Evike Europe

[Daveoc33]

Evike now have a warehouse in europe (France apparently) and are shipping to the UK.

https://evike-europe.com/ username: Evike Password: Europe for early bird access

use WELCOME20 for 20% off your first order.

They say that orders for the UK are VAT exempt: https://evike-europe.com/delivery-methods - does that mean they pay the VAT?

UK delivery in 2-3 days by DPD (it's not UPS!! )

Free shipping on orders over 150 euros

Customs fees apply (whatever that means)

Might be worth a punt. At a glance it looks like they are gunfire.com-ish prices with some bettter some worse. LCT stuff with euro to GBP exchange rate and 20% off and free shipping comes out quite reasonable.

Some RIFs like the scorpion evo and cyma sr25 are "prohibited from sale" in the UK and a few other countries for reasons unknown.

 

[Guest]

Looks OK, but all the really nice rare parts look to be missing.

My personal obsession, KRISS Vector, they have less parts available  than both LandWarrior and Powair6, and no genuine KRISS parts.

Shame

 

[LiamOT21]

are they actually open to sell and stuff? or is it literally just a website launch and then they open sales later? because when checking out i cant select any payment methods

 

[RostokMcSpoons]

If you go through checkout with the site still set to Euro, it does allow you to select credit card.   Slight downside is the 220 Euro delivery charge
 

 

[Steveocee]

Interesting. Will be watching this. If nothing else a big competitor may drive a bit of competition.

 

[Fatboy40]

Not a single Double Eagle M900 on their site... Taiwan Gun the are not ?

 

[colinjallen]

Evike now have a warehouse in europe (France apparently) and are shipping to the UK.

https://evike-europe.com/ username: Evike Password: Europe for early bird access

use WELCOME20 for 20% off your first order.

They say that orders for the UK are VAT exempt: https://evike-europe.com/delivery-methods - does that mean they pay the VAT?

UK delivery in 2-3 days by DPD (it's not UPS!! )

Free shipping on orders over 150 euros

Customs fees apply (whatever that means)

Might be worth a punt. At a glance it looks like they are gunfire.com-ish prices with some bettter some worse. LCT stuff with euro to GBP exchange rate and 20% off and free shipping comes out quite reasonable.

Some RIFs like the scorpion evo and cyma sr25 are "prohibited from sale" in the UK and a few other countries for reasons unknown.

Click to shrink...

The "VAT exempt" means that you do not pay French VAT; you will end up paying UK VAT on arrival in the UK.

 

[Speedbird_666]

 you will end up paying UK VAT on arrival in the UK.

Click to shrink...

And import duty.

 

[Smee]

The delivery charge for gbb WE came out as £0 to the Uk, but it wouldn’t let me go beyond review order 

wE gbb m4 cqb  £343 after the discount and tax removed £229, will all come down to what border force add on as to if it’s cost affective 

 

[Rogerborg]

The "VAT exempt" means that you do not pay French VAT; you will end up paying UK VAT on arrival in the UK.

Click to shrink...

Yup.  

"United Kingdom*** - Your order should be above 135£ (160€) for customs clearance"

"Customs clearance" is a very deceptive way of saying "...for us".  Over £135 means they're intending to not charge UK VAT and duty on it at source, which means you'll get rinsed for it during import.

Maybe.  Or you might get lucky.  Or it might get seized, and end up in the DPD or Border Farce basement shooting galleries.

What should happen is that the listed price will be reduced by ~17%[*] at checkout (to remove the French VAT), but when it arrives in Blighty, you'll get mugged for ~22.5% (UK VAT + duty) on that price + ~£20 (DPD double-mugging you for paying that on your behalf), and a possible firearms declaration and a delay of anywhere between 0 and infinite days.

Whether any of that will happen, or to what extent, is down to the whims of people outside your control.

Do you feel lucky, punk?

[*]Not 20%, mathletes.  A €120 list price is composed of €100 untaxed cost + €20 French VAT. 1/6th rather than 1/5th needs removed to get back to the untaxed price.

 

[Speedbird_666]

[SNIP]

Do you feel lucky, punk?

Click to shrink...

That sums it up rather neatly.

I think the only compelling reason to order from Europe now is if the vendor stocks something that's genuinely unavailable/impossible to source from UK retailers - a situation that is slowly improving recently. There's very little/no financial incentive to do so otherwise.

 

[Rogerborg]

I don't feel lucky, and will only be buying from Abroadland sellers who charge UK VAT and duty at source, or more specifically, label their packages as that.  AliExpress can do it for tuppence-ha'penny trinkets.  If we keep buying from sellers who are letting us eat the extra costs of paying that, then they've got little/no financial incentive to change.  I understand that it's not free for them to get set up to pay UK tithes, and would be happy paying a reasonable surcharge for a bit of certainty, rather than being mugged for it anyway by DPD / UPS.

I am at least pleased to see Evike-Europe saying that they'll remove French VAT for UK (and Swiss) orders.  Last time I checked, TaiwanGunFire weren't even doing that, but they wouldn't be paying it either, so they were effectively scalping that amount as pure profit from UK orders, making them even worse deals.

