Evening all!

This is the first time I buy online since moving to Switzerland so I'm a bit nervous!

I will be placing an order on a French website for snowboarding equipment (2 boards, 2 bindings, 2 pairs of boots, 2 helmets and other bits and bobs).
I expect this order to be in the order of €1000 EUR (FYI: the French website is not charging me the French VAT) and to weigh no more than 30kg.

So if I get this right I will be charged the following:

1) Customs Duty: around 30 CHF

Correct assuming your order is coming via Die Post. If it's coming via another courier (DHL/UPS/etc), expect the customs clearance fees to be higher.

Well you have stated 1000 EUROS then calculated the VAT on 1000 FRANCS

So it will be a little higher than 80.-

Well spotted, TonyBhoy. I seem to have become blind to this (maybe due to the moment of CHF/EUR parity), as I didn't notice yesterday when someone listed a value of $1000CHF on a thread, either.

Thanks VI!

Parcel will be sent from France using "Colissimo" La Poste so I'm 99.9% sure Die Post will be in charge on this side!

Touché!

VAT will indeed be charged on CHF amount so the calculation should have been 1000 x 1.21 x 0.08 = 96.8 CHF

In my defense I wrote this post at 1AM!

A tiny error, the Swiss fees are based on the goods plus the postage.

I wasnt having a dig, easy mistake to make, just bringing it to your attention for the benefit of your calculation

Indeed! Knew that too but didn't mention it in my OP.

I knew you weren't Tony!

OK, so I received my snowboard and here's what I had to pay to import it from France:

What I purchased cost 392.39 EUR and shipping was 24.90 EUR so that's a total of 417.29 EUR.

Die Post shows it cost 542.00 CHF and charged me 43.35 CHF for VAT (8%) so they used an exchange rate of 1.299 which is higher than what I'm finding on google (1.207)! Oh well...

They also charged me the 35 CHF standard charge so I had to pay 78.35 EUR in total.

I saved a little over 10 EUR compared to what I would have paid had I lived in France.

10 euros on Nearly 400 spend?

Was it even worth it?

Didn't do it for the saving! I wanted that particular board!

He wrote "I saved a little over 10 EUR compared to what I would have paid had I lived in France."

I suppose the saving was more versus Swiss prices as he lives in Switzerland?

Correct!

The 10 EUR saving was just to compare the French VAT saving of 19.6% compared to the Swiss VAT + standard charge (i.e. no real saving on a 400 EUR order).

The board itself in Switzerand would probably have cost more than what I paid for in France. Well, hard to say actually as I couldn't find that exact model but most boards in Switzerland were more expensive than in France...

Here is my Experience,

My Aunt sent me an Indian Saree really light in weight below 1 kg, and it was only a gift from her to me.

I got these through post and the post charged me 30 CHF, I have no idea how. These sarees were less than 100 chf in cost, but i had to pay that amount to get my gift (

depends what was on the customs label and the postage costs

Customs Label : Not known
Postage cost stamp said : 20 pounds (the parcel was from UK)

That sounds about right:

Customs admin fee: CHF18-
VAT: 8% x Cost of saree (CHF100) plus cost of shipping (CHF30) = CHF10

Total fee = approx CHF28-

If they've valued the sari slightly higher, that explains the difference in price.

Customs use an average exchange rate for the previous week!