Importing pen kits. Pro's and cons

Donovan wrote:

Hi AB I have to agree with Andy about the Chinese kits. "Goedkoop koop is duur koop" and I really believe that. On thing is a certainty the gold plating WILL come off

and the threads will crack or strip

Cheers

Rob

Hi AB I have to agree with Andy about the Chinese kits. "Goedkoop koop is duur koop" and I really believe that. On thing is a certainty the gold plating WILL come off

I have found a vast difference in quality between the Chinese and Taiwanese kits.
At the beginning this did not worry me, but as I progressed it worries me to sell a pen which is not perfect. I have some cheaper kits lying in the garage which I will not make up and sell as I am not happy with the quality.

I have a few come backs with the cheaper kits so I will rather pay a premium and stay with the better quality kits.

I will be very interested in your assessment of the quality of the kits, please keep us informed.

Rob

PS Welcome to the forum

HI Andybear 33,

I did buy from mr Woodturner very good service, but as a pensioner I look around for price and service.

The options at the Chinese firm is so much bigger and one can buy the quantity you want. Postage from China is much faster and @ $15.00/kg more affordable than from the USA. China has an upcoming festival so I'll place my order after that. Keep you guys posted. Intend buying a couple of each to compare quality to the ones I have.

AB wood wrote:

Well guys I am new to the game, one company in the USA will never receive an order from me again, had to wait full three months for the order to change state from "Received" to "Ready to ship" needless to say how frustrated I was. Penn State Industries, Wooden Whimsies and Rockler on the other hand ship in no time, no pay pal needed they accept Visa payments.

As all pen kits seem to be made in China or Taiwan I am exploring to import from there at a fraction of the cost other companies charge. The guys send  me a weekly special offer and new items list. Paypal is an absolute necessity with them as it is the only method of payment accepted by them.

Like to know of other suppliers too, to compare prices and service.

Have a nice day!

AB have you tried Mr Woodturner? Yes they will also have to order from overseas but at least you can buy 1 or a few pens as many of the overseas manufactures have minimum quantities and you don't always know if you will get it.

But should you wish to do a group buy I am sure some of the members here would be interested.

Well guys I am new to the game, one company in the USA will never receive an order from me again, had to wait full three months for the order to change state from "Received" to "Ready to ship" needless to say how frustrated I was. Penn State Industries, Wooden Whimsies and Rockler on the other hand ship in no time, no pay pal needed they accept Visa payments.

As all pen kits seem to be made in China or Taiwan I am exploring to import from there at a fraction of the cost other companies charge. The guys send me a weekly special offer and new items list. Paypal is an absolute necessity with them as it is the only method of payment accepted by them.

Like to know of other suppliers too, to compare prices and service.

Have a nice day!

Donovan wrote:

Guys, not sure if we have any ladies yet, I have imported a lot of pen kits so far. As I said in one of the posts it is not difficult. There are some things that you need to know and do.
1) You must have a Paypal account. Easy to get one. It is linked to your credit card. If you are worried about fraud get a separate credit card and just put enough money in to cover your purchase. That way if something does happen you only loose the amount of your order. Saying that after about 80 transactions I have never lost a parcel or been robbed.
2) Plan your order well. Postage and customs ads up. If you forgot to add something let it stay over to your next order.
PSI is the biggest pen company that you can buy from but a lot of the smaller suppliers also stock a lot of their products (same price and sometimes less expensive) as well as their own range. CSUSA is such a company. They are a very service orientated company.
3) Once you place the order you check out and chose the shipping. I only use a traceable priority mail. It is a bit more expensive but you can track your parcel.
4) Then comes the worst part of the deal, the wait. I have had parcels come in in 5 days but the average is between 3 and 7 weeks.

From time to time places like Smittys pen word have pre-release specials and group buys. Always good to take advantage of those. When they do it makes sense for the guys on the forum to place a bulk order. you save a bit on the post.

Hope this sheds a bit of light on the subject    

Donovan,
I have imported a few times and on one order customs saw "gold plated" kits and charged jewelry import duties(heavy), I fought this and got it down to the normal VAT+
Also I was told that as an individual without an import registration can only import three times a year to a max of R 20,000, is this the case and would it be better to register ?
I would love to order more often as specials come up but am a bit worried.

Should we not ask admin to start a thread on imports so that we can give our experiences with different companies and keep everybody up to date on specials we have found?

I have ordered from Craft Supplies USA, problem mentioned above but good service and from Timberbits Aus, good service but number of kits missing from package. After a bit of a fight the courier got the missing kits(Timberbits supplied replacements)
and delivered without cost to me. The advantage of Timberbits is that on an order of over 200 AUS $ you get free courier so this helps keep cost down.

Would love to hear from others who import so that we can get clarity on the rules etc.

Cheers

Rob

Orffer wrote:

Maybe the same question, but with a different spin to it... If you order 30-40 pen kits at the same time, how much import duties are we talking about?

About R350-400

Maybe the same question, but with a different spin to it... If you order 30-40 pen kits at the same time, how much import duties are we talking about?

A couple of questions from the peanut gallery I say the peanut gallery since I've never imported before and it's good to get some of the details...

1. Do you save vs. buying from local suppliers? Or is it more of a variety factor?
2. How many kits do you order at a time to offset the postage and customs fee?
3. What are the typical customs fee? How is it calculated?

Guys, not sure if we have any ladies yet, I have imported a lot of pen kits so far. As I said in one of the posts it is not difficult. There are some things that you need to know and do.
1) You must have a Paypal account. Easy to get one. It is linked to your credit card. If you are worried about fraud get a separate credit card and just put enough money in to cover your purchase. That way if something does happen you only loose the amount of your order. Saying that after about 80 transactions I have never lost a parcel or been robbed.
2) Plan your order well. Postage and customs ads up. If you forgot to add something let it stay over to your next order.
PSI is the biggest pen company that you can buy from but a lot of the smaller suppliers also stock a lot of their products (same price and sometimes less expensive) as well as their own range. CSUSA is such a company. They are a very service orientated company.
3) Once you place the order you check out and chose the shipping. I only use a traceable priority mail. It is a bit more expensive but you can track your parcel.
4) Then comes the worst part of the deal, the wait. I have had parcels come in in 5 days but the average is between 3 and 7 weeks.

From time to time places like Smittys pen word have pre-release specials and group buys. Always good to take advantage of those. When they do it makes sense for the guys on the forum to place a bulk order. you save a bit on the post.

Hope this sheds a bit of light on the subject