by AnI » Sun Nov 18, 2018 8:11 pm
If you chose to order from Europe, you should deal with a well established merchant with a good reputation, and the price difference should be large enough to justify the risk. The risk comes from the difference in shipping rates from Europe to the US and from US to Europe. You may get a reasonably priced shipping to the US, but if something is wrong with the merchandise, e.g., you get not what you ordered or will get into an issue of damage in transit, you would have to pay hundreds of dollars to return the item to the vendor. It does not matter that shipment to the US may have costed $30 or $50. Pricing is not symmetric. Shippers easily accessible to general public, such as FedEx or UPS, may charge you several hundreds of dollars to ship skis back to Europe, while USPS will not accept them for international shipping at all due to length limitations. So, basically, you cannot return skis or boots which you got from Europe. The cost of shipping back to Europe may be more than the cost of the skis. You buy them at your own risk with no option to return.
Some merchants may list only price with VAT on their web site, but they would count VAT into the shipping cost, which enables them to offer a heavily discounted rate. Free shipping sounds a little suspicious.
I would not order from Europe unless the price difference is significant enough to warrant the risk, or if I cannot find them at all at home (of course, I prefer to buy from a supplier who I can trust, or from E-bayer with a stellar rating).
A friend of mine bought two pairs of Head skis from Spain two years ago (from Snowinn). Everything worked out well. There was no tax or customs duty. Skis arrived in less than two weeks, maybe even within a week.
My purchase from Switzerland a year ago, from nearly not as established merchant as Snowinn, was a different story. Merchant misrepresented the item on the web site, and it was a long fight. PayPal, through which the payment was made, was of no help and basically left me on my own. They said, return item to the merchant with carrier which offers tracking to delivery, upload the tracking number, and we will refund the cost of the purchase when the merchandise is returned. They called it decision in my favor, with no possibility to reopen the case or dispute. The trouble was,this could work with domestic shipping, but not with international. The item's cost was $400 and cost of return shipping traceable to destination in Europe was $300, which I was supposed to pay out of my pocket and absorb as a loss.
Skate Pro which you are asking about has a 2.5 star customer rating on Trustpilot with many negative reviews. All I can say, good luck.