Will you order an X Marks kilt?

[Manu]

Alan,
My question is, do we have a final price yet? You know you can count with my at least 2 meters (depending on the price I might end up getting 2.5)

[Thistle Stop]

I was hoping that the mill might be prepared to cut off the 4 metres and pop it in the post to me, just before they shipped the 'bulk' off to you. I would still pay you for it, and pay the postage for my length direct to the mill! I suppose that would be too much to ask!!

Hamish, some mills will do this. They usually will not accept payment from more than one person for an order, including postage, so that part would have to be worked out. You would have VAT to pay, which would not be charged to a US recipient, so that needs to be factored in, too.

A possible way around the problem -- which I am not 'recommending', you understand, because it's not strictly legal -- would be to have your kilt tailored over here and then have one of your friends in the US take delivery of it and send it to you as a 'gift'. There is normally no tax or duty levied on gifts sent by post.

[Alan H]

Alan,
My question is, do we have a final price yet? You know you can count with my at least 2 meters (depending on the price I might end up getting 2.5)

No. It's going to be an absolute minimum of two more weeks before the N. Bately swatches get around to Steve, Bear, Matt and Cyndi. Probably three weeks is more like it. US Postal service told me a week from the SF Bay Area to Victoria, BC where Freedom Kilts is. He should have them any time, now.

Here's a timetable, starting NOW, May 3rd:

If the swatches go Steve to Bear to Matt to Cyndi with no delays it'll take roughly 3 weeks. This means the kiltmakers have to be on top of it and move them along, eh! It's now roughly May 24th. At that point, four kiltmakers/experienced kilt-lookers (and me!) will have seen the N.. Bately swatches. Rocky from USA Kilts will certainly have his by then. We can get a well-informed opinion regarding the N. Bately fabric at that time.

It'll take 2-3 days to get everyone to chime in with an opinion regarding the stuff. It's now May 27th. If the kiltmakers give the stuff the thumbs-up, I will go to N. Bately for a firm price and an estimate of shipping to the USA based on the number of meters I add up from replies to this post. As of right now we have "commitments" for a minimum order, plus a few meters.

We know exactly what the price is, delivered in Canada to Bear Kilts or Freedom Kilts, of the Fraser and Kirkbright cloth. Sending the material out from there will add cost, but the up-front price that Fraser and Kirkbright is offering us is good. It's just that I THINK I can save you all ten bucks a yard by working with N. Bately. I might be hallucinating, but I don't THINK so.

OK, so around May 27th or so, if all the kiltmakers cooperate and don't sit on the swatches forever, I will go to N. Bately for a firm price, and their estimate on carriage and duty to the USA. Cyndi has been so kind as to give me a rough idea of what that's going to be, and it's substantial. Anyway, I assume they'll be back to me with their price by the end of May and mid-week, first week of June. I know what a theoretical maximum on the price of the material ONLY is going to be, but I want a hard price on material, carriage, and import duty.

So now it's around June 1st. I pitch it to Highlandtide with our recommendations on what to do. If Hank turns around a reply quickly, then I move fast. Hank hasn't been online much lately I think, and he isn't answering my PM's, so I don't know what'll happen with that.

Around June 3rd. I publish the web page that's the order form. X-Markers who want to order fabric print the web page and write me checks and mail them to me. I'm planning on giving you all two weeks to get them to me. If somehow enough checks to make the minimum order sadly never arrive in my mailbox, then I'll e-mail/PM you all and tear up your checks. Then I'll go get drunk because I will have done a *+^&^%$# of work for nothing. I'm counting on you lads and lasses to step up to the plate when it comes time to send me dollars, OK? If you're gonna have excuses, tell me NOW, not a month from now!!!

Assuming enough money arrives, then after two weeks I go to the bank, cash your checks and wire a money order to N. Bately or Fraser and Kirkbright OR I send the money to the "distributor", the kind person/business who has a retail/resale license so that A.) we're leagal, here and B.) we get the "to the trade" discount, and are not paying retail cost for this.. It's now June 15th.

Six weeks later, the Mill ships the cloth. It's now August 1st. The cloth arrives at the home/business of whoever will serve as the distributor. That makes it about August 8th. By about August 14th, the distributor has shipped all your kilt material out to you. Depending on where you live, you'll get your X Marks tartan in mid-August.

