Why prices of are high while shopping from International Websites ?

The continuous question that we all ask, why are the goods so expensive when it reaches us from a foreign land? Just by converting the given price in Nepali won’t work. The price of a product might be 1000/- NPR on an international shopping website but you might have to pay 2000/- NPR by the time it reaches your door.

Many people might not be aware of it but there are a lot of costs and charges that occurs in between.

1. Sales tax: most of the items shown in online stores are inclusive of all taxes but in some online stores the price shown might not be inclusive of sales taxes. So, we pay the taxes for that as well.
2. Domestic Delivery charges: For some product the online store might take delivery charges depending upon customer’s location or supplier’s location.
3. International Shipping charges: mostly, this is calculated according to the weight of the product including it’s packaging. But sometimes, the package may be considered irregular if it’s a non-standard material or if it’s an irregular shape, then they may have additional charges. For Example, if your item has less actual weight but high volume, importing such product might be expensive.
4. Custom Charges: Government of Nepal has imposed different tariff rates for different items. The custom charge of most of the goods varies from 10%-20%. Only some items like cars, which fall under luxury items, have higher custom charges. You can know the custom charges on their official website as well. http://www.customs.gov.np/en/tariff.html
5. VAT: Value Added Tax is a tax imposed on the value added to goods and services consumed in Nepal or exported outside. In Nepal all products and services are subject to 13% VAT. Expect for tax-exempt goods and services like books, the purchaser will not pay VAT. You can know more on their website https://www.nepal.gov.np/NationalPortal/view-page?id=94
6. Custom clearing agent charge: We need to pay to the company who will be providing the logistics. They prepare and submit documents required to facilitate imports, represent us (their client) during customs examination, assessment, and payment of duty.
7. Bank charges: we cannot pay directly to the international shopping sites. We have to take help from the bank, as the amount needs to be paid in foreign currency.

Only after clearing all the processes and charges, we get to deliver the product to our customers. Despite all these aggravation and trouble, we take the responsibility to deliver the product safely.