Where to buy components now if you happen to live in Sweden

[รอเรือ]

Until March 1 this year I used to buy various components with origin of China from Aliexpress and Ebay.

From March 1, all mail items with a declared value that come from outside the EU Customs Union will have
VAT applied and a fee of SEK 75 will be charged by Postnord.

I don't say that I'd like to avoid VAT but the fees make it a bit expensive actually. I will probably stop my Hobby and begin with gardening or something else.

I've heard that a delivery route using Holland or Germany can avoid the fees to be charged. I presume doing that is not illegal.

What about you guys? Where do you buy your stuff nowadays?

[sundberg84]

I use m.nu, lawicel-shop.se and electrokit.se alot in Sweden. But as you said Europe as well. eBay search can be filtered to only show Europe. I have also used Mouser but it gets more expensive.

[mfalkvidd]

m.nu, lawicel and electrokit are where I check as well nowadays. Kjell, Biltema and Clas Ohlson also has some stuff.

How do you filter on Europe on Ebay? It doesn't work for me:

[sundberg84]

@mfalkvidd normally in the app by sliding out from the left. Sometimes it doesn't work or exclude sellers which has not specified. you can add Europe Warehouse or stock in the search as well.

[gohan]

@mfalkvidd look carefully, it says "0 results" so it is showing international sellers as option

[mfalkvidd]

@gohan oh. Sneaky. Thanks!

[mfalkvidd]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/kinaimport/

[รอเรือ]

I don't have Facebook (I'm one of the few). I've spent some hours finding where to buy a "Capacitive Soil Moisture Sensor" available in Europe but I can't seem to find one. Unless I'm willing to import one from China using Postnord of course.

Cheers!

[Nca78]

A few sellers on AliExpress are starting to have warehouses in Russia and Europe now. With this type of decisions from Sweden I think it will just become more common.
You can check https://eu.banggood.com/ also, it's supposed to be from EU warehouse.

[bjacobse]

I have family in Denmark, so I order my China packages to an address in DK, just keep the total price inclusive shipping below DKK 80
Maybe you have similar possibilities...

[gohan]

In the US they have services where you can have your items delivered and then they will make a single shipment to countries like Dominican Republic (I know because I've been there). I don't know if there are services like that in EU.
Just wait some time and EU warehouses will get more stuff in time.

[KimmoHop]

I used tme.eu when I was in a hurry to get some RFM69s. Their transport costs 7,90€/75SEK but it's UPS/DHL (the package arrives to door in few days).
I also used one local small company, who has Arduino stuff (from ebay or Ali) and delivers it with small profit. It's a bit more expensive but also a lot faster and no surprise costs.

Finnish Posti did not proceed with similar extra costs, maybe they try to develop automatic systems to work with China packets, so ebay is usable here - untill future VAT and customs rules at least

[รอเรือ]

I love this hobby but it's ridiculously expensive nowadays if wanting to buy just a few components.

For example today I found out that I need a small (TO-92) power regulator 5V to 3.3V. I can of course buy one (I have time to wait) but whatever I do I can not get one without ending up paying 100 SEK. (10 Euro).

Before I could just order a few (or even one) from Ali or whatever, paying almost nothing and a few weeks later I had one in my mailbox. I really wish that PostMord had put a value limit so that packages with a value below 100 SEK were excluded.

It's ridiculously expensive to pay 75 SEK fee for a package with goods value 3 SEK. That's what I think.

I also notice that PostMord needs another few weeks to deliver after that their fee has been paid. I can't see why they need to wait so long really.

Proposal: Set up a forum on MySensors dedicated for swedes (Swedish people) who like to trade electronic components with each other. Wouldn't that be possible?

Cheers!

[รอเรือ]

Sorry for the monologue!

Today I found a seller on E-bay that has most of the things that I will need. The new strategy is to buy many items from a single seller in a single transaction. Kindly asking him to put everything inside one box (We'll see if GONG TAO manages to do that)

The sellers store: https://www.ebay.com/str/modulefans

There are many other stores too of course but I think the above mentioned is quite good.

Cheers!

[gohan]

@รอเร-อ isn't that the same name as a seller on aliexpress?

[รอเรือ]

@gohan , I cant say. However buying using Ebay is probably more safe.

[Nca78]

You can buy on LCSC also, I bought a bunch of components there together with PCB (at jlcpcb, same company), price is not as low as AliExpress (and some US components are even more expensive than legit sellers like Arrows) but they have a lot of things at "Chinese price" that you can get all at once. I found a few things like connectors, battery protection IC etc that are hard to find or expensive on Ali/Ebay.