Basing a business in Jersey

[Steve]

Why is this done?

I order optical media from a well known <rainforest/river> online shop*, and all the stuff comes from a sub seller in Jersey with a customs sticker on it. Doesn't this end up costing more? Why do they base in Jersey then?

*ok i order blu ray discs from Amazon

 

[Spark123]

Jersey doesn't have VAT like we do. As long as the item is less than iirc £18 it doesn't become liable for duty when it enters the UK.

 

[toasty]

yeah but read the Ts&cs closely, they say that the 'consignment' must be worth less than £18 or you might be personally liable for the import duty.

I don't know if you'd have to pay it, but it put me off and I bought from a uk based seller instead as my order was circa £50

 

[Steve]

Ahhhh . . . this would explain why my two discs were sent in seperate parcels - totally wasteful, but brought them down to £11.99 and £17.48.

 

[toasty]

I see!

I just assumed it would all come together.

Thanks for the info

 

[Steve]

not sure toasty, my order was shipped from a company called indigostarfish.com, other companies mght do it differently.

 

[toasty]

That's the one. They seem to be amazon's preferred supplier for loads of stuff - I was after some Nintendo DS games.

 

[D_Hailsham]

Ahhhh . . . this would explain why my two discs were sent in seperate parcels - totally wasteful, but brought them down to £11.99 and £17.48.

Reminds me of the time, not long after I left school - many years ago - when I worked for a company which imported electronic test gear, which it sold to many customers, including government departments. If the government departments wanted to purchase something costing over £2,500 (it was years ago ) they had to get special dispensation from HM Treasury.

So we would receive an order for (to use a modern example):

1 computer case - £50
1 power supply - £50
1 motherboard - £200
1 Processor - £250
4 Memory sticks - £200
1 hard disk - £500
etc etc

Enclosed with the order would be a hand written note saying: "Please supply a Tektronix/Hewlett Packard XXX"! We knew exactly which oscilloscope, etc was required; but HM Treasury had no idea - it was just a batch of items each one costing under £2500, so no dispensation required.

 

[conny]

Used to know of a local company who claimed 'free delivery' on orders over £200.

If your individual items came to more than £200 they 'broke' it up and charged you a delivery fee for EACH item even though they were delivered at the same time by the same van!