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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Where do Europeans buy their RED's?

J

Josh Snyder

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Do you just order directly from RED website or do you fly to US to get one? Taxes and duties would be 12,000$ (in my country) for EPIC-M body and plane tickets to NYC and back are 1,000$ so it would be a lot cheaper to fly to US to get one :)
 
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Unless smuggling it you would still need to pay taxes and duties upon returning, I believe there is a RED headquarters in England though.
 
Luke Schenk said:
Unless smuggling it you would still need to pay taxes and duties upon returning, I believe there is a RED headquarters in England though.
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You just open the boxes, but the stuff in your bag and no one will ask anything. They don't know if you had it when you left or not and they don't have time to check that because everyone has laptops, DSLRS, tablets etc with them and no one is travelling with the receipts. People use to fly to NYC even for one Canon lens. Flights, one day at NYC and the lens cost 500$ less than the lens only in here hehe.

What kind of prices they have in UK headquarters?
 
I don't bother them yet since I'm looking for X or S and the prices are still unknown. Usually the European prices are close in numbers, except the $ is replaced with €, which makes a quite big difference :p I don't mean RED prices, but prices in general.
 
Josh, smuggling is not a good idea!

1. Customs may not check a laptop or an ipad. But they do check expensive equipment. If they got you, you pay a lot of money. You may loose also your camera.
2. You will be never save. Every time you cross a border, customs could check you.
3. You will have troubles with your insurance. In a case of emergency they wont pay because you didnt your taxes.
4. Epic-Repair is done in the US. How will you handle that?
 
You can buy from Red Uk, but if I understood it correctly you will have to pay the import tax of the camera coming into the Uk. I don't know how much that is, but it may be as high as the import tax of your country. If you go to pick it up in the US: it still isn't clear if you pick up cameras from Red itself; and if you go and pick it up and hope to get it into your country without paying taxes, you'd better make sure that it looks used somehow; usually the douaniers have ways of finding out. I've been thinking bout the whole thing myself :) You'd better contact Red UK with your questions on buying from them
 
I was thinking along similar lines, but insurance concerned me a little. I haven't looked into it properly yet, but i wonder if its harder to insure a camera that hasn't got proof of VAT paid etc.
Otherwise its just ALOT of money on duty and VAT for a product i cant get in this country to begin with, which will affect my overall budget and what i can afford in the first place.
choices..
 
hans de vries said:
Tobias, do you have any idea on what VAT and duty there will be in the UK? And as for insurance, I wasn't asked about VAT when I insured my RED One
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VAT is 20%. If VAT registered you just reclaim it. Duty will only be a few hundred pounds.

For those of you thinking of smuggling your camera gear into Europe to avoid your tax obligation take a look at Greece...
 
Liam Hall said:
VAT is 20%. If VAT registered you just reclaim it. Duty will only be a few hundred pounds.

For those of you thinking of smuggling your camera gear into Europe to avoid your tax obligation take a look at Greece...
Click to expand...

Well, in fact, in Europe, except Germany, all occidental countries have an awful debt, England included ;-) Greece is the first country to collapse, but it won't be the last.

The problem of buying Red gear in Europe isn't new, in fact I pointed it a few years ago, Red knows about it but they don't seem to really understand it, as they seem to have their American point of view... It's nice to have a Red center in London, but again, it's an American point of view, decided without having a single clue on how about Europe works. It's like opening the Red USA center in Canada. I think they probably felt reassured to have a Center in a country which speaks the same langage...

To give an idea to our dear American friends, if buying a Red in the UK is possible, it's charging two times European customers (by European
I mean people who are in the Euro zone). One time for the dollar-pound conversion, the second time for the pound-euro conversion. Even if the London center can give invoices in Euros, in fact, if they're doing business in the UK they're obliged to be paid in Pounds. Unless they have bank accounts in the Euro zone, of course.

A few years ago, I suggested Red to open a store/dealer in Germany, which is, to me, the best place to be in Europe from a camera manufacture point of view. Germany is the leading economic country here. They have a strong experience about gear (better than England). And they're at the middle of Europe, which is an advantage for transport.

I don't want people to think I'm against our English friends, but it's more a collective thought, a more European one ;-)

Kristin
 
As I mentioned in a previous email - contact RED Europe at Pinewood Studios.

