EU Shipping estimate

Framework Laptop 13
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I can’t believe we’re still having this discussion, but here we go again:

The EU could impose regulations requiring computer vendors in the EU above a certain size to offer all national keyboard layout, or all the layouts member states bother to include in a list of sorts, as an option to consumers. I don’t know if they do, but they could. That’s all I claimed.

Go to Tuxedo’s websites and you’ll see that they offer a lot of layout options. System 76 is not a EU-based vendor. When you buy a System 76 laptop you are the importer, a non-commercial importer at that, and you deal with customs and you pay VAT and duties directly to tax authorities. The thing doesn’t even come with an Euro powerplug.

And companies like Valve are not selling laptops. They sell media.

Edit: And by the way, Tuxedo does offer Slovenian.

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I’m from Slovenia and had an Asus laptop with German layout. I got used to it because its more similar than the US variant (shortcuts and such). Anyway neither the vendor not the company obviously didn’t had issues selling it to me.

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Shipito ftw :slight_smile: Using them for long time, so far no issues, at least not with them directly. Paying customs+VAT from price with DHL shipping to CZ/EU was painful, but still better than waiting months or years for Framework to establish EU branch…

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Thanks a lot for this. I used the same shipping company as you (never even thought about it). Now all I need to do is to wait until December batch and then shipping here and there :slight_smile:
Was it really just 8% for duties? That’s amazing…

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The 8% are the VAT in Switzerland. See this very nice post which explains it in detail: https://community.frame.work/t/waiting-for-eu-sales-or-importing/6806/25

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Hi Robert2! Welcome to Framework community :slight_smile:

In my case it was roughly 8% on duties as in the country I live VAT or taxes are 7,7%.

There’s the shipment cost (which I took the opportunity to add more stuff along so makes it a bit harder to calculate but let’s say… 50 USD) and that was it really.

Have been working with the laptop for… Almost a month now and pretty happy with it. Missing the ISO keyboard but I’m snatching that as soon as it’s available.

Also something I’ve discovered along the way… Warranty doesn’t apply somehow if you live in another country, nor refunds… So have that in mind.

Cheers

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Judging by the CH in your nick, I would make a guess we live in the same country :slight_smile: My experience so far is that usually I get an invoice from fedex or UPS with duties, but on top of it further payments for “processing fees” and whatever. Especially Swiss Post is an expert on this - duties are 5CHF, fees is 30CHF :slight_smile:
Still, I was expecting ~20% on top of the laptop costs, if it is really around 8%, it’s not only a great laptop, but also VERY price-competitive comparing to available products on the market.

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Your assumption is correct mein Freund.

With MyUS you can pay those upfront when reshipping the package. I’ve done it that way and so those additional charges are smaller.

However, like I said, I bought more stuff and so it’s hard to really calculate the exact value that was for the laptop… But wasn’t anything extraordinary. :slight_smile:

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“Could” is not the same as “does”.

They do not.

Case in point: I currently reside in the Netherlands. I am unable to order a laptop with a Dutch keyboard. Like, literally, it is extremely difficult to find such a thing.

And key point was: support and documentation. Okey, SOME tuxedo models (I looked through a few and it varies) offer Slovenian. Do you think you can call Tuxedo and get support in Slovenian? Err, no. You cannot. Extremely obviously. Neither can you get a Dell laptop with a Slovene KB here in NL. Hell, you can’t get a Dell laptop with a DUTCH keyboard here in NL. So OBVIOUSLY the EU gives zero shits about that. Similarly, PC Specialist, a retailer in the UK (previously EU member state), has had no problem selling to Sweden in spite of offering no Swedish support. (Edit#2: and where they offer “Swedish” keyboards, they are actually US KB’s with Swedish legends, so… err… Ouff… I was a bit pissed off when that happened. :stuck_out_tongue: It’s not a Swedish KB just because it has the symbols in the wrong places… :stuck_out_tongue: )

Another case in point is Tuxedo offers no keyboards for Bulgarian nor Croatian, on one model I hopped on to check just now. Oh, and no Dutch keyboard offered. Somehow Tuxedo is perfectly fine selling to the Netherlands but… no Dutch KB. Obvious how the EU gives many shits about keyboards on laptops, right?

AND: Well yes, omg, if I import from System76 I am the importer. THAT WAS THE WHOLE DARN POINT. There is nothing stopping Framework from selling to me RIGHT NOW. They could have sold to me from the moment they started selling anything to anyone. They do NOT need to jump through hoops of languages in support, documentation, or anyones weird fantasies about the EU having requirements on keyboard layouts or whatnot.

They just need to sell it to me, after self-declaring EC compliance. Boom. Done.

This whole thing with keyboards mattering at all for retail in the EU is some weird fever dream from people that obviously have never dealt with any kind of marketing nor have any kind of idea of what the EU Single Market even means.

