Barrister & Mann - sold in Europe ?

So what is the reason for all these different shipping prices? Are they using different couriers? Do some countries have to pay taxes or other fees that other countries don't?

I don't have all the answers, but some factors are:

* Handling time and packing material costs: Maybe it takes the same time to pack a 200 gram item as it does 1 kg, and the box sizes might be the same.  Also, are you getting a box or a padded envelope?
* Frequency of carrier movements, some place out in woop woop might need a specific truck/plane/ship for the mail, whereas a very frequent route might allow for an arrangement with an airline to just cram parcels in whatever free space they have.
* Different countries pay their employees different amounts, maybe the carriers have different fuel costs depending on subsidies and so on.
* Some vendors might get bulk discounts on their shipping rates or have some other arrangement (flat rates).
* Shipping costs might sometimes be partially built into the item price.

The last one is highly unlikely. The European products at Shaving.ie and Connaught Shaving are the cheapest I've seen. Shaving.ie actually sells the Saponificio Varesino soaps for cheaper than SV sells them for direct. As for packaging, it depends on what you order. When I bought a Muhle R41 head and a couple soap/cream samples they arrived in a padded envelope, but when I bought full size soaps and brushes they arrived in nicely packed boxes. Other than those two things, I think you may be right on some other points you brought up. I was thinking though, that there may be feels imposed by the specific countries that are higher than others.

Anyway, B&M soaps are not sold in Europe.

The last one is highly unlikely. The European products at Shaving.ie and Connaught Shaving are the cheapest I've seen. Shaving.ie actually sells the Saponificio Varesino soaps for cheaper than SV sells them for direct. As for packaging, it depends on what you order. When I bought a Muhle R41 head and a couple soap/cream samples they arrived in a padded envelope, but when I bought full size soaps and brushes they arrived in nicely packed boxes. Other than those two things, I think you may be right on some other points you brought up. I was thinking though, that there may be feels imposed by the specific countries that are higher than others.

I think it happens more frequently than you think, retailers can sometimes buy their products from the manufacturer at a surprisingly large discount to the MSRP. I've also seen some instances where the manufacturers set their prices higher than the MSRP (or allow the retailers to go lower) to drive traffic towards the retailers, though that wasn't in the shaving world. I can't speak for Shaving.ie and Connaught since I've never used them, but since you mentioned for the latter (bolded by me):

Another merchant with very low shipping is Connaught Shaving located in the United Kingdom. I can order something lightweight like a razor head and pay around $2.00 shipping, and the same for samples. If I order 1 soap I usually pay around $4.00. I just added a jar of 100ml Valobra to my cart to check. It cost $4.00 for 1 jar, and only $4.80 for 2 jars, and $5.40 for 3 jars. Those are really cheap shipping prices. If I buy $90 or more the shipping is free.

If the shipping is free for orders over a certain price, then either the shipping price is built in to the item price, or Connaught gets free shipping from the UK post office or whoever's sending it, which seems very unlikely to me. The same holds for domestic shipping in other places, Maggards does free domestic shipping for orders over $75 and again I doubt that they have a deal with USPS for free shipping.

An even more extreme example would be various stores based in China where shipping is free regardless of the order size, but my packages from them always came with stamps showing a dollar value (RMB value?) on them.

Welcome to the EU customs "mafia". It's just as the OP says, and yes, it makes us think it twice before ordering.

Shavingstation.co.uk used to sell the Black Label soaps, but these are no longer made.

UK Customs has a limit of just £15 on anything bought outside the EU and sold by a vendor, above which we pay 20% VAT on the item cost. For items marked as Gift, the limit is increased to £34. VAT is also charged on the shipping cost, believe it or not. Furthermore, any item attracting VAT is subject to a fixed rate Royal Mail Handling Fee of £8, irrespective of the item's value. For an item costing say £16 from a vendor in the US, this means approximately an extra £12. Occasionally items pass through without charge, but not often. I have refused to pay the fees on a couple of individual items where the additional fees were not far short of the item cost to begin with. It then gets returned to sender at Royal Mail's inconvenience, I hope.

The main problem is that selling non-EU-made cosmetic products in EU requires that either the manufacturer or the importer certify them. Getting this certification is a bit complex, especially for "artisans".
Maybe Barrister_N_Mann can chime in...

The main problem is that selling non-EU-made cosmetic products in EU requires that either the manufacturer or the importer certify them. Getting this certification is a bit complex, especially for "artisans".
Maybe Barrister_N_Mann can chime in...

This one is the primary reason that we don't currently have any retailers in the EU. For us especially, the fragrances do not comply with IFRA (and thus EU) regulation. The IFRA has no jurisdiction in the United States, so we don't HAVE to comply with their regulations, and I, for one, prize oakmoss so thoroughly that I have absolutely no objection to using it, overbearing fragrance regs be damned.

That said, it's clearly a problem. There's a HUGE demand for American shaving products in the EU and, because of the regulatory framework, only Fine and a couple of others have yet gone through the whole process of getting certification. We're working on it ourselves (the new Barrister's Reserve line is entirely IFRA and EU compliant, though it will still require licensing and certification when we get to that point), but it's a long-drawn out, and often fairly expensive process that many US artisans are simply not willing to undertake.

Why do they prohibit oakmoss?

Why do they prohibit oakmoss?

