Originally Posted by Tourist in MSN

I am in USA too. I bought one of my Tubus racks and one of my Racktime racks shipped to USA from Europe. And lots of bike parts plus one bike frame from Europe too. If you want a particular rack in USA and do not see it available at the moment, try a European seller. Some of them will have a high shipping fee for the first item, but on a larger order that can quickly be recoverd with lower costs. When they ship to USA they almost always do not include the VAT in your costs.

Some items can't be bought from Europe, too many sellers in USA complained to Ortlieb that they did not like the competition from Europe so Ortlieb told European sellers to stop shipping Ortlieb products to USA. Same with a few other brands, I think Shimano is on that list too. Before Ortlieb did that, I bought all my Ortlieb products from Europe and paid a lot less for them.

But if your credit card charges 3 percent on foreign currency transactions, and many cards do, that can be a surprise when you see your credit card bill.

A few months ago I even bought a bike part on Amazon.de (in Germany) because Amazon in USA did not carry that item. I have a credit card with no foreign currency conversion charges, so I told Amazon to charge my card in Euros to avoid Amazon charging the conversion fee. I paid about $12 in shipping (did not get the Amazon free shipping), but it was worth it.