i love eBay...

[Smiler]

Pity about the pendant really, I always seem to be ahead of the curve where Zapp is concerned ;)

I sympathise totally on the transport costs issue. On Friday I ordered 2 lengths of 20mm x 6mm 304 stainless flat to make a simple carpet edging strip for a spiral staircase. Material came to 25 quid plus the dreaded. They didn't have it in Glasgow so it needs to be shipped to them, £30 please. Oh and there is another £30 to drop it in to Arran Haulage (company who delivers to the island) and then AH sticks on another £70 to deliver it to the island. 2 lengths of flatbar, £130 delivery and we haven't even picked up a hammer yet!

Gets even better if you need something galvanising. Delivery cost to Glasgow, delivery to the Haulier, delivery to the island, delivery back to glasgow for galvanising (and now as it is a finished job it is bigger so price spirals), delivery back to the island. The last job we sent over cost over a grand in just delivery charges (Small spiral staircase). It has got so bad that it is cheaper to use the highest grade stainless steel over here for gates and railings than to have them galvanised. Hauliers here blame diesel prices but we've noticed that since the price of fuel went down, their prices have stayed the same or increased.

And in case you don't know where we are, Arran is only 14 miles from the mainland, including the ferry journey I can be in glasgow in 2 hours from home, it's not like we are in the middle of the Atlantic.

regards, Jeff.

[Jeremy]

I'm pretty familiar with the whole UK transport cost issue, as I've been involved in importing container loads of stuff from the US to here in the past. Like you I have always been staggered at the high charges from handling agents and internal UK transport - it always seems like money for old rope to me.

Last time I did a personal import by sea (a second-user Mistubishi Pajero from Japan) I avoided quite a bit of the cost by going down to the docks at Dublin and dealing with the paperwork myself. The only snag I had was getting my container down from a massive pile of several hundred of the things and persuading the dockies to put it somewhere where I could open it and drive the car out!

All told that was an interesting exercise in faith, as I bought the car, sight unseen, from a Japanese auction, relied on a Japanese agent that I didn't know to deal with the deregistration, export paperwork and packing into the container and had the excitement of opening the container doors several weeks later not knowing quite what I'd find inside!

Still all worked out OK and I even managed to avoid VAT and duty by temporarily registering the car in Eire, driving it over the border to NI, re-registering it there on NI plates and driving it back home to Scotland, where I then lived. At that time second hand imported cars were exempted from tax and duty in Eire, making it the obvious place to bring in goods from outside the EU.

Jeremy

[Jeremy]

I used to be acquainted with a chap who, lived on Arran (we lived in Portpatrick, D&G, at the time). He had an arrangement with a chap on the mainland who collected and stored any delivery for him and he'd periodically pop over on the ferry and collect everything at once.

Of course, this only works if there's little urgency and there is already a need to make regular trips to the mainland. In his case, he ran a guest house I think, so had a fairly regular requirement to go ashore for major provisioning runs.

Now you've made me remember the chap, I'm struggling to recall his name, Roger something or other. As I recall he was Plymouth Brethren, so didn't drink, although he was fair company in the bar, all the same.

Jeremy