Shipment of phones

[Marc Verwerft]

Hi all,

Since the order and shipment of the phones is coming closer, I thought
I should share this.

A couple of years ago I bought speakers from a Thai company. They were
shipped through TNT using EXW incoterm to Belgium - EU. They were
listed at 150$ (roughly 130 euro at that time) in Thailand. When they
arrived I had to pay an extra 95 euro for tax/customs - rights.

I contacted TNT about this and they told me that it was because the
company shipped the goods using EXW (see also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterm).
According to the helpdesk from TNT, if the company would have used CIF
on their invoice, it wouldn't have made a price difference for them,
but I would end up paying only 30 euro. Which is considerably less
then 95 !!

There is an entry in the Wiki about shipping notes, but before I
posted anything there I wanted to check/compare/confirm the above.

Any comments or similar experiences with buying goods from outside EU anyone?

Regards,

Marc.