Play.com for deliveries to Germany

I recently tried to order a game and music cd from Play.com but it said that they could only deliver to UK. I have had no problems doing this before and it really sucks as Christmas is coming up

I dont know where else to get cheap English stuff that delivers here.

No, they deliver fine. You just need to change the currency to Euro.

Change the currency here (at the bottom):

do not know if the have stopped. I used them a few years ago and it got stopped by customs here because it is delivered from Guernsey ( Or Jersey??)

However here is a good link that that give the cheapest prices.

http://www.best-dvd-price.co.uk/

Just had a look and a CD I ordered seems to be coming from the USA even though I didn't see it was.
What are the customs implications?

They will only deliver to the country where your CC is registered, for the first order. After that you can get it sent anywhere.

when mine was stopped ( 3 years ago!) I had to sign something and it arrived eventually 5 weeks later. In the meantime I complaind to Play that it had not arrived, they sent another one out and arrived in 3 days. Eventually the other arrived.

(and yes I am honest, I contacted play and asked them did they want me to return and they said just keep it as it was only a 10 Euro CD and they did not want to pay the return P and P)

Thanks for the tip it worked now! Brilliant!

Why should they be any different from when they come from Jersey?
I've received DVDs direct from the USA that have arrived more quickly than from play.com.

Shouldn't be any different from any non EU warehouse but I get the impression that our dearly beloved Zollbeamte take a closer look at stuff with origin USA.

I've ordered quite a lot of CDs through Amazon that have come from America and never had any problems with customs.

I've bought a DVD from the states and it took a little longer to arrive than normal but I didn't have to pay anything extra.

I think Germany classifies Jersey as a third world country for tax purposes. I've been hit for taxes in the past when using play.com for DVDs, so now I just use Amazon.co.uk (or else send the package to my parents, and pick it up when I'm back in the UK).

Does Amazon.co.uk send to Germany?

Yes! Amazon Uk & Amazon US will deliver to Germany. I have ordered a lot of books & DVDs from them. Delivery is quite fast. I have ordered from the UK site on a Thursday and received my stuff on Saturday that same week. I haven't had any issues with Customs to date.

Not everything though. I tried to order a Magimix from amazon.co.uk and then they said they only shipped to the U.K

PES is correct.

They will deliver books, DVDs & CDs but there are restictions on electrical goods, software & other categories. You will need to check the specifics on the website.

the advantage of Play.com is they don't charge postage!! But we have noticed recently that they won't deliver all products to Germany. We sometimes got pc games stuck in customs and once had to pay duty. Play said we should have just refused delivery and it would have been sent back to them, then we could have re-ordered the item! DVDs which are multilingual we buy from amazon.de!

Stuff from Jersey doesn't have VAT paid on it unless the supplier specifically has an arrangement with the country you are delivering to. Hence everything that comes into Germany from Jersey must have tax paid on it by the recipient. Of course customs have to actually check for this, so often the parcel will just get delivered without any request to pay tax. I ordered my camera this way (to the UK but the principle is the same), luckily customs didn't spot it and I saved over 100 quid!

Same happened to me, after waiting 3 weeks I got Play to send me a new (Lost Series 1 DVD) one which arrived the day before the via-customs original did. Then had to pay 7.50 duty - proportionally that's huge - not sure if there's a flat rate or a minimum charge.

Only happened to me the once, though I'm a bit more cautious with them now. cdwow.com also deliver free to Germany (and you can order in ukp or euro - as with play the price may sometimes be reduced in one currency and not in the other, so it's worthwhile checking). Interestingly I found that English books on amazon.de are cheaper than on .co.uk - is it a tax thing?

Last time I ordered it was the opposite, but anyway, it can't be tax, as they're zero-rated in the UK, and reduced rate of 7% in Germany.

Slightly off topic, but I have ordered cd's and dvds, 10 orders in total from Amazon Uk and it took average2 weeks for each to be delivered while 3 got lost and were never delivered so had to ask for a refund.

Now I send them to my UK address and pick them up from there.

Have play.com only recently added the currency selection option? It's quite useful if you have a credit card that charges a fee for non-Euro transactions.


play.com must have such an agreement then. Their packaging always has "UK VAT paid" written next to the price.

We used to use play.com but we were stung for VAT over here and had to pay it in order to collect the package. We complained but the German Customs told us that as it had come from Jersey to Germany then we had to pay the vat in Germany and not the UK.

We called play.com and they were very vague about the tax situation but did agree to re-imburse us our UK paid vat.

I've also had a lot of problems with Play.com. Not the company itself; they've always been very good to deal with. But all the packages I've ordered (five or six) have taken at least a month to arrive, complete with Zollamt stickers and forms. I've since switched and only order from amazon.co.uk and have had no problems.

I've had trouble as well. One package got intercepted by the Zollamt and never arrived, but others have got through. They take ages though, up to about 10 days. Generally speaking I've found Amazon UK to be more reliable; IMHO the extra three quid or so you have to pay for delivery is worth it for getting your stuff sooner.

But I suspect that won't help it getting through German customs. Don't forget Jersey is outside the EU in terms of customs, so the German customs will want import duties and German VAT to be paid no matter what. Paying both German and UK VAT and duties is stupid, you either tell play.com not to add UK taxes to your order (i don't know why they do if they know the delivery address is in Germany, but it seems they are happy to refund it) or you get it delivered to the UK and then forwarded to Germany.

Seems to be hit or miss wether they charge you. Ive ordered alot of things from play, possibly at least 50 DVDS (During the early days of me being in Germany and didnt want German DVD covers, yes I know stupid). Havent got charged once. Sometimes there is a security check sticker on it, but still no charge. Not sure if its conincidence, but the large packages such as DVD box sets take longer and more often than not are security checked.

Play.coms exchange always looked a little unfavourable, so I brought it in Pounds on my German Credit Card and payed the cards exchange rate.

But now Play.com have stopped this, dont know why. Only delivering to the UK when paying in pounds.

Suppose with the introduction of 19% MwSt, will buy more from Play.com!

Play.com have a massive sale on, lots of products for only £5 including clothing. This may interest some of you as they don't charge for delivery to Germany. However iirc you can't order the gadgets to Germany. Check here.

I've just ordered 2 CDs through play.com. Price was excellent, 17.99€ on amazon.de 9.99€ on play.com. Took 9 days to deliver. No problems with customs.

They have now!

K

Strangely it seems that there is only a problem with customs from Play.com when it starts getting closer to Christmas.We order a lot off them and we never have a problem but if we order closer to Christmas then the German customs gets in touch

Errr, duhhhh! They have to exact maximum piss-off value - so Christmas is the perfect opportunity

Or am I being a teensy bit cynical?