cost of getting small components shipped

[Grossel]

I wonder one little thing. How much should it cost for an average guy to get shipped a small mail package with some few components in order to repair some home electronic? How much does it normally cost in your home country?

Spoiler: Bad and boring reading - irrelevant unless actually living in Norway (or Sweeden)

As I live in norway, there are no proper domestic places where new components and spare parts can be purchased for older devices, So Using ebay or other foreign web sites is in most cases the only way to go.

Until now, every orders where total cost is below ~30$ (excact sum depends on currency) has being free of charge in terms of tax and import fee. That is very very good for everybody that need to do small repairs from time to time.

But - our elected goverment has decided to remove this limit, so that for every single mail package - no matter how small or lightweighted it is - the recipient have to pay tax. That is ok because a flat rate doesn't make it stupidly expensive.
The thing is - there will be a fixed tax fee about $20 - added to the tax. And THAT will truly make a very small mail package being stupidly expensive, and many repair jobs that was a simple fix before - will now simply just be too expensive, espechially if need to purchase another small part if it turns out that the first wasn't enough getting the device to work.
In other words - most of domestic electric apparatuses would be too expensive to repair.

This is a goot thing for many domestic companies that sell cheap clothes and other household items, because it prevents domestic users to buy cheap copies from china.

But for any one that does repair, not as profession but domestic - this is really the time to start bang the head in the wall, ther seems to be no cure for goverment stupidity

 

[sagor1]

It depends on what country. In Canada, a "small packet" of a few hundred grams is usually in the $4-$5CDN range, within Canada, and not to remote regions. Add more weight, and price quickly goes up.
Once one sends international, small packages start in the $20 range and get more expensive from there....

 

[Pommie]

I buy various things off of Ebay and the shipping is nearly always free on even AU$1 items. Here in Aus, to send a 100g jiffy bag just next door will cost me AU$8.50. To get something from Element14 (Farnell Australia) will cost me AU$20.

Mike.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I buy various things off of Ebay and the shipping is nearly always free on even AU$1 items.

Presumably those are all items coming from China?, they commonly provide free postage - but it's a slow process.

 

[Grossel]

Presumably those are all items coming from China?, they commonly provide free postage - but it's a slow process.

That is the case here too. In many cases shipment from China is free, but "normal price" from about every other country.
Other than that, shipment cost from closest country such as Germany, Poland and so is normally less pricy than from overseas (thinking about USA, as there are ocean between England too). But as for ebay, germany and poland is mostly used when I buy batteries for cell phones/laptops.