Price difference - Pentax lenses

Hello Everybody,

I live in London, and I have had a K10 since early december 2006 (got it from america)
I recently bought some new lenses, here in London, and spend a fortune on them (Tamron 18-250 £299) (Flash Af 360 - £ 130) (Various Lenses on EBAY - Good deals but old M A lenses...)
We all know the prices of lenses here, and also the availability of DA and FA Pentax that can only be found in very few specialised retailers at astonishing prices.

I don't want to sound arrogant, but I just bought 2 lenses from a store in NY, and spent about half the price I would have paid here.

This is the price comparison: NY store and Amazon UK ( i think the best deals are on amazon, but please find a store that sells for less money )

Pentax DA 10-17mm.
399.95 USD VS £352.93 (the samsung is cheaper I know)

Pentax FA 50 f.14 -
194.95 USD VS £ 182.95

Now to total that, I spent 594.90 USD that in pounds is about £301...

I let you all figure how much is the total of the price if I bought the lenses on amazon, and I figure that in store these would actually be even more expensive.

Now, to the final Dollars price you have to add TAX (8.25%) if you go and pick the lenses up in NY, which I am doing, but then again, I'm sure you'll all have some friends that travel a lot, and Ny is a very affordable and common destination. Or you ship them directly with UPS and the charge is about 56 USD - for a total of 744 USD which is still much less than british price. You might be unlucky and get custom charge (i had to pay it once, but not another time so I don't know how it works) which is about £80 (for K10 + 18-55mm). Still much less than buying it all here in England!

I don't know where you all buy your lenses, but it really seems that the british pound makes it so much harder for pentax users.

This is the store that I use and where I also bought my K10 and received the first shipment in america (nov 2006)and got it first week of Dec 2006.

www.adorama.com
I know that also B&H have the same prices but I never used their site.

Hope this is useful to somebody, let me know what you think about this.

Cheers,

Nathan

Well considering it cost me around.. Yeah, £480 to buy both those lenses, Im not too happy! Heh.
I dont mind much really
But yeah.. I got caught out on custom charges for buying in a bunch of clothes, though its not really that bad.

Pentax in US is definately cheaper than UK.. just look at the US prices on ebay =/

The US prices are very tempting and i was looking at one of these http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=120209253762&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=002 which is a very good price.

But if i can get one of these in pentax mount http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Sigma-70-200mm-f-2-8-APO-EX-DG-HSM-for-Canon-EF-mount_W0QQitemZ330203360773QQihZ014QQcategoryZ30066QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem I would for go the pentax. But there are none about that i can find

We frequently have to order lens and sell them due to the working requirement. To be frank, if you order from outsite, you'd hardly get away with import tax.

Last time we order a Pentax 645 from Japan for over 600£. We thought it was a bargain but in the end, it turned out that the charge was over 280 £ including VAT and clearance fee, there was hardly any saving if not more expensive than buying in the UK

Custom tax is pretty much a miss and hit. Some seller declare the item as gift but still, at least some British official still scan the item and indentify what they call : "reasonable tax duty" on the item. It's pretty annoying this way.

In the end, you earn you living in British pounds then you should pay in British price....but damn, those prices in America surely look so tempting.

You are legally only allowed to bring 145 pounds worth of goods back with you to the UK from a non EU country. If you get searched you will either have to pay the taxes, or, more likely, wave bye-bye to your lenses.
Importing them by post you will also have to add taxes to the price, which UPS will collect from you before giving you your lenses.
They will still be cheaper than in the UK (or Europe) but most people don't want the hassle, or don't travel/have friends that travel. Not to mention the guarantee problems that could arise.
Still I wish you many happy hours with your new lenses.

Importing into Australia is a lot cheaper than the UK. We have a threshold of $1000 (400pound) before we are hit with taxes.

Not quite that clear cut.

SRS in Watford

10-17mm = £299

50mm 1.4 = £149

£448 total

Your price + postage = $650 (not sure how you get $744?) = £329 as I write this.

Add 21% (pretty sure that's right, correct me if I am wrong) for import duty and VAT = £398. You can probably add a tenner to that too for courier admin charge, for a grand total of £408.

Total savings £40, give or take, thats 10%.

Fair enough if you go yourself, and can avoid customs etc. it can be a bit cheaper, but on this comparison (cos I can't afford a New York trip!), I would jump in the car, 30 mins to Watford (probably about the same for you too!), £10 in petrol, get to chat cameras etc. with Chris, can test the equipment, possibly try other lenses (if your spending £450, I'm sure he won't mind), get some tips, knowledge, break from work for a couple of hours, have fun trying to get him to break his NDA (he never budges!), and if anything goes wrong, I know where his front door is! Good service is definately worth a little extra, and in this case it is only a little extra.

Now, if you want to start talking about this :-

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6539

Apparently I can get this to my front door around £150 cheaper than some UK suppliers pay trade price.

Now, that would be worth it, and I will give it a go when I get the spare cash!

I have some UK tarrif info from May 2005 - with duty rates of some popular items:

Cameras - Digital, still: FREE
- Camcorder: 4.9 - 14%
- Film Camera - 35mm SLR: 4.9%
- Camera Lenses: 6.7%
- Webcam: 4.9%

(17.5% VAT is payable on all these in addition, plus a handling charge - £8 in the case of Royal Mail).

Does anyone know if these rates still apply? And does a K10D count as a "digital still camera" according to customs? And what if it is supplied with a lens?

In my experience it has nearly always been the case that £'s =$'s when you cross the pond. ie what costs £1 pound in the UK costs $1 in the US.
It has been that way for decades and that is why British companies suffer when the pound is strong against the dollar.
The prices you quoted in New York reflect that trend.

Another fact you forgot to mention is that consumer protection is much better in the UK/Europe than in the US. This has to be reflected in prices.

But basically, I believe that all camera manufacturers subsidise US sales and make the monery back in other markets - primarily Europe.

G

I agree you need consumer protection but 30 too 40% is a bit stiff

I agree.

Last year I bought something for my boat from the USA and the only reason I purchased it from the USA was because it was not available from anyone in Europe.

By the time duty had been added and VAT on the product cost (with the duty) had been added and VAT on the delivery charge had been added and I had paid Royal Mail their special charge, the costs had increased enormously.

Apologies to George for the overuse of the word 'and' in the previous sentence but that is how it feels as duty is added to duty.

I agree that if I happened to be in the USA, I would take the opportunity to buy something photographic but otherwise, I don't think so.

I shall stick with Chris @ SRS, even though I live nowhere near Watford.