Well now.. this changes everything! Sephora US is now shipping to the UK. I was alerted to this this morning by @beckymort on Twitter and I’ve only just had the chance to check it out for myself. It’s true! Sephora are charging a £10 flat shipping rate on orders over £75 (won’t be hard) and there’s a currency converter to pounds sterling on the site.
So, although this is brilliant news for the UK beauty consumer, it’s going to seriously mess with the brands. The US launches much earlier with many products (NARS Matte Multiples, Clinique Cheek Pops to name just a couple of current ones) which means that any chance of regulated and controlled PR on a product launch goes straight out of the window. We can buy an item, have it shipped and swatched before the UK PRs have even got the press release written if we so wish.
We now don’t have to wait for a kind friend to shop Marc Jacobs Beauty for us, or the fantastic sets of minis that Sephora do at Christmas (there may be some kind of issue with shipping fragrance though.. not sure yet and there is a shipping restriction on nail polish so count those out), and all of the fantastic Josie Maran range that I have longed to come to the UK kind of now has – albeit with a £10 shipping charge. And the Beauty Points? Danger zone!
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It might be worth clubbing together with friends to make the Sephora £75 limit for the flat Sephora UK shipping£10 rate. But oh my gosh.. this is mega news! What do you say? One question.. shipping? Does it actually come by ship? Or plane? Does anyone know?
*NB: I think we’ll discover a few more ‘can’t haves’ – I’m keeping an eye on Twitter and it seems no NARS and no Hourglass so far. And, there doesn’t seem to be any info on whether we will get customs charges at this end – lots of peoples are adding comments so I expect all will be revealed. Sephora US is HERE and I’ve done a quick video on how to order HERE.
NB Again! I just placed an order and here’s how the taxes worked out (bearing in mind that I didn’t buy £75 so didn’t get the £10 flat shipping rate).
| Total Product: | GBP 59.05 |
| Total Discounts: | GBP -0.00 |
| Duties & Taxes: | GBP 13.82 |
| Shipping & Handling: | GBP 17.71 |
| Order Total: | GBP 90.58 |
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43 comments
shipping is just the word they use in the US for delivery!
I’m so excited to finally be able to order stuff from here instead of getting my friends to do it when they go on holiday, yay!
From what I’ve heard, nail polishes, perfume and aerosols cannot be ordered so I guess they may be using the planes. 😉
Mademoiselle-Lala.com
Unfortunately you can’t get them to send Hourglass or Nars, if I find any other brands that are unavailable, I’ll let you know 🙂 xx
Don’t forget the customs charges, anything over £15 and you will get hit.
Best news ever!!!! Hello Ardency Inn lip vinyl’s, tart blushers and sephora eye cream.
OMG!! formula x, marc jacobs, make up for ever!!! AH! one happy bunny 😀 Finally! I am however worried if we have to pay import taxes and what not once it reaches the border, that’d take the shine right off.
great colors :))
http://prettypurple92.weebly.com/
I don’t even have words… eeeeek!
This is amazing news. I too heard on twitter. Do you know what will happen about tax/vat import charges?
Laura x | Life and Lipstick
At last – There was a Sephora in Touchwood in Solihull and it was just sublime…happy days.
This may be useful for people who are worried about import charges
International Shipping Information
Sephora offers the following flat rate international shipping costs.
Guaranteed all-inclusive costs (no additional fees at delivery)
Australia: $10 AUD on orders over $100 AUD
Japan: ¥1,500 JPY on orders over ¥10,000 JPY
South Korea: ₩15,000 KRW on orders over ₩100,000 KRW
United Kingdom: £10 GBP on orders over £75 GBP
That’s brilliant news, didn’t spot that – thanks for mentioning! I only bought $43 of lip products from a US seller the other day & got hit with a hefty £13+ customs fee!
Are you sure? Because customs have the right to open the package and view the invoice and then make their mind up on the VAT. As the box will have their packaging it most likely will be opened as a business parcel.
Also when INTL packages are shipped they are either marked as gift(no tax) or taxable sale. Some place like Sephora would never mark it as a gift.
All I can go on is the Sephora website and the tweet that Sephora sent me specifically saying NO extra charges. When I get my order I will let you know. x
Well there goes my bank balance!
So far I’ve found Givenchy, Dior, Urban Decay stuff won’t be delivered.
Also Bobbi Brown.
