FAQ for Germans who like to buy that game!

[BugRoger]

Well, I sometimes order stuff from overseas. Usually it's suprisingly fast. I once ordered some electronics in Hong Kong and received my package after two days.

UPS called me once because the store I ordered from declared my package as gift and didn't include any specifics about the content. I was told that the package would probably get stuck in customs if I can't provide information about the content. I told them what's inside the package and received it the next day. But beside that I didn't have any problems.

The downside ist that you have to pay VAT and custom fees. It's especially mean that they include the shipping costs and VAT you already payed to the total value of the order before applying the local VAT and custom fees.

So if you order Dominions from Shrapnel's Online shop you have to pay 50$ for the game (which might already include VAT for the US or not. I don't know. The american VAT system is a mystery to me. And it's different from state to state. Maybe somebody can clarify that). The shipping costs are supposed to be 4.15$. That currently totals to 44€ including 1% for your CC company. Now you have to pay 7€ VAT (16% for Germany) and 3€ customs (~6% for Germany). That adds up to 54€.

Now somebody mentioned that Dominions will be shipped as a book and you don't have to pay the customs fee. You probably don't even have to pay VAT either but I'm not sure about that. If so it would be a pretty good deal for 44€.

So all in all ordering from Shrapnel's webshop might be the same than ordering from ix-soft. I bet that ix-soft is faster though.

Now if you find a shop that is in Europe you don't have to pay VAT (i think) nor Customs.

[ February 10, 2004, 13:31: Message edited by: BugRoger ]