i love eBay...

[Gary]

One thing i have come to realize is that if you do your research right the quality of products from China or Taiwan can be very good.
And you are right, for a UK company to compete with the Ebay chinese sellers is to buy in bulk.
You have to get it in by sea so you have to wait about 10 weeks, and then you get stung with the VAT when you bring it in, so unless you are VAT registered expect to pay £1500 VAT on a £10000 order.
You also pay the duty that can be about another 5%.
The cost to get it from china is not a lot, but you get stung with a lot of customs and port charges, and then a masive charge to get it from the UK port to your address.
This cost from the port is about 4 times the cost from the Chinese port to the UK port. (Go figure)
My last order cost me over £2000 just to clear it from customs.
I get asked all the time to add other products to our range, but we cant afford to spread ourselves too thin, because in this induestry word of mouth is the best advertisement, so we try to stock 90% of what we have in our range, with the other 10% either on the sea or in stock at another company.

Gary,

At the time I purchased these, the only UK vendor I could find wanted more than £400 for the same parts, so I thought I'd made quite a considerable saving even if I did get stung for VAT etc. I now realise that I could have bought these parts from you for around £183 inc VAT, which is almost certainly what I would have done had I known that you sold them, for just the reasons you've given.

At the moment, having bought quite a few items from China, I'm now prepared for a loss on one before too long, just based on the law of averages with things going wrong. Even so, I have to say that I'll most probably still come out on top, given the good fortune I've had so far.

I can understand, and sympathise, with UK vendors trying to compete with the Chinese. I doubt many consumers understand the risks, or even notice the often very high postage charges on ebay for goods from China. As far as I can see, the only way to compete with the Chinese ebay vendors is most probably to buy goods in bulk direct from the Chinese manufacturers, ship them by sea to save costs and hope that the quality is such that the return rate doesn't cause you to make a loss. All told a fairly risky enterprise, I would have thought.

Jeremy

PS: Now I know that you stock stuff I'll be buying some parts for the Z axis direct from you, as soon as I've finally decided what I need.

[Smiler]

Just to be clear here, I would never attempt to buy anything like a 1m long ball screw from China. I am not stupid and realise shipping chrges alone will be double the value of the item. I would certainly not risk the sort of money I've spent with Zapp on eBay purchases abroad. What gets my goat is when buying from UK companies, you almost think they are doing you a favour by selling you their goods. If Gary stocked a pendant even at 20% more than I bought mine from I would have bought it from him but sad fact is he don't sell 'em and they are as rare and costly as hens teeth when you can find someone who will stoop to sell you one. Even if I had been hit by the VAT, it would still have been MILES cheaper than I could have bought one here. As Gary says, it is a calculated risk but so is any purchase, UK or worlwide.

Not having a go at Gary at all, service has always been A1 and Zapp can't have too wide a range of stock in these times so he is forgiven for not stocking the exact items I want to buy ;).

Regards, Jeff.

[Gary]

I have spoken to Hedds about their encoders and noticed the Pendant in the catalogue.
But never got any further than that.
The only things i am going to be adding to my range in the next few months is rack and pinion, motor mounds and also looking at making Seig X# CNC conversion kits, but this will be once i convert my own, so god knows when that will be.

Just to be clear here, I would never attempt to buy anything like a 1m long ball screw from China. I am not stupid and realise shipping chrges alone will be double the value of the item. I would certainly not risk the sort of money I've spent with Zapp on eBay purchases abroad. What gets my goat is when buying from UK companies, you almost think they are doing you a favour by selling you their goods. If Gary stocked a pendant even at 20% more than I bought mine from I would have bought it from him but sad fact is he don't sell 'em and they are as rare and costly as hens teeth when you can find someone who will stoop to sell you one. Even if I had been hit by the VAT, it would still have been MILES cheaper than I could have bought one here. As Gary says, it is a calculated risk but so is any purchase, UK or worlwide.

Not having a go at Gary at all, service has always been A1 and Zapp can't have too wide a range of stock in these times so he is forgiven for not stocking the exact items I want to buy ;).

Regards, Jeff.

[Smiler]

Pity about the pendant really, I always seem to be ahead of the curve where Zapp is concerned ;)

I sympathise totally on the transport costs issue. On Friday I ordered 2 lengths of 20mm x 6mm 304 stainless flat to make a simple carpet edging strip for a spiral staircase. Material came to 25 quid plus the dreaded. They didn't have it in Glasgow so it needs to be shipped to them, £30 please. Oh and there is another £30 to drop it in to Arran Haulage (company who delivers to the island) and then AH sticks on another £70 to deliver it to the island. 2 lengths of flatbar, £130 delivery and we haven't even picked up a hammer yet!

Gets even better if you need something galvanising. Delivery cost to Glasgow, delivery to the Haulier, delivery to the island, delivery back to glasgow for galvanising (and now as it is a finished job it is bigger so price spirals), delivery back to the island. The last job we sent over cost over a grand in just delivery charges (Small spiral staircase). It has got so bad that it is cheaper to use the highest grade stainless steel over here for gates and railings than to have them galvanised. Hauliers here blame diesel prices but we've noticed that since the price of fuel went down, their prices have stayed the same or increased.

And in case you don't know where we are, Arran is only 14 miles from the mainland, including the ferry journey I can be in glasgow in 2 hours from home, it's not like we are in the middle of the Atlantic.

regards, Jeff.