OK, y'all got that?

Can't wait? Contact M.A.C. Newsome or Cyndi and get your yardage hand-woven by the person they know and use for custom work. It'll cost you $65 a yard and they'll turn it around in a few weeks. I'm targeting $50 a yard/meter, and hoping for $45 yard/meter. If I hit this I'll be saving you (and me) $40 on a "4 yard" kilt, $50 on a "5 yard" and $80 on an "8 yard". Do you want your kilt faster and are willing to pay for it? OK, then you know what to do. If you're going to do that, then TELL ME NOW because if two-three people pull out of the project now to do a custom order, that will bring us below the minimum order. IF you decide to go with the custom weave, but don't tell me, you're going to waste a month of my time, so PLEASE TELL ME.

[Alan H]

I was hoping that the mill might be prepared to cut off the 4 metres and pop it in the post to me, just before they shipped the 'bulk' off to you. I would still pay you for it, and pay the postage for my length direct to the mill! I suppose that would be too much to ask!!

I don't know of anyone over here who would be prepared to join with me in the way you suggest.

By the way, is each one of us to be responsible for having our own kilt made up by whomsoever we choose, or is the plan to have one kiltmaker over there make them all?

Well, if we wind up going with N. Bately, who knows... they might trim your yardage off and ship it to you. I mean, it can't hurt to ask, eh? There ARE a few gentleman on the forum from your side of the pond, but they haven't piped up about being interested in an X Marks kilts, so I'm afraid you're right on that account.

I've a notion how to get around that if we have to, which is basically what Cyndi suggests. We shall see. I can do that for one or two people, I can't do it for fifteen, you know?

Anyway, yes, this is for X Marks tartan material, ONLY. It didn't seem fair to limit people to one kiltmaker, and if we used a kiltmaker to actually order the stuff, it might not seem quite fair to the other kiltmakers on the forum since they'd probably get ht elions share of the business. I'm not interested in kicking off a kiltmaker fight!

That said, there IS a kiltmaker on the forum who has volunteered to serve in a yet-to-be formalized way as the central ordering and distribution point for all this. He doesn't produce tartan kilts at this time, so I'm a bit more comfortable with having him involved in this manner. If he did that, it's only fair for him to make a few dollars for his time and effort, don't you think? Another person on the forum who has a Scottish-products business and I have talked extensively about their possible involvement as the "distributor". We'll see how it all turns out. A lot will depend on which mill we go with for the cloth.

[Mike1]

Alan, one additional expense that you may want to figure in (albeit minor). The financial institution you deal with is going to ding you for the international funds transfer.

I recently sent funds to cover my accomodations in Bridge of Allan, later this summer and my credit union fee for the transfer was $32.00. A fellow I work with just purchased a puppy from a breeder in Budapest and his full-service bank charged $60.00!

You may want to check with your financial instituon for a fee.

[Thistle Stop]

I don't think the mill in the UK will estimate US Customs duty for you, in giving you a price, unless they have a US distributor for their product and ship it over here frequently. It's very difficult to get a fixed price in advance for Customs duty, even from the Customs Service themselves! This is because there are umpteen different classifications for fabrics and they are not consistent about which one they apply. I have seen UK-origin fabric come in as low as 7% and as high as 25%. This is a real pain in the neck for pricing anything at retail, as you can imagine, and it's part of the reason why tartan yardage is so expensive (though not the major reason -- the base price on it is high to begin with). For consumers in the UK/EU, the yardage is just as expensive as it is over here because they have to pay 17.5% VAT on it, in addition to postage costs. I have never bought yardage produced in Canada, so I don't know what the Customs duty is on it, or if there is even any charged by US Customs. Every country is different.

I have a range of T-shirts made with fabric loomed in Morocco (no duty on that), sewn in Ireland (depends on where they go, whether there's duty from there), and printed in Scotland (uh-oh, now we're talking a UK 'origin'). On $3000.00 worth of T-shirts (wholesale cost), I have to pay over $900.00 in Customs duty and brokerage. Ouch! If I just brought in the fabric from Morocco, $0.00. If I brought in blank shirts and had them printed here, still a low cost on the duty from Ireland. But once they become 'Products of the UK', suddenly they become a premium target for Customs duty. It hardly seems fair, but that's the way it is! So, on these shirts, I have to charge $20.00 to $25.00 retail to make any money on them at all, whilst a consumer can go to Wal-Mart and get a similar-looking printed shirt, though not with the same graphics of course, for less than $10.00! My customers are paying $10 to $15 extra for the graphics and the 'Made in Scotland' label. The graphics are great, and my customers want Scottish-produced goods, and that's why I buy them. But it irritates me that I have to pay so much Customs duty just because they come from the UK.

