Author Topic: eBay question, personal imports  (Read 765 times)

Offline MrDavo

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eBay question, personal imports
« on: December 03, 2017, 01:48:26 PM »
I know Ashely has had someone buy stuff in Japan and bring it back, I'm looking into having a friend, who is going to the USA on business do the same for me.

My CL450 has very non standard semi pullback bars at the moment, although they look OK, the wires are on the outside, and I want the bike to look as stock as possible. At the moment the only set of CL450 bars available i the UK are a rough bent set from DK, they could be straightened and rechromed, but I'm guessing it would be more trouble than they are worth, though I don't know for sure what that would cost.

I'm fast finding out with this project that buying larger items from the US, the postage, plus VAT, duty and Parclefarce fee more than double prices of stuff that is plentiful over there - the CL was never sold here but there were thousands sold in the USA. Handlebars are particularly dear to post (they can't be easy to wrap either! ). A half decent set on eBay at present is £26 to buy, plus £47 carriage to the UK, plus 20% VAT on import, plus £8 collection fee!

In the near future my mate Ed is off to New Hampshire on business, does anyone know if it is possible to bid for stuff on eBay here (I dont have a US account on ebay.com) but have it delivered to a US address? If so Ed reckons he could arrange his clients to look after it, and bring it back as baggage on the company account. If I hit 'buy it now' then eBay automatically adds carriage to the UK etc, I'm not sure how to get round it.

1969 Honda CL450 'Scrambler'
1974 Kawasaki Z1A
2005 Harley XL1200R Sportster
1985 Porsche 911 3.2 Carrera Sport
1978 VW Bay Window camper van

Offline hairygit

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Re: eBay question, personal imports
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2017, 01:54:59 PM »
What you need to do is get details of one of his clients with an e bay account, and see if they would be willing to order it for you to their address, and pay him via paypal friends and family, that way he/she wont incur any losses/fees in the paypal transaction when you give them the money.
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Offline AshimotoK0

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Re: eBay question, personal imports
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2017, 05:39:12 PM »
I usually message or even Skype call the seller and explain the situation and get them to ship to the USA address and get an invoice to pay via PayPal but with only the USA shipping added.  Done it loads of times. Particularly easy if its a business seller as you often get a phone number  given.  Never really had a problem but maybe I have been lucky.
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