[time-nuts] Brokerage fees (was fedex and shipping..)

[Mark Spencer]

In the case of higher dollar items where the duties are higher the brokerage and other related fees tend to fade into the noise.   For smaller purchases the brokerage fees become a bigger issue for me.  As other posters have pointed out using the postal service can often reduce or eliminate these fees, but tracking and other services may not be as good.  

For a high value item that I want badly I'd probably just eat the brokerage fees.   To give credit where credit is due other than the brokerage fee issue I've had generally good experiences with main stream courier / shipping companies and will on occasion continue to use them(including Fedex.)  One notable instance of a delayed shipment I had involved the post office.  

It's to bad that brokerage fees don't seem to be included in typical shipping estimates and quotes from vendors but I don't believe this is  really the fault of the vendors who are usually quite transparent about the need to for the buyer to pay taxes and duties.   I believe that in theory in Canada at least there are other options besides using the brokerage services provided by the courier companies.  If anyone has done this I'd be curious in hearing from them (please contact me off list.)  

 Sorry for taking up bandwidth on this topic.

>Since I have the paperwork in front of me, as I need to pay it, here
is the fees from DHL on a 20 GHz vector network analyzer I imported
from the USA to the UK.

Duty ?0.00
VAT ?2099.46
Other levey ?0.00
Customs services ?0.00
Administration fee: ?41.99
Total ?2141.45