'Offshore' products (meaning made in the Far East or Latin America, usually) are cheap not only because they are made with cheaper labour, but also because there is little or no duty charged on goods from those countries. The quality is usually a lot lower than on goods of European origin, but for some importers, that's less important. For me, quality is very important.

For good-quality worsted wool tartan, there is no 'offshore' manufacturer. I doubt if I would buy it from such a source, even if one existed, and I definitely wouldn't make it my primary source, because I am a 'Scottish goods' importer, but I might offer it as an alternative choice if the quality were high enough.

[Thistle Stop]

Alan, one additional expense that you may want to figure in (albeit minor). The financial institution you deal with is going to ding you for the international funds transfer.

I recently sent funds to cover my accomodations in Bridge of Allan, later this summer and my credit union fee for the transfer was $32.00. A fellow I work with just purchased a puppy from a breeder in Budapest and his full-service bank charged $60.00!

You may want to check with your financial instituon for a fee.

If you pay with a credit card or debit card, there's usually no currency conversion fee, and the processing fee is charged to the seller.

If the seller will agree, you can pay anyone who has an email address using PayPal -- they deal in many currencies. They charge the seller a processing fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

[Doc Hudson]

[quote="Hamish"][Yes, the cost of importing finished kilts, and presumably lengths of fabric, into the UK from the USA - that's the Duties, VAT, clearance, documentation and handling charges, and the shipping - can mean that 33% of the value of the goods has to be paid before the goods are delivered. I have been charged in that way several times when having my Utilikilts sent over. On the leather one, I had to pay something over £146 before the shipping agents would part with it!!

It just seems pointless for those of us in the UK to have to pay the American equivalent of those charges AND be charged again when the kilt or fabric is sent back to within 400 miles of the weaving mill!

Take care,
Ham.
quote]

Hamish,

You might want to check with Customs or Inland Revenue, but I don't think you'd have to pay Customs Duty on yardage returned from the USA. You'd still get stuck with the customs duties charged by the States, but on return, it would be British goods returned to place of origin. In the US, there is, or at least there was, no import duty levied on American made goods returned to the US from a foreight country.

I hope you can get your material straight from the mill, but if not, I think you should be able to dodge the import duty if it has to be mailed back to you from the states. Of course if you have the yardage converted into a kilt on this side of the water, all bets are off.

[Colin]

We know exactly what the price is, delivered in Canada to Bear Kilts or Freedom Kilts, of the Fraser and Kirkbright cloth. Sending the material out from there will add cost, but the up-front price that Fraser and Kirkbright is offering us is good. It's just that I THINK I can save you all ten bucks a yard by working with N. Bately. I might be hallucinating, but I don't THINK so.

Is N. Bately in the UK? If so, you will have a lot more in duty to pay ($39 just for a jacket last week). Bear in mind that with NAFTA there is no duty (to my knowledge)for the material to come from Canada. That may be the biggest cost savings for all of you. Personally I really like the wool I have received from F&K, and the service from Gordon Kirkbright and his associates was great, I am sure Bear and beerbecue will also agree with that. The problem with this lies with the folks that are not in North America, but to my understanding Hamish is here in August, and Graham is in CO. later this year (is this correct), and can pick up the material from someone there, or have it sent to a kiltmaker in the US or Canada if they prefer.

[chacbalam]

I work for a shipping business, and I do a lot of oversees shipping as well as recieving packages sent form various countries to the US. I have foun d that a good rule of thumb is to expect a 30% customs and duties fee, see Cyndi's post ($900 on $3000 of merchandise. Of course that can vary depending on country of origin and type of comodity, as well as on who is processing the shipment. There is just really no way of calculating the cost before hand. I never try to estimate duty costs, I just tell my customes to expect a 30% hit.