros (~$130) on my credit card (!). I was very surprised - never had that happen before. Doubt that'll happen in other situations but it was pretty impressive.
Here's the jacket I bought, made by Valentino:
Price was pretty steep for my blood - 1026 euros on sale, or about US$1300, plus 6% duty.
For a whole week my wife was giving me the gears about ordering such an expensive jacket and not being able to return it. She was convinced I would find some reason not to like it and end up losing a lot of money. When it arrived, I pulled it out of the box and put it on. She takes a look and says "Hmm, pretty nice. Looks like you got lucky." I think the quality and fit are great, so overall it was worth it.
How to calculate duty
Before ordering I asked what the duty cost would be and Giglio couldn't tell me.
I did a bunch of searching and basically everything leads back to this thing called the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. It's a gigantic list with basically every type of product known to man. It's pretty difficult to navigate, but eventually you might be able to find the type of clothing article you're buying (I recommend the search function).
Turns out leather jackets weigh in at 6%, but cotton jackets are a whopping 27%, which is what UPS originally charged me.
The problem is that the tariff schedule is pretty tough to read, and a customs broker might have a different interpretation of what category your item should be in, even if the contents are described accurately. I would probably be more willing to order stuff DDU if I could figure out definitively in advance what the duty would be.
Ok.. long post.. that's the end of my buying-expensive-shit-from-Europe experience. Hope there's some useful info there.
tellure