Other big brands like YSL, Laura Mercier and Guerlain will ship!
As someone who regularly orders yarn from the US I can confirm that customs charges are horrible! As well as 20% of the value, a “handling charge” of £8 gets whopped on too, so a $30 dollar order can have £11 added on. Some parcels escape the charge, but you can’t rely on that.
It looks like there are no customs charges for it… just seen a letter from Customer Services saying so but I think the proof will be when we start ordering x
Have had the same experience with vat being added and customs charges for inspection of goods. On one occassion I paid more in tax and charges than I paid for the goods. I now try to limit my orders from the US to below £15 to avoid this problem. Nothing worse than receiving a letter from a remote branch of Royal Mail/Parcelforce asking for £50 before you get your goods.
I order a lot of jewellery from an American website so agree that customs charges can be evil. As a general rule I tend to avoid them if I spend less than $40. I would be surprised if cosmetics are excempt from customs charges and don’t see how Sephora can control it. Will be interesting to see what happens once people’s orders start arriving.
I kind of screamed with excitement and my boyfriend wondered what was wrong with me..
This makes me so happy – I guess the multiple attempts to bug them to ship internationally worked! Just need to get Bath & Body Works on board now. Now to start compiling my birthday wishlist!!
if i can get definite confirmation on the no-customs-charges then i will drop a fortune at sephora!
I’ve just placed an order (Marc Jacobs beauty!) and had a 20% tax added to the final so I’m hoping that it’s the VAT portion and I won’t have ANOTHER one put on top by Royal Mail or whoever the shipping company are. I prefer it this way so be a separate charge at the point of delivery. Better to know and pay it up front at checkout.
20% tax will be the state tax where Sephora is based. So be prepared for import tax too.
Just emailed Sephora and got this reply
“Prices of products shipping to Japan, South Korea and UK is based on the suggested US price, including adjustments for exchange rates, customs and brokerage fees. Depending on the shipping address, the price per item will be converted to the appropriate value after selecting the country of destination during checkout. Any additional taxes and shipping charges will be displayed on the confirmation page before the order is completed. Rest assured there are no additional fees assessed upon delivery.”
I’ve been discussing this on MUA as well and yes, we will get a 20% VAT charge on top of initial item prices and shipping. Americans also have their tax charged on top of orders, rather than included in the item price as we’re used to. I too often forget this when I’m gasping about how cheap everything in the US is.
Still, excellent news for fans of brands like Tarte, Kat Von D, etc.!
I think though, that the taxes are paid at the US end, not this end.. so there should be no more to pay when it’s coming through our customs. I’ll wait and see on my order though x
Please do keep us updated on how your order turns out – hope you got lots of great stuff! I’m itching to make an order myself, hopefully I’ll be able to better afford it next month.
I just looked on their website and they still say they don’t shop abroad so how do tey ship to the UK?
Go to International Shipping. x
Time to hide the bank card!!! I’m guessing that some of the brands that won’t allow them to ship to the UK are ones with distribution agreements here already and don’t want to complicate those. Wanders off to see if Lorac is one of the brands that now ships!!!! 🙂
I just went on their desktop site and the first thing it said was “Hello UK. We now ship for £10”. Didn’t see that when I looked on my phone. Thanks though
I think I’m equal parts delighted and horrified! No more waiting for someone to hop on a plance but my poor bank balance 🙂 I’m very interested to see how this pans out in practice xx
*plane
With our customs regulations (The Netherlands) I’m NOT interested.. 🙁
So. Exciting. Hopefully this may lead to a UK store!
http://www.sophiemakesup.blogspot.com
This is what I am mostly excited about. It is acknowledging the UK market again and I hope this is their way of testing the waters for a return!
Hi Jane,
I placed my order last night. Mostly for Tarte and Sephora brand products. I did try to order a little Josie Maran trial kit, but that particular item wouldn’t ship to the UK. I have to say that I am quite pleased that Sephora have started shipping to the UK. They appear to have done it in a way that will show us exactly how much it will cost as a whole so fingers crossed no customs bill when my package arrives.
The website doesn’t list Australia as a shipping option…..no fair 🙁
This is wonderful news!! I have ordered a few items from the latest Tarte release – previously I have only managed to get Tarte via ebay, with customs charges on top!
This is amazing this is brilliant this has made my day 😀
How exciting! It’s nice to see that Sephora are finally acknowledging there’s a demand for their products in the UK.