Procuring a maker bot

[Chill!!!!!]

Hi
great to see a community here...
I am planning to buy a maker bot next month.
I would love to hear your experience with the bot

Also this is the first time I'll be shipping stuff from US to India so
any advice on the paper work or precautions??

Cheers
Shubham
Project Associate
IITK

[Siddharth Valambhia]

Hello, 

I have imported some electronics stuff when i was in France, Normally, you have to pay for import duty, and when they ship it they will send custom declaration form on the parcel, depending on the declaration "category" and "price" of product they may or may not charge you custom duty, in many case if parcel is small and order item is less then xxx rupess they will not charge anything, because it is small amount of duty and paperwork cost is more. what you can is, speak with makerbot sales and ask they what they write on product description in custom declaration then check  Indian custom website and find out appropriate category and import duty and can have some idea of duty .... . that duty is determined by custom officer so if he choose different category then u assume duty will be changed.....

[Aakash]

http://groups.google.com/group/makerbot/browse_thread/thread/ef66da15ecac9bd0/4b847c558bc35bb5?lnk=gst&q=aakash#4b847c558bc35bb5

However, it is possible to get it thru USPS and save some money, if
you got time to follow it up.

They'll charge some 25% over the item's declared value as customs.

On Feb 26, 12:52 pm, Siddharth Valambhia <svalamb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have imported some electronics stuff when i was in France, Normally, you
> have to pay for import duty, and when they ship it they will send custom
> declaration form on the parcel, depending on the declaration "category" and
> "price" of product they may or may not charge you custom duty, in many case
> if parcel is small and order item is less then xxx rupess they will not
> charge anything, because it is small amount of duty and paperwork cost is
> more. what you can is, speak with makerbot sales and ask they what they
> write on product description in custom declaration then check  Indian custom
> website and find out appropriate category and import duty and can have some
> idea of duty .... . that duty is determined by custom officer so if he
> choose different category then u assume duty will be changed.....
>

[Shubham Goel]

Thanks for the great advice..

I'll post pics once I get the device

Seems like USPS(Priority Mail International) is the only shipping service they have for India.

[Siddharth Valambhia]

Hi Siddharth,
I'll strongly recommend UPS. The money is well worth the pain it saves.

In my case, I'm staying at Delhi; I got it from USPS. I had to make numerous phone calls and make visits to the customs dept to do the clearance myself. And it took 2 months in all.

It boils down to this - you "finally" get the your parcel thru USPS. You need to be willing to take as much pain as it asks for.

since you say time is important for you, and paying visits to your closest metro speed post customs dept. might not be possible for you, I'll say save yourself the pain, go with UPS.


Cheers!
Aakash.

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Hello Akash,

I had ordered gen 3 electronics from Makerbot, now USPS international priority mail charges are 33 USD and UPS charges are 93 USD. I am confused about which one I choose.... ups is 3 times expensive but I think they will do custom clearance themselves and they charge 300-500 INR to me. I have got parcel by fedex it was very quick and they chage me total 500 ... 175 duty and rest their handling charges.

As I am not living in Big city(not like metrocity), my local GPO may not have the custom clearance department  and think as it comes to INDIAN POSTAL DEPARTMENT one can not track parcel's status... As I want my stuff in One month, what do u suggest ? 

Best Regards,

Siddharth.

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