VacuGlide Accessories shop europe, where?
Horrible tax prices for sleeves… +80€ for $19,95 sleeve…
Where remain the new textured or smaller sleeves?
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good question. In Europe, there are only standard parts available, none of the newer accessories.
Unfortunately, due to the high cost of the compliance regulations (GSPR etc) for every item sold by our EU distributors, we aren’t able offer all of our accessories there directly. This is not a decision that we wanted to take, but over time, the increased regulations, record-keeping, and documentation requirements for every new item sold within the European Union made this the case.
We invested a lot of time into offering the lowest possible overseas shipping rates and the best delivery experience with DHL and we even subsidize the overseas shipping rates to a huge extent for our customers. The amount that you are charged for shipping is half or less than half of amount that we pay for the shipping.
We lose money shipping small orders abroad.
That is just what we do to ensure that all of our customers worldwide can continue to enjoy both our machines and the accessories that go with them.
You didn’t say which item or items you ordered, but if you just ordered a single sleeve, that would be the least economical thing to ship to Europe. Shipping abroad makes more sense when more items are combined into the same shipment. There is a base rate, and that base rate, especially for small items, might not change whether you purchased one sleeve or ten sleeves.
Importers to the EU must pay the VAT. The VAT is also paid by you as the end consumer on normal items you purchase in the EU, but it is part of the overall price that you pay. I realize that for Americans, where we pay tax separately, it is not jarring. For Europeans, who always pay one price and that includes the tax, the experience of paying the VAT can seem like you are paying something extra. Since it is sold from the United States, we cannot include the VAT in the amount shown on the website so the issue of paying it is an EU taxation issue unrelated to us.
There is one final fee, and that is the fee that DHL charges separately to administrate the payment of VAT.This is very annoying, and we spent, no exaggeration, more than 40 hours researching and dealing with shipping companies to find the lowest possible rate for our customers. They should charge you something like €17 or €18 as the fee for customs clearance. This is the least abusive fee that we are able to find or negotiate.
That’s a bit disappointing to hear. The machines are sold in Europe, but the renewed accessories are not. Would finding a European distributor/partner not be an option?
Paying €50 in taxes on a $100 order, followed by another €40 in import duties, does make it quite an expensive proposition.
Can we also expect narrower sleeves for the medium units? I noticed that in your video you only mentioned a narrower version for the long cylinder unit.
Maybe sleeves with longer sliding fins/rings?
Another feature that’s still missing is a constricting function at the beginning of the cylinder unit. The old RealTouch unit had this feature, and it was still one of the better haptic toys in that regard. I’m not saying this was better than the Glide system of the VAGUGlide—don’t get me wrong. I mean that the RealTouch offered more control over different types of haptic motions.
I understand why the total cost is frustrating, especially when the accessory itself is inexpensive.
We already work with three European distributors. The difficulty is not finding a distributor; it is that not every accessory is economical to add to European distribution once the compliance, documentation, inventory, and support required for each individual product are considered. I wish we could make the entire accessory range available locally, but at the moment we cannot.
For orders shipped directly from the United States, three separate costs may appear:
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The shipping charge paid to us at checkout. We subsidize international shipping, and the amount DHL charges us is substantially higher than the amount we charge the customer. On an order to send a couple of sleeves to Europe, it is a loss for us.
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VAT and any applicable customs duty, which are determined by the destination country and EU import rules.
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A customs-processing or disbursement fee that DHL may charge for handling the collection of those amounts.
We do not set the second or third charges. However, the amounts you described sound high enough that I would be happy to look at the actual breakdown. If you send me your order number and the DHL invoice by private message, we can check whether the charges were applied as expected.
Regarding sleeves, we plan to introduce a new narrower sleeve this fall. It will have the same internal diameter as the small sleeve but will fit the longest receiver. Based on our testing, we do not currently believe a separate medium version is necessary, so one is not in development at this time. We can reconsider that if testing or customer demand shows a clear need. I have also noted your suggestion about longer internal fins or rings.
The RealTouch-style constriction at the entrance is not something the current VacuGlide mechanism can produce. The machine does not mechanically interact with the opening of the receiver, so adding independent constriction there would require a substantially different mechanical design.
I am familiar with the RealTouch and understand why you found that feature interesting. When we evaluate additions, we have to balance the possible improvement in sensation against reliability, manufacturing complexity, and the price customers would ultimately have to pay. I know that a lot of people love the RealTouch device I even was able to obtain one about six years ago.Just FYI, ultimately the company went out of business because they were selling a device for less than it cost them to produce it, hoping that they would make money on the porn content that they were selling by the minute.We try to avoid similar traps in over-complicating our devices.
But that’s not to say there couldn’t be future other accessories that you may find equally interesting.
Otherwise, I’m happy, but for this shipping issue, you are enjoying your VacuGlide!
sure, against the old realtouch. the V-glide is really handsfree 