where do you usually buy Pentax gadget?

just wondering if anyone rather buy lens and accessories
from The US (B&H, Adorama) which price+delivery still
cheaper than buy in UK.

I've bought items from the US (B&H), Canada (Henrys) and several far eastern suppliers. Items from America/Canada have worked out cheaper than buying in the UK, however, once you've paid for shipping and customs duties not by as much as you might think! They can also take some while (a couple of weeks or more) to arrive.

Also, some manufacturer warranties will differ (or be invalid) if the goods are shipped overseas. That's quite apart from the hassle of sending things back for repair/exchange!

Good luck

Like many people who don't like spending more than they have to, I've looked into this many times.

It doesn't always work out much cheaper than buying here if you sit and work it out.

For instance, the Pentax 300mm DA* is £799 delivered from SRS Microsystems.

The same lens is $1099.99 from Adorama. But, add in delivery of $57.05, and then 6.7% import duty and you're up to$1234.56. Now add UK VAT on to all that and you have a new total of $1450.61, and don't forget to add on the shipping agents handling fee for collecting the duty payable which will probably be around £10-15.

At todays exchange rate, the Pentax DA* 300 would cost £819.97 plus the handling fee...

Then you've potentially got warranty worries if anything ever goes wrong with it.

You could of course hope that Duty & VAT is not charged on its arrival in the UK, but you are the importer and are responsible for paying it like a good law abiding citizen!

Also, bear in mind that duty can be charged some weeks after you've received the item when you may have think you've 'got away with it'. I personally had this happen to me with an item I purchased from Hong Kong. The item was delivered, with no mention of paying duty and VAT, but DHL sent me an invoice for it about 2 weeks later.

Personally, I don't think buying abroad is worth the hassle now, and I would only consider it if travelling and bringing stuff back personally.

Thank you for all the idea about that, i recently consider
to buy pentax da 10-17 then i found that it is much cheaper
in the US. so i just think where could it be cheaper. anyway,
Thanks a lot

The 10-17 is still cheaper from SRS!!

Like many before me I have often compared prices and wonder how some people claim to make massive savings. I cannot find any. In fact checking overseas prices against UK I have concluded that in general "rip-off" Britain is not such a rip-off after all when it come to photo and computer kit.

I know someone who bought a Canon 350D and another person who bought an HP computer and both were convinced they had a bargain. Out of curiosity I surfed UK offerings but did not disallusion them when I found similar prices available over here.

I bought a Tamron 1.4X converter from B&H, but only because it was not available over here. The service was very prompt and you are not likely to meet much in the way of warranty needs on something so simple. Having said that, of course, if it had been damaged I would have had a problem sending it back.

Graham

The savings are there to be made, but only on certain products.

My 31mm Limited from Canada landed for a total price of £465, over £200 cheaper than the best UK price I could find at the time.

The only drawback that would prevent me from doing so again is warranty. This year we have had 2x Faulty Metz 58 flashguns, and a faulty DA* 16-50. These were bought from SRS and were exchanged instantly, no questions asked, one of which went faulty the evening before a wedding shoot, so having bought from the UK saved the day. Not to mention when I did try out a DA* 300mm at SRS, that was faulty straight out of the box.

It certainly does put you off buying abroad and enforces having a very good working relationship with a local store!