More Ebay Bike Buying Tips – Buying an Easton EA70 Stem Internationally

Hi all, and just a quick Friday tip for you today based on some of my ebay activities last week.

I’m currently buying up all the bits I need to build up my new Specialized Enduro S-Works and, always on the lookout for a bargain, I was looking on ebay for a decent stem. I came across a few good deals on Easton EA70 stems, but one in particular caught my eye at the bottom of the search, in the international dealers section.

An easton EA70 stem

Now, I don’t know if a lot of folk know this, but when you’re selling an item you can select which countries you’ll ship to. On the opposite side, when you’re searching you can also choose to include international sellers who have selected the option to ship to your country. Well, next time you’re looking for bike kit check out the USA sellers that are willing to ship to the UK because the weak dollar combined with generally cheap kit in the US means you can get some bargains. You’ve gotta watch out for shipping costs obviously, but in the end I found one seller who would give me a brand new (but old model, 2006 I think) Easton EA70 Stem for £8, and ship it to the UK for £7. That’s a bargain in anyone’s book!

I thought I’d wait until it arrived to post the tip here and it just arrived yesterday so I can now wholeheartedly advocate buying abroad. One warning though, there is a good chance that you will get charged import tax, which is only fair I guess, but that only adds around 17.5% I believe – same as VAT – so my stem was still a bargain.

So, anyone recommend a good US fork exporter….?

[tags]mountain bike, buying internationally, ebay, easton, ea70, stem[/tags]