Thread: Surprising cheap international postage on ebay

This item is shipped under the eBay Global Shipping Program

Note the bit under the shipping price that says 'import fees to be determined at checkout'
While GST would not be applicable for this amount, you may get hit with all sorts of customs, quarantine and 'handling' fees.
I'd want a definite statement as to what these undisclosed charges amount to.

Hi
once you click buy it now it goes to checkout there it states no extra duties payable
you can just cancel it then
Cheers Rod

What about the 120V?

A friend of mine shipped a container load of mech workshop stuff back from the US. I was dead jealous as he had the full kit and kaboodle of Milwaukee 120V corded and portable power tools, some nice 3phase MW machinery, eg, lathe, drill press, cold cut saw, bandsaw, welders, and a heap or mechanical type stuff. Firstly he toted a box around his shed with a 240-120V transformer in it to run the stuff but that didn't last long because he couldn't run his 3 phase machinery - then bought a bigger transformer and a single to 3 phase converter and he wired part of his shed with a 220V 3 phase (this was pre cheap VSD days), but a few years after that he moved house. He seemed to be for ever mucking about with his setup and not doing anything productive. He ended up buying 240V battery chargers to charge his portables, and he changed the motors on some of the machines to single phase but his corded tools gave up on. He reckons apart from the mechanical stuff he ended up paying more for all this palaver than if he had bought all his machines here in AUS.

Few things to take into account from the listing.

Billed as a 4HP 120V, 15A, 1800W motor. Do the maths 4HP is 3000W, so for the 4HP claim to have credence, its 4Shetland Power. Luckily they rate the motor at 5000RPM, so it is quite likely a series wound universal motor, speed dependant on voltage rather than mains frequency, so should cope with 50Hz supply.

At 15A/1800W a step down transformer to reliably start it would need to be rated at least 3KVA, possibly more. If the 4HP had credence it would be similar in size to a 2KVA generator and probably at least 60Kg.

The shipping weight of the saw is 64 pound or about 28Kg. Australia Post staff won't handle packages over 25Kg under any circamstances, complicating the delivery process. The limit has been stretched from the normal 20Kg manual handling OHS limit to accomodate delivery of packaged wine in 12 bottle cartons, but the revised limit is rigidly enforced.

Pretty sure that this would be a courier delivery and not via a postal service.
This is what makes the actual cost of delivery, a bit of a gamble as couriers (usually) charge for customs clearance, quarantine checks etc,

Perhaps someone who has received an item under the eBay global shipping program could comment?

Thanks for the comments - am not going to buy the saw - was simply interested in the postage concept and whether or not its worth considering in future for non electrical stuff.

Bill