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European avionic vendors

Use Spruce Europe !

Based in Germany, they are a good half way house and no customs.

I don't know how you are with small items, but in the UK, they seem to be chasing every packet. We used to be able to bring stuff up to $100 free of VAT or paperwork but they are charging for everything now. I even got charged admin and VAT on an FOC replacement part shipment from Vans because they declared the value on the outside of the packet. They have been suitably advised....
 
Spruce Europe

I'd like to echo Mike's suggestion to use spruce europe based in Germany. I just ordered two things from them and had a good experience. I compared the prices between the US site and the EU site, and the price difference, when taking into account shipping and VAT, was less than about 10%.

You may want to go down to Aero next month (http://www.aero-expo.com/aero-en/index.php) to see if you can find some other vendors.
 
I think the problem is the size of the market, and therefore the number of people a company can afford to employ. Many suppliers are one (wo)man trying to make a little cash as a sideline to a 'real' job. There is little time to build a flashy website and no cash to pay a few thousand Euro to a professional website developer. A few thousand may be all the profit in one year. Why no webstore? For the same reason.

If you want local suppliers who will answer the phone and provide advice then you must buy stuff from them otherwise they will no longer be there. The market is very small, there is not much money to be made, if you always go to the large companies there will be no small suppliers left.

Stop ranting, understand the market you are operating in, and decide what kind of suppliers you want to use. If you choose larger companies don't complain about lack of competition, large minimum order quantities and little interest in homebuilders.

Pete

PS Don't expect to find many smaller companies at Aeroexpo, it is firmly focused on the certified market and too expensive for most to attend.
 
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The rules state that no vendor bashing is allowed... but this is about all of them (European vendors) :mad:

In what other business would vendors survive and be considered being among the best in business, while having 2-3 year old price list on their web sites, marketing equipment that have not been produced for years while at the same time not listing anything released withing the last 12 months???

If any computer, diving, sports or basically any kind of retailers that I know of had websites that were so outdated as many leading European avionic retailers they would loose all customers. I wont name anyone but if you search for and look at the web site of ten European web shops you would find that more than half are terrible, it is impossible to make an informed and evaluated purchase from any of them without asking for a quote by email or phone in advance....

I was hoping to be able to skip dealing with customs again but American retailers are in general so far superior to European that it is impossible for me to shop local or even regional.

Enough ranting, back to building!

This is true about just about everything aviation in Europe! Giant **** Show
 
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