The last three orders/shipments to arrive this year have been put on hold by
customs here in Germany. Full import/customs procedures were required and
the last shipment got completely stuck at customs now for following reasons:
- the shipment contains no commercial invoice and no shipping list!
- the shipments contains no paper/imformation about the order # at/from Seeed
- the address of the sender is not Seeedstudio but some address in Hong Kong
For above reasons customs does not accept the printouts of the Seeedstudio
order form and product descriptions (with pictures) from the Seeedstudio
online shop I presented when attempting to collect the shipment!
Customs has informed me that the only way to clear the shipment and to get
it through customs will be an official custom validation process that is aimed
at establishing the exact custom code and value for each item. The process
can take up to one year and the cost can be up to US$ 3000 for each item.
The cost will not be reimbursable (like import tax), so it would be tax detuctable
for a commercial entity (company etc.).
I will try to talk to a different custom officer next week (after easter) and
hope that I will somehow succeed in convincing them to accept the printouts
of the invoice and product descriptions from Seeedstudios online shop.
However, it seems to become impossible to import anything that is declared
as a gift and shipped to a company in Germany but does not contain proper
commercial shipping papers that list the contents and the value of each item
including the standardized (international) custom code!
Because of this development I urge Seeed to consider my above suggestion
and provide a choice of gift or commercial shipment when placing an order.
The trouble and possible expenses I am facing now make further orders from
my side very unlikely unless an option for commercial shipping will be made available.
P.S. This is not an April 1st fool joke 