Does anyone buy any bits and pieces from the USA?

You will have to pay import duty - rate depends on type of goods

Carriage and shipping

Plus Import VAT

It's jewellery bits for a hobby class with school kids, so obviously the cheaper I can get the stuff the better so that's why I'm shopping around trying to figure out the best place to buy all the beads etc.

Have you any idea how much that would be?

Sorry forgot to say thanks for the info!

Import Duty is likely to be up to 4%

You may get additional charges in the UK to get the goods from the port to your house as this is quite often not covered in the shipping charge

Import VAT is 17.5% on top of the total cost (including duty, etc)

I buy most of my stock from the US and generally expect to pay about 35% for carrier handling and import duty. However you don't always get charged it a lot depends on what the sender has put on the customs form and which carrier it is Royal mail are very unpredictable but UPS always charge. So I would allow for it and maybe you will be lucky and not get charged it.

That's great, at least it gives me an idea of what price I'll be looking at.

Any recommendations of where to look? I realise you might not want to give away your trade secrets though which is understandable.

Thanks again for all the help ?