They will deal with your order completely. So when you order at RED Europe I am 99.99% sure they will cover VAT / Import Tax, etc. If you give them a list of what you want, then they will give you a price in £/Euro which includes import duties. Just add 20% for VAT and your good to go. Simple as that. Call / Email the guys there and they will sort everything out for you and give you the best guidance possible.

I have asked Alan at RED Europe numerous times for prices of equipment (as Jim and Jarred announce stuff), as I build my list up ready for my Stage 4 Epic and he's been nothing but patient and helpful every time. These prices help me budget for knowing how much I need in my account ready for purchase. All the prices are inclusive of import tax and all I have to do is add the VAT, where here in the UK is currently 20%. The prices do change on a monthly basis based on the exchange rate stated by HMRC for import etc.

Purchase from RED Europe and all servicing / repairs / etc will go through them. It pays to speak to these guys.

https://www.red.com/contact_us/new

RED EUROPE LTD
Pinewood Studios
Iver Heath
Bucks, England
SL0 0NH

Phone: +44(0)1753 785454
Fax: +44(0)1753 785453

Hours of operation:
Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM British Time

Services
Repair services, retail store, hands-on product interaction, technical support.
 
Liam Hall said:
VAT is 20%. If VAT registered you just reclaim it. Duty will only be a few hundred pounds.

For those of you thinking of smuggling your camera gear into Europe to avoid your tax obligation take a look at Greece...
Click to expand...

Import duties is included in the price RED Europe charge you. you only have to add 20% VAT to the price.

Its a lot easier now than it used to be.

:-)
 
Josh Snyder said:
You just open the boxes, but the stuff in your bag and no one will ask anything. They don't know if you had it when you left or not and they don't have time to check that because everyone has laptops, DSLRS, tablets etc with them and no one is travelling with the receipts. People use to fly to NYC even for one Canon lens. Flights, one day at NYC and the lens cost 500$ less than the lens only in here hehe.

What kind of prices they have in UK headquarters?
Click to expand...
There are many ways to smuggle into England, you have described but one.
 
California has a sales tax, if you collect you will have to pay that.
 
If you're an European Community customer (not UK) and buy from RED England you need to register yourself as a Intracommunitarian Operator (I don't know the exact English word for it) to don´t pay VAT. You can't declare a UK VAT to a Spanish/Italian/German or other Euro tax office so you just don't pay it.
It's the same with Apple (if you're not Irish), as far as the the on-line Apple store is based in Ireland.
Prices on RED UK are 10% higher than the best $ to € conversion you can find on-line but I think they're really fair.
You need to multiply the $ prices for a 1,58 (if my math is correct) to have the UK Pound prices but these include import taxes and transport (L.A. to London).
3 years ago when we imported our REDones straight from US we have to pay 3-5% in import duties, a custom agent and Fed-ex from US, buying the cameras from UK is more simple and allow you to have the camera correctly declared without dealing with customs.
Besides all this, Alan Piper (Head of RED UK) is very nice and he's european so dealing with VAT and taxes is his daily bread! If I had some issues with RED US about invoicing I never had even a minor problem dealing with RED UK, they live in our tax system and they deal with it like every other provider you can have in EU.
My concerns are only about ship back the cameras to L.A. for repair/upgrade but as far as we didn't import them from US we'll be unable to temporary export them so I imagine that RED UK will deal with it in case of a repair/upgrade and it's not a bad news. I deal with Spanish customs to ship to L.A. our REDones for MX upgrade and I don't need to do it again.
This my 2c, sorry for my English.
 
Kristin Stewart said:
Well, in fact, in Europe, except Germany, all occidental countries have an awful debt, England included ;-) Greece is the first country to collapse, but it won't be the last.
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Finland has least debt if I remember right.

There's this guy "kerso" who sells Canon stuff for very cheap prices compared to European pricing. He is located in Scotland if I remember right and his partner buys and sends Canon products from US to him tax free (if I remember right he doesn't have to pay anything because Scotland and US have some dealing "deal" or what ever) and then sells them to European customers, which of course don't have to pay any taxes and duties because Scotland is part of the UK.
 
You can't really compare Finland and Germany, it's not the same size of country in terms of population and economic activity (5 millions of people, half of the population in and around Paris). I have a friend who lives in Scotland. He pays all his taxes, just like everyone else. And in Scotland, it's still pounds, not euros ;-) Currency conversions aren't free, unfortunately ;-)
 
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