There's a compound that occurs naturally in oakmoss called atranol, to which 1 in 500,000 people can have a mild skin reaction. But the IFRA (which is an industry watchdog group) is so paranoid about lawsuits that they heavily restrict or ban anything that might present even the slightest possibility of causing an issue. Unfortunately, the damage to the perfume industry caused by the oakmoss restriction has been catastrophic, destroying many of the greatest masterpieces in all of perfume as they were reformulated in order to comply with the new regulation.

How can someone put an import tax when an item is posted as a gift? How they estimate its value? Do they open the package or ask you in the post office about the item? This makes no sense to me.

Fargo:

1. Packages being mailed abroad from most countries (including the USA) require a customs label be filled out declaring what the contents of the package are and the value, and whether it is a gift or not.
   
   I bought something recently from a Spanish vendor who told me they only had to do this on items over a certain value, which makes no sense as it is the customs inspectors in the recipient's country who care what the value of the package is, and who universally have the right to open the package and assign a value if one is not given. And that is unlikely to work in the recipient's favor as they will try to use a local price, which naturally will be higher than your anticipated total cost including shipping. As my total value was under the threshold that is permitted, I instructed my vendor to fill out a form anyway - but when the package arrived I saw that they hadn't. I was fortunate that my package was not stopped by Canada's customs - a customs-assigned Canadian retail value would have resulted in charges that would have more than doubled my cost. I could buy it cheaper here in that case. And that's the idea, really behind duties and import fees.
   
2. Danish postal imports/customs system is harsh, no question. But it is not all that dissimilar to Canada's, and I would assume many other countries - for example the UK, as Optometrist wrote about in Post #15 above.
   
   Canada is allowed postal imports up to CAD$20 (approx USD$15) without risk of them being subject to being stopped by customs, assessed duty (shaving supplies are 6-6.5% unless they're made in the USA) and that's on the converted-to-CAD total including postage paid, then Canadian sales tax is applied on the subtotal. Sales tax varies by province, but averages 13%. Finally, a flat-rate CAD$9.95 'handling' fee is charged by Canada Post. This is all on top of the postage already paid to the vendor, of course, and is payable either at the post office or via credit card at the door if the mailman has that option.
   
   If a foreign non-commercial entity sends a package to a Canadian non-commercial entity and declares on the form that the item is a gift, the limit is raised to CAD$60 (approx USD$46). Unlike Denmark, Canadian (and it seems UK) imports under either limit are not charged a processing fee, so they'll arrive with no payment due.
   
   And due to the volume of packages passing through the system, not all sent via a national postal system are stopped and assessed, so sometimes we get lucky and don't have to pay anything to receive a package that technically should have been assessed. But we should always consider the worst case cost as the 'likely cost' and make our purchasing decision based on that, and not on past good luck.
   
   Using a courier such as UPS, FedEx, DHL etc. guarantees that duty (if applicable), taxes and additional fees (brokerage, prepayment of fees service charge, fuel tax charge) will need to be paid on delivery, making using them too expensive to even consider for most personal shopping items. eBay's Global Shipping Program also guarantees full payment always, so is to be avoided.

And in case you wonder why I don't just buy 3 or 4 soaps at a time and stating the value to a very low amount to avoid tax and customs - there is a fee involved as soon as the custom just glance at the aprcel, that fee is $25, then they charge 27% of the stated value of the parcel on top of that.

If you don't state a value, the parcel can be hold by the custom until you can prove how much the shipped goods are worth.

This rule applies to all EU countries, in order to avoid 'unfair trade competition'

Otherwise we would buy all our goods in the US, because everything is cheape in the US than in Europe, even with shipping included.

CHSeifert, I was curious to see what your country's import limits and rules on gifts were, so I did a quick Google search. I found this page about sending gifts to Danish recipients (undated) and more generally this (updated Sept 2014). The 2nd link says the non-gift limit is 80DKK, which is about USD$15.50 today, so similar to Canada's limit. The first link says the gift limit is 344DKK; in the quote below I've crossed out the USD equivalents as they're not current):

2. VAT Rate on Gifts in Denmark

Unsolicited gifts sent from one person to another person are free of VAT and duty charges as long as the value is less than DKK 344 or US$ 62.62. Several gifts can be sent in a single shipment. Each gift must be wrapped separately and tagged with the recipient's name. The limit is DKK 344 or US$ 62.62 per person, not for the entire group of recipients (e.g. a small group of family members in Denmark).

Elsewhere, I saw 340 DKK for the gift limit... either way, that's about USD$52 today. It also says the standard postal inspection fee, unavoidable, is 160 DKK (about USD$24 today). Ouch. However, Denmark's "minimum wage"(a calculated average) is almost double the Canadian and US averages, so although that is a lot of money for a mere processing charge, relatively speaking, it's not as proportionally high as it first seems. That said, it is more than is reasonable, especially when all incoming packages are charged it.

If all of the above is accurate and you can find someone in the USA to buy them for you and remail them, 5x USD$11 soaps (as an example) could be sent under the "gift" allowance. Some stores, like MenEssentials.com have free shipping over $x ($50 in ME case). Your Ameri-friend would pay USD$22.50 for USPS First Class International to Denmark. Add your $24 inspection fee, and if my math is right that's USD$101.50 for 5 pucks of soap. So USD$20.xx/puck.

Just curious, what does a local shaving shop charge for a comparable product?