and whats the deal with all the best parts being in the US!?! I'd be straight in there with some of the stuff for sale over there but for those god damn import duties....
And if these parts were in the UK they would be marginally more expensive to start with. Out of interest, what parts are you finding on US Egay that aren't available in the UK?
If any UK business took off UK VAT the prices would look nice wouldn't they?
US sales tax is 5-6% depending on the state IIRC. Haven't been over in a few years. Japan is 5% consumption tax. Ours is a whopping 17.5%. But we have free healthcare, free housing, free everything. Well, unless you are a tax payer and earn good money. Then you just get raped each month for tax to pay for the above that you'll never use as you get BUPA at work and pay your inflated mortgage on time.
Ebay has destroyed the market for performance parts as it is. The likes of Exedy, Tein, Mugen and Spoon to name but a few urge people
not to buy from Ebay as you can't be sure you are getting legit goods. Ebayers also hack off the big customers who sell and stock Exedy, Tein, Mugen etc product and who actually have overheads, stock and staff to pay!
With the pressure from consumers to compete with Ebay, legit businesses struggle to make ends meet, and to be honest, struggle to warrant the actual effort of running the business! No way I would stick £20 on a Spoon N1 and be happy with that profit! All the admin work, stress and risk or running a business for £20 on an N1.
But an Ebayer selling from his bedroom has no risk, no staff, no tax, no VAT, no council tax, no business rates. And its fair to say a high % of the Japanese scene don't care about the above, they just want it as cheap as possible and to hell with the supplier having X, Y, Z more to pay for than bedroommotorsport.com's ebay shop.
I ordered a Apexi RSM from an Ebay "
tuning" shop (and I use the word tuning lightly!) as I was desperate, guy said he had them in stock in Sheffield. Arrived a week later, it had come from Singapore to the office direct and was marked as being worth £20.00 to avade taxes.. His price was similar to our selling prices. He is actually making a lot more profit than us as a huge chunk of our price is shipping, duty, fees and VAT!
I've found dozens of threads on here as well as ITR-DC2, ITR-DC5 and even NSX Club Britain where members are clearly avoiding taxation on incoming goods to keep the US prices "cheap". HM Revenue and Customs have these charges to protect UK companies and to keep UK companies trading, a deterant to prevent people trying to buy from overseas and cut out our UK businesses. Jesus, I can buy anything in China at 1/10 the retail price here! Its not hard if you have the right contacts.
Think about how many companies have gone bust this year alone, now think about that being your employer gone bust. The boss coming in and saying "sorry lad, bank has shut our overdraft, all our big customers are buying off US Ebay now". Now imagine that virus spreading throughout the country. Nobody in this country is going to have any money to buy the cheap Ebay products anyway! They'll be no employment! Its very basic economics and its not just affecting this trade.
If you were in a skilled trade where your potential customers were importing the same thing direct from X country and avoiding taxes to make it cheaper than you, wouldn't you be hacked off? Its not as though the margins in these parts are decent to start with (expect Homebase to make a minimum of 60% on everything they sell BTW - some of the stuff I used to sell to them they were making 80%!!! Remember that on a Sunday afternoon being dragged round Homebase or B&Q with the wife looking at paint colours!
) so the room for movement on prices is minimal. Normal retail margins do not apply in this trade!
Spoon Europe discount is 10% off RRP. J's Racing 15% off. By the time you take 5% off to be competitive, 2% for credit card, you are left with £7-8 in every £100 you turn over! Hardly a reason to want to resell their product is it?
We are lucky to have a network setup in Japan to allow us to buy anything we want at a fairly decent price. But we aren't far off the margins mentioned above. I feel for the guys I know in this trade that don't have the luxury of being able to buy what they want at a good price, but rather relying on UK distribution, so they make no real return. Just enough to scrap through. And I know of plenty of guys in this situation.
Think about what £20,000 a year gets you a day, in your pocket, my guess is around £60 after tax. Now think about how much turnover is needed a day to generate enough money to pay 2 members of staff (add 20% on top of the salary for PAYE and other fees), 2000 sq/ft storage (around £900 a month + VAT), phone bill, internet, hosting fees for a website, council tax, business rates, VAT, bank fees and all the other wonderful things that cost money in the UK. You are looking at around £80,000 a month turnover / £2500 a day required to just cover your costs. Before profit, investment in stock etc.
And all of this is before returns, before cancelled orders, before card fraud (we'll lost a few £k this year I can tell you!) and before you think about advertising costs.
I can really see an ebay shop having to cope with all that.
Food for thought.
