UPS Brokerage fees

[Blueboy327]

Hi folks,

I just ordered a set of pigment inks from Cobra which they despatched a few days ago. The shipping was heavy I know at $72.10 to Northern Ireland but they came highly recommended so I went ahead with the order.

Got home to a note from UPS saying they had tried to deliver and would retry, but there was a Cash On Delivery payment due of £42.49!

I queried this with Cobra as I assumed it was a mistake only to be informed that it was a "brokerage fee" charged by UPS and nothing to do with them.

Did some digging and found this article, which claims that a large portion of this fee claimed to be for tax/customs reasons is actually returned to UPS. OK it's based on a US to Canada purchase but it apparently applies to the UK too.

http://www.morroccomethod.com/blog/ups- ... the-truth/

Has anyone had this experience before? £110 for the inks plus £55 carriage was painful enough but then an additional £42.49 in fees is a sickener. Nearly £100 for carriage!

Looks like I'm gonna have to cough up or I won't get my inks at all. A painful experience I won't be repeating, a word of warning to anyone considering doing the same, investigate first. I don't know if it's just UPS or all shipments out of the US or what?

[GoonerGary]

Your £42 is going to include VAT, a handling fee and customs duty. UPS paid HMRC all of those for you. They cleared it though customs and Border Force hence their handling fee.

[Blueboy327]

Fair enough I suppose, I just hadn't factored it in as I wasn't aware of it. Now you mention the VAT that would make more sense. Ah well, something else to consider when it comes to replenishing stock.

Cheers Gary.

[DyeSubSupplies]

Hi Gary, did you not think about the sublisplash, it's more or less on your door step compared to America and would of saved you a fair bit of money?
Steve

[Blueboy327]

Hi, if you mean me I bought the pigment inks for use with non-sublimation products, cotton tees etc. I did check your website at the time but I didn't see any pigment inks and I specifically wanted Cobra inks after a long while researching as long as the cost wasn't horrendous. It's actually turned out too expensive so I'll probably be looking closer to home next time. But thanks

Paul.

[MugPrint]

I had this experience also with paper i ordered from some company in china a few months back, UPS for the delivery i think it was trying to charge me extra. To be honest i never paid it and the items where delivered the next day and have not heard anything since.

[Justin]

Can I ask why you'd go through all of this to get Cobra inks? I looked at Cobra myself as I needed a 9 colour inkset but iof you just use 4 or 6 colours is there any benefit?

What printer are you using?

[Blueboy327]

Justin as a newbie I spent ages looking through here and a tee shirt printing forum for the best inks to use for printing onto 100% cotton tees. I had already followed the advice of a guy and bought dye ink but subsequently found out pigment ink was much more durable although it needs more care maintenance wise. I picked Cobra as it seemed the best available.

Ross at inkjetcarts.us could supply his too and he quoted me a much smaller carriage charge (inks about the same cost as Cobra) but I had already ordered from Cobra and I guess I'd still cop for the brokerage fee as they are in the US too.

I also checked out Coralgraph pigment inks but they seemed to stop stocking it at the time I was looking around.

I have an Epson 1500W.

[webtrekker]

Would this not suit your purposes? -

https://www.inkexpress.co.uk/catalogue/ ... fTA_RnTXqA

[Blueboy327]

Thanks for the link webtrekker, I'll keep that for next time. I couldn't see a direct match but I'm sure they could do something they're very close. And they're UK :biggrin: