Buying camera in USA and shipping to UK

[Mamainak]

Hi everyone, I hope someone can help me with this...

I saw a camera I want on US Amazon and it's 100 dollars cheaper than here in UK (ridiculous!) so I was thinking how would it be if I asked my friend in USA to buy it via Amazon for me and ship it to me in UK...

What I'm interested in, is shipping price, customs and safety of the camera. I guess it should be wrapped REALLY WELL - I don't want it to get damaged! The boxed camera weight is 1.4 kg, according to the website.

Did anyone do this before? Do you think mail actually follows 'FRAGILE' instruction? And if there is such insurance to cover any damages, how much would it cost?

I'm just trying to figure out if it's worthy getting it from USA...if the shipping ends up really expensive and then the price ends up the same as I'd pay the camera here...why bother :/

Thanks in advance!

[Quo Fan]

The big thing is warranty. Manufacturers don't like to honor warranties sold for one country in any other country. Unless you want to send your gear back to your friend int he States for warranty.

[Sime]

I have on a couple of occasions had stuff brought back to me in the UK from the USA. I have also had stuff shipped and each time I've been caught out with customs (£60 for the last camera bag even though it was for review purposes)

1. You will be charged customs - they are pretty used to parcels being labeled as "gifts" and will charge you as they see fit (Sliding scale from 2 to 22%)
2. Mostly, good packaging is fine. (They're already shipped around the world)

I don't bother with buying from the USA unless I'm going there myself and can bring the item back - I use DigitalRev.com these days.. A lot of the times they are very well priced and sometimes will offer to pay duty (They ship mostly from HongKong)

As far as the warranty goes, I've not had any issues and have had two warranty issues with my Canon dSLR camera's purchased in HongKong on both occasions.