The EU Single Market, the holy grail of what it even exists to achieve, means: “Anything that is fit for sale anywhere in the EU is fit for sale EVERYWHERE in the EU.” There are very few and very specific exceptions to this (like Sweden’s long-standing fight against cross-border alcohol sales). Trust me, no-one except maybe the French would ever get the idea of picking a fight over KEYBOARDS…

Edit: I would be VERY enthusiastic to hear Framework explain their stance on this. I can totally understand if they decided they want a strong sales operation when moving to a new market (because supporting consumer sales cross-atlantic sucks, even as early as staff timezone coverage). But their post seems to have given certain people the super-weird idea that they are not legally ABLE to sell cross-atlantic. And that is BS and it would be awesome if Framework explained the actual reality of running a business instead of making people think “OMG you can’t sell in the EU unless you have X keyboard” or “you just MUST have support staff in X language” or “documents in X language” or all the other silliness that any EU resident just has to… you know… buy anything… to disprove.

To take a recent example from my own life: do you think there was any Dutch documentation in the nice stack of Raspberry Pi 4’s I recently bought from a dutch online retailer? Hint: no. Not a single word of dutch anywhere. But if one listened to people on this forum that was probably illegal or something… the Raspberry Pi foundation and its partners could NEVER sell to NL without doing all these weird dances and shit for the NL market, right? Hell, do you think there’s a Dutch KB version of the Raspberry Pi 400? No. Nope. The only one for sale here is… the US one that I bought. Is that one illegal? Did the Raspberry Pi foundation bribe random EU commisioners or something for special priviliges?

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It’s true that they could sell in the EU with relative ease.
But don’t forget that a lot could be going on that we can’t see.

  • It could be that other manufacturers are afraid of Frameworks mission, and would jump on any opportunity to discredit them or get them banned.
  • It could be that framework wants to profile themselves as “a laptop for everyone”. Selling it in NL without proper Dutch documentation, might jeopardize that strategy. Then you would show your laptop to others, they would look it up online, only to discover that it seems to be some sort of raspberry-pi-like tech-enthousiast thingy that would probably not be for them. If they want to be an actual Dell/HP alternative for the masses, they need to do it properly. You only get one first-impression after all.

All in all, although you are right their communication seems to suggest the rules are the problem; in the end there could be other things at play here.

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Well, I’m glad to see there’s a lot of interest in this topic as well as official plans to make this happen…
I live in France and was planning to use a friend in the US to get my laptop (I expect to be ready to order mine some time in January)… With any luck I won’t have to!
I’m assuming we’ll have other keyboard layouts available too by the time shipping becomes available to Europe? French in my case… This won’t stop me but it’d be better.
I can’t wait to shoot videos of this thing. And start using it. I’ve had a Fairphone 2 for 2 1/2 years because I broke the screen of my Samsung S7 and was told it’d cost me about half the price of the phone (when new) to have it fixed… I just broke the Fairphone’s screen few days ago and I know all I have to do it to order one… So the minute I discovered there’s a laptop that would let me do the same thing I knew this is what I need especially since I travel a lot on a motorcycle so there’s always a risk of damaging something!

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Bienvenue @Seb_Cismondo !

Well, yeah they seem to be closing on last details for the orders in EU and so on, however if you’re in a hurry you can always use a shipping forward company (shipito, myus and others) and later on buy the keyboard separately.

Check the framework website marketplace and see if there’s a French kbd layout. If not, just buy an ISO one and then use keyboard stickers to map the keys :slight_smile:

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Thanks @MikeCH
I have used keyboard stickers years ago on a second-hand laptop that nobody wanted because it had a US keyboard (so I got it 30% below market…). So if it comes to it that’s an option sure, however I’d lose the keyboard lighting feature (not a deal breaker though)…
Anyway I won’t be ready until mid-January at the earliest so with any luck this won’t be an issue anymore by then :wink:

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I also struggle with that lost feature and I wonder if the clear keyboard is / will be too shiny if I use it with the backlight…

But as there’s no foreseen CH keyboard coming out, I might opt for the transparent one and add the stickers in it.

To be seen :slight_smile:

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@MikeCH There is also other option. Find local DIY club with laser engraver. Get the transparent one, try to engrave test-template with the CH characters and then just slip the keyboard instead of the template. Takes some time, but the engraving is much more durable and you’ll like also the feel - the texture of the engraved letters provides a bit of a haptic feedback.

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@Robert2 awesome advise! I did not think of that, but it does sound good!

Thank you for that! :+1:t3:

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That’s a great idea, but I don’t see a transparent option for the layout.

It seems you can now place an order in some EU countries, but are unable to pick a country on checkout. Please @Framework allow us to pick the country from the dropbox. I’m completely fine ordering the laptop from Germany to Slovenia.

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Why did you open orders for France and Germany only in Europe? It makes no sense to me. I’ve never had issues ordering products from other countries inside the EU before.

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Probably because the EU is not so U as we think. One example: try to go buy a car in Germany and taking it to Spain or Portugal… You’ll be taxed for an import! Logic…
Anyway, quite sure some legal enclaves might be around there somewhere… Amazon Germany can’t ship everything to France or other countries either…

Just my guess… I might be wrong by the distance between the earth and the moon…

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I’m not sure about cars, don’t even own one tbh. But I do know that car dealers often import used cars from Italy to Slovenia.
As for electronic devices and other stuff, I’ve never had issues ordering from obscure online shops that had the best price on geizhals.eu.