Ok so this is not strictly photographic equipment-related, but anyway:
Why is it that ****pping charges to Europe from many american equipment
shops are so high? The latest example when I was trying to buy a
Vivitar 285HV flash unit. I found (via Amazon.com) a store that sold
it for $89,90, a nice enough price. However they wanted $70 for
****pping and handling. Through eBay, I found a store in Hong Kong
that sold the same brand-new unit also for $89,90, but the ****pping
was only $20. It arrived in a week, so clearly it wasn't even the
worst possible ****pping option.
Many US stores seem to have some kind of fixation on using only the
finest and greatest possible ****pping option - for example KEH. The
one they use is actually very very fast - a lens I bought was sent
Friday and I had it by Monday, couldn't have been faster if I had it
bought via mail-order from my own country. However buying smaller,
cheaper items simply isn't an option if ****pping is going to be 2/3 of
the total cost.
(The same applies to some UK shops as well, I was trying to buy just a
couple of rolls of Ilford SFX 200 film. ****pping charges were anything
from 15 to 70 GBP (!) and I ended up buying the rolls from some UK
individual who charged only a couple of pounds for ****pping.)
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