Holy Mess Samsung Galaxy S20 Series Skin

2/5

I had to pay about twice as much for shipping & VAT as I paid for the product itself – so for international customers it’s just not worth it. Very nice customer service though (hence 2 stars instead of 1).

C. Ruppert, Germany, 26 July 2023

Holy Mess Amazon Kindle Series Skin

iStyles responded:

Thank you for the review. We're sorry to hear about the import duties levied at the German customs for your Amazon Kindle Skin.

Our products are made in the USA and ship freshly made directly from the production facility - this is how we can offer such a large collection of designs with support for so many devices. We do not believe that there's anything similar or at the same quality level in the EU.

Import customs charge is effectively "VAT" and is already factored into the pricing of any other product that you purchase within Germany. Products that are sold on our web store do not include this charge - we only bill for the cost of the product and the shipping cost. VAT is for the "consumption of goods and services within a country" and is levied by the customs office of some (but not all) countries when the package is imported. It looks like they tagged on some administrative charge or there's a minimum customs charge amount per package in Germany as they billed you 9 euros for an item that cost only 13.50 euros. We suspect that if you have multiple Kindle Skins in the same package, it may still cost the same 9 euros at the customs.

We bill shipping at its cost price and our shipping quote is subsidised for multi-product orders. For example, it cost about 14.50 euros to ship one Kindle Skin to an international destination. You'll still pay only 14.50 euros to ship 10 Kindle Skins to the same destination (even though it'll cost us more to ship). Given the costly international postal charges, it'll be more worth it to ship multiple items in the same order rather than a single one. If you only need one item, one way to save will be to make a consolidated purchase with friends/family and share out the ship cost.

It may be possible for the import charge to be much less if paid for online. For example in France, if the import charge is paid online before the package arrives, the total cost is about half (~6 euros) of what the postman charges (~12+ euros) if he collects payment at the time of delivery instead.

We're sorry that this did not work out, but we're glad to hear that you had a good interaction with our customer service. Thank you for the 2 stars (instead of 1) !