New to the Hackaday Store today is the Bulbdial Clock by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. I’ve had my eye on this kit for years and finally pulled the trigger after visiting [Lenore] and [Windell] at their shop a few weeks back. Assembling the beautifully-engineered kit was a delight, and I have a handful of hacks I’d like to try out — some of which I mentioned in the product description.
Free shipping based on order price
We always listen to what the Hackaday community has to say. After receiving several requests for better international shipping prices we came up with a way to ease the pain for orders no matter where they are headed. All domestic orders totaling $25 or more now receive free shipping. All international orders totaling $50 or more now receive free shipping.
Is there anything else you’d like to see different about the store? How about a hackable product you think we should stock? We’re listening via the store contact form.
Depending on where your are, that $50 might be over your import limit and might cost you import duty + handling charges and causes delay. You win some, then you lose some.
Honestly I think you might be just scare mongering here. I know the UK has an import duty on things over 135GBP, Australia has it on orders over 1000AUD. I don’t know of anywhere that has duty on things as little value as $50, please enlighten us.
The limit for VAT in the EU is EUR22. VAT is 21% plus EUR12.50. $50 is about EUR40, but you would pay EUR61 for it if they decide to grab and tax your packet.
At least, that’s the case in the Netherlands. I don’t know exactly if the rules are EU-wide or if countries differ.
Wow, it seems every EU state has a different set of rules on when and if you will pay VAT on import. But honestly I don’t think there’s anything we can do about this.
Germany has the 21%, too but I haven’t heard of the EUR12,50 here.
>But honestly I don’t think there’s anything we can do about this.
Companies like Digikey, Newark ships to Canada without having the customer having to worry about import duties and sale tax as they collect that directly and minus the usual delay.
Newark:
“All Canadian shipments are on the basis of D.D.P. (named place of destination duty paid) with the Company charging separately for the costs, insurance, and freight to bring the products to the named place of destination.”
So yes for that $17 international shipping (below $50), HaD *could* have done a lot more than what it is doing right now. May be you should google first before you acuse me next time?
The irony is that the shopify(?) has a local office in town here.
VAT in finland is 24%
Beware the Uk is actually £15.01 before import vat costs (including the price of postage). Customs duty and vat are charged at any item over £135. But every item I have bought from the states has led to 20% import vat of the total cost if over £15 and a handling charge of £10-£20 per item depending on courier. Which means the last electronic item I got for my quad costed around £25 including postage but I was charged £25+20%+£18 handling fee=£48 much more than I want.
Here in Slovakia – above 22EUR you may pay VAT and above 150EUR you may pay custom duty. Though being part of EU, I’m not sure where are limits in other countries in EU.
On the other hand, customs officers don’t really care much about small packages for personal use, they are after huge and expensive ones, where customs duties are high. Most of the small packages slips through customs office without noticing, so one has quite good chances of not paying anything at all.
Oh yes, and I forgot – I think it is good idea to give free shipping above 50USD. Great work HaD.
Canada has a $20 limit.
$20 for stuff you buy/import and $60 for “gifts”. “gifts” in theory needs to have a card that goes with it and shopping for yourself isn’t classified as “gifts”.
These day with free trade, it is mostly sales tax from the states and a hefty handling charges for the postal office (and much more insane rate if you go through courier). So for $50 US. purchase, you have to pay about $67 Canadian dollars through the post office. Given how inefficient they go about things, that can tag on about 2-3 days worth of delay and even more if it happens to hit the weekend as they don’t work on Saturdays/Sundays.
http://www.dutycalculator.com/country-guides/Import-duty-taxes-when-importing-into-Canada/
This is such a fun kit to build. I love that a random idea turned out to be a cool idea in reality. http://www.ironicsans.com/2009/04/i_wrote_it_you_made_it_the_bul.html
Well done hackaday – I like that the shop isn’t just a money-making scheme :)
This could be re-programmed to make a nice sunrise clock.
What a great idea!
I just looked at the assembly manual. I suspect I will no longer use Heathkit as the best example of how to write an assembly manual. This one blows away the Heathkit manuals!
I can’t say enough about this kit and its instructions. My son and I assembled one last year. Beautiful!
I have this assembled kit sitting on my desk. It is next to the transistor clock I hope to finish by November.
Which shipping service are you using?
Registered mail?
USPS both domestic and international.