As of today, I have never paid any custom taxes when ordering in US :-[
But I never order from “big” companies or choose Fedex & Co shipping methods. I prefer waiting 3 weeks and take “snail mail” (though a snail in a plane is a speedy snail 
).
Also, I may be lucky, I don’t know, but I’ve been ordering in US for years now many different small things and never had any problem with customs. At least, my order was not checked.
But you’re right in a way : if customs put their nose in your order, price can double or even more ???
Edit: also, no trick like “gift” mention on the order. Plain green paper with correct value on it.
Living in Sweden, I usually have no problems with customs nor taxes when ordering from USA or Asia. The stuff I order is rarely ready for common use and thus have no commercial value to 99% of the population.
How much do you pay for import taxes ?
Remember that not all of the amount to be paid is duties. I avoid FEDEX and all courier companies as they can add up to $30 on top of the duties. They call it a disbursement fee or documentation fee and it is the same regardless of the parcel value.
In South Africa never pay duties for parcels from China and Hongkong, but I always pay for parcels from the USA.
I have noticed though that EMS and snailmail/airmail only has a really small processing fee, something like $5 compared to FEDEX’s $30.
Hi Jonz,
I’m in Rueil Malmaison, 5km west from PARIS.
I effectively had a contact yesterday with LEXTRONIC that confirmed they will have these new models coming soon (during march), and engaged me to refresh sometimes… :
Regarding to Bec a Fuel remark, I agree with him when I will need soms qtty pricing, but for prototyping, Lextronic has the advantage to make stock available and be not so far from us so that I can buy in a day… 
However, I’m very pleased to see that some fans exist in France, and really think GHI products are innovative and cost effective, and believe me, I’ve been testing some !
Hope to see soon a case of ‘FEZgleboard’ xM solution that will also enable to provide extended multimedia IHM concepts !
@ LouisCpro : you know what I think about thieves like Lextronic ? Answer is in the question… :
In the past, I’ve checked their site many times about other hardware, and each time they were at least 30% above other European sites, so…
Also, I don’t order big quantities for my own work. When it comes to bigger quantities, for professionnal needs, then I look at french dealers, like Gotronic, for example. They don’t have GHI’s stuff now, but I ordered many other things by them.
What makes me ordering directly by GHI is not only the price but their way of doing things in regards to their customers. Either by listening to them or by involving them in their product line(s). And I don’t even speak of the gifts they often send 
At the moment, I don’t like Gadgeteer that much ( :whistle: ) but many other people do. So GHI is listing to them and offers things like Spider/Hydra or the new Cerberus. This is what makes me order directly by them, to thank them.
Btw, even though I don’t like Gadgeteer, I think I will be having a bout of weakness any time soon and order a Cerb40 as soon as the firmware gets more complete (I don’t have time nor skills to help here) :-[
This one looks promising to me, especially with the future board that Godefroi is planning to do : http://www.tinyclr.com/forum/1/6157/
I beg your pardon Bec à Fuel, but if I decided to use LEXTRONIC, it is only because it is the reseller that can be found in the distributor list from GHI, nothing else…
I have no prejudice on them. If I make a brief conversion between $ and €, their price on the Chipworkx Kits I bought is near for 1 or 2 €.
Even more, finding Electronic resellers with these conditions in France is not so easy, and I hope that if GHI decided to work with them, it is because the deal is convienent for both, or I missed somehting in commercial strategies … ???
Louis, after your post I’ve been to Lextronic site to check their prices for GHI’s product and I have to admit that you’re right 
That’s a really good thing, indeed. This was not the case in the past (like 1 or 1,5 years back), hence my (acid) comment about them. Of course, this store was kind of “blacklisted” by me because of this.
Thank you for pointing this out. Now I may also order by them and maybe eventually change my mind about their commercial strategy.
No Problem Bec à fuel,
I promize not to have any action in Lextronic capital…
And moreover, have a survey on how the prices move between resellers makes sence !
Louis, it’s The Monz (not Jonz)
Anyway, yep, I know we are really few fellows here in France using GHI Product… it’s because of the
environment which is based on Microsoft… and you may know or have noticed that Microsoft Product
is often seen as “kind of evil” here in France… due to former price policy…
I’m involved in a Fab Lab in Toulouse (Artilect) and when I do a demo of the GHI products (Panda II or domino), and explain that the IDE is free, the libraries are free and there is no royalty to pay to deploy the solution, well, people get interested and can see that arduino may not be the only solution…
And in most cases, after having shown what we can do in debug mode with Visual Studio, I’m able to have more convinced people in the room than I had a the beginning of the show
That’s why few months ago, I said in a thread here that the university should be more aware of GHI products than today… But as you may also know, Linux is strongly established at the university… too bad…
As I say, keep on fighting for GHI product (even if I’m not a GHI shareholder )
Hi Monz :-[ :-[ :-[
I apologize for the mistake !
You’re so right when you say that Microsoft is seen as an evil, but effectivley, the pricing policy is so strange that sometimes I would also pass thru the “Obscur side” of the force… 8)
I recently assist to a training on how to start developing on Android based embedded platforms, but something makes me finally get back to Crosoft MicroF. : If you plan to develop friendly human interfaces like we can see on Android mobiles or tablets, why not, but until you need to use that kind of embedded OS in industrial or building management systems, i mean using specific bus such as I2C, UART, SPI and so on, then you have to develop all the plumbing from the HAL (Hardware Abstract Layer) thru the IHM, which means a lot of time spending and best practices learning before achieving your project… :wall:
Maybe in some years…But in the same time, I prefer to have a Dev Team with common profiles that is more convinient to allocate resources between projects.
I Agree Louis
Just one things which is great from Microsoft…you can program application from Silverlight to Net Microframework using only One IDE and One langage (C#)…
And the step by step bebugging …Hmmmm !!!
yep
definitely one of the best feature…
What is your job Louis ?
I’m working in an IT company (devoteam) in Toulouse…
But few months ago, I used to do more “industrial” stuff than now (BI…)
I’m in charge of the {R & D} around IT and Building Management Systems. I’m an associate in a company called PROGIRIS based near PARIS.
As many of the startups we know, we believe in the use of the famous “swiss knife” to enable us to build a new innovative product range to address our market.
We’re sure that products such as GHI’s will help us achieve our project and thus, accelerate our development…
Alea Jacta Est !
I’ve check on your website…
I’ve seen you were hiring a C# Project Leader…
Too bad that this job only applies in Paris… because I’ve got all the knowledge you’re looking for but
I’m “stucked” in Toulouse.
I used to be CTO in a small company (SODIT), but this company bankrupted last april (2011)…
I was involved in R&D project (european, french project) in the scope of ITS (Intelligence Transport System).
I’m prob late to the party, but where do you get the open source files for the Cerb40 etc.
They haven’t been posted yet, as far as I know.
).
