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 Post subject: Buying cheap equipment from Asia to Europe
Post #1 Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2022 1:39 am 
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KGS: Wolfhtt
Hi y'all. I was wondering if anyone from Europe had any experience buying go equipment in bulk from asian websites such as 6brothers.
We have recently started a new go club and we were thinking about buying plenty of equiment at the most conveninent price for our activities.
In particular, should we decide to go this route, i wanted to ask if it's a must that we seek the help from someone who can speak/write the seller's language, what kind of shipping costs we should take into consideration (delivery time is not an issue) and if we should expect any issue with customs.
Any advice is more than welcome. Cheers!

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 Post subject: Re: Buying cheap equipment from Asia to Europe
Post #2 Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2022 7:28 am 
Dies in gote

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Location: Karlsruhe/Germany
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Hello,

we have equipment from different sources including from 6brothers. Buying directly in Asia means to handle the customs yourself and pay higher shipping costs and import taxes.

That's why most of our equipment is bought in Europe, because that's easier and gives us more time to organize Go events.

Our first boards (~ 10 years ago) came from the regional branch of our national association.

I suggest you do the same. If your club is a success and you need more material, you may already have an Asian in the club to take care of the import, or you have enough money to please professional dealers in Europe with an order.

Greetings from Germany

Wilhelm

https://info.go361.eu/wiki/Go-Treffen

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 Post subject: Re: Buying cheap equipment from Asia to Europe
Post #3 Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2023 6:00 pm 
Dies in gote
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I bought ten sets of 6brothers gear this year and had them shipped to the US. My hope was to keep some mid-range options available on our online baduk shop while I fix up some vintage boards from Japan (too cold to do that at the moment).

Overall it wasn't a bad price with surface shipping, coming to about $70 USD per set for glass stones and a 1cm board made of ?mdf?. I'm hoping to pass them along with a very small markup, or at cost if bought in bulk. The quality was about what I expected, not great but not terrible.

The worst aspect was that the packaging of the two boxes was incredibly insufficient. Each outer box was super-flimsy, so they had large holes by the end of the surface-shipping journey. In addition, the stones were leaking out because the individual containers inside were not sealed shut in any meaningful way. Some of the containers had opened as they rolled around in that extra space. The result was a pile of mixed black and white stones that needed to be washed, sorted, counted, etc, adding a time commitment and turning the whole thing into an ordeal.

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Solomon (he/him/his)
Colorado USA
My Vintage Shop for Go Equipment


This post by Soromon was liked by: Wolfhtt
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