 

[Daveoc33]

They remove the French vat in the checkout process so you can see that bit removed from what you pay before you put card details in. I did get a bit excited seeing the 20% off bit and my impulse buy response was triggered. I've yet to buy anything still though. Didn't see a field for a ukara either but maybe that's further down the checkout process. 

 

[EDcase]

Put "UKARA: (number)" in the address section just in case they don't have the option later or forget to put it on.

 

[Rogerborg]

I did get a bit excited seeing the 20% off bit

Click to shrink...

16.666...%  [throws nerd tantrum]

Hopefully that'll shame TaiwanGun and GunFire into doing the same, if they're still scalping it. Not that I've been keeping track of whether they're shipping to the UK, it's on and off again more than a sitcom romance.

 

[Lozart]

I don't feel lucky, and will only be buying from Abroadland sellers who charge UK VAT and duty at source, or more specifically, label their packages as that.  AliExpress can do it for tuppence-ha'penny trinkets. 

Click to shrink...

The thing to remember here is that as part of Alibaba, AliExpress is a large company exporting a vast array of products. They operate the checkout process on behalf of their sellers so they have hoover up all the little VAT payments made on small items and pay it as one big VAT bill. Individual stores (like Evike Europe) don't have that kind of volume of sales (and by extension staff and/or systems) to make it commercially viable to sort out your VAT liability when it was "us" that decided to leave the nice, easy single market arrangement. Several of the airsoft retailers I had previously used in Europe have refused to take orders purely because they don't want the hassle.

 

[Rogerborg]

stuff

Click to shrink...

I understand that it's not free for them to get set up to pay UK tithes, and would be happy paying a reasonable surcharge for a bit of certainty

Click to shrink...

It's a bit of a catch-22 for them. Without the volume of sales, it's a big cost to swallow. But without charging UK VAT at source, they're not going to get sales volume up (or back).

I do remain surprised that neither TaiwanGun nor GunFire reckon it's worth their while though.  They're essentially ceding the UK market to PatrolBase and the also-rans.

 

[Lozart]

It's a bit of a catch-22 for them. Without the volume of sales, it's a big cost to swallow. But without charging UK VAT at source, they're not going to get sales volume up (or back).

I do remain surprised that neither TaiwanGun nor GunFire reckon it's worth their while though.  They're essentially ceding the UK market to PatrolBase and the also-rans.

Click to shrink...

I agree entirely but equally I do think we're a bit guilty of overestimating how big a market the UK is compared to the rest of the EU. The bit that annoys me more is that US companies are happy to ship to us under the same regulations and I daresay we're an even smaller part of their market than we are to EU sellers. I think there is an amount of "you made your bed so lie in it" involved from EU sellers and to be fair to them I do agree that we seem to want to have our cake and eat it in as much as we left the EU but we still want to be treated as if we hadn't.

As far as selling through PB, DCA et al goes, it's a win-win for TG and GF. They can work on easy to manage bulk sales arrangements through retailers instead of individual purchasers, they know where they stand on VAT, Duty, joules legality and shipping costs and they still make margin. Plus all the whingeing customers direct their ire at PB and DCA instead of them. I can't say I really see where the appeal is for them to sort out a UK VAT registration.

 

[Rogerborg]

I can't say I really see where the appeal is for them to sort out a UK VAT registration.

Click to shrink...

Especially if anyone is still buying from them directly while putting the Polish VAT directly into their pockets as profit. The sad thing is that it can still work out to about the same price as buying in the UK (for some items) even when paying + 20% Polish VAT + 20% UK VAT + >£30 in postage and courier mugging.

 

[Tommikka]

I agree entirely but equally I do think we're a bit guilty of overestimating how big a market the UK is compared to the rest of the EU. The bit that annoys me more is that US companies are happy to ship to us under the same regulations and I daresay we're an even smaller part of their market than we are to EU sellers. I think there is an amount of "you made your bed so lie in it" involved from EU sellers and to be fair to them I do agree that we seem to want to have our cake and eat it in as much as we left the EU but we still want to be treated as if we hadn't.

As far as selling through PB, DCA et al goes, it's a win-win for TG and GF. They can work on easy to manage bulk sales arrangements through retailers instead of individual purchasers, they know where they stand on VAT, Duty, joules legality and shipping costs and they still make margin. Plus all the whingeing customers direct their ire at PB and DCA instead of them. I can't say I really see where the appeal is for them to sort out a UK VAT registration.

Click to shrink...

Especially if anyone is still buying from them directly while putting the Polish VAT directly into their pockets as profit. The sad thing is that it can still work out to about the same price as buying in the UK (for some items) even when paying + 20% Polish VAT + 20% UK VAT + >£30 in postage and courier mugging.

Click to shrink...

Not necessarily in the product area, but there were small US businesses who decided to stop UK sales due to the changes.

Its a judgement call for any business.

Is the administration and any other potential hassle with overseas sales worth the level business that it brings in?

A small number of sales aren’t worth the expense of registering in foreign countries to handle VAT/sales taxes and then having to account for all the sales then pay the total at the relevant point in time