Has Anyone Imported a Bicycle from New Zealand?

Captain Snooze on 06/02/2025 - 23:47
Last edited 07/02/2025 - 09:36 by 1 other user

Howdy all, I'm looking at buying a new bike.

I'm eyeing off a few in the Surly line-up in particular. I was browsing and thinking I was looking at an Aus. site wondering why all of the bikes were so cheap and realised I was looking at a bike shop in Wellington! Some of their Surly's are priced $1000 cheaper then here in Melbourne and that's before I convert from NZD to AUD!

So my question, has anyone successfully or unsuccessfully imported from NZ? If so how did you go about it? Did you have to pay GST and Duty fees? Is there a way to avoid New Zealand's GST or to get it refunded?

And finally what is the go with Australia's awful mark ups of Surly's? Seriously? The cheapest Surly Ogre I could find here is specked at $3300 in NZZ it's $2399!

Cheers

Sports & Outdoors Bicycle

Comments

  • jv on 06/02/2025 - 23:53
    +4

    Surly you can't be serious ???

  • MS Paint on 07/02/2025 - 00:48

    Why do you want a heavy steel bike?

    Are you hellbent on that particular make/model?

  • pegaxs on 07/02/2025 - 07:51
    -6

    Wow… Just had a look through their range of bikes, and they all look like something you would find after a quick drive around on hard garbage night.

    Cheapest way to get them here would be to go down to the tip, find an old 1980's bike in the recycling. Bring it home. Use paint stripper on it, or get it blasted. Paint in a boring arse monotone colour and reassemble it with some mediocre, middling tier gear set. Go to your local trash and treasure meet and get the guy there that makes stickers to make you some "Surly" stickers for about $10 and slap those bad boys on. All in, I think you could get all this done for about $200 to $300.

    I literally built a full carbon fibre hard tail bike with as much carbon fibre parts that I could lay my hands on (if I could find a carbon fibre part, it was carbon fibre) and that cost me about 2/3ds what some of those Surly bikes cost. $2,600USD is obscene for a boring arse steel frame commuter style hard tail bike. And that isnt even an e-bike version.

    • stickingly on 07/02/2025 - 09:16
      +1

      Not sure why I am even responding to this but there a bit of a difference between a handmade steel frame with good quality steel and a hard rubbish bike

      I have a similar frame to a Surly that I have had for 20+ years. It has done many tens of thousands of km with fully loaded panniers, much of it on bad and bumpy roads in the middle of nowhere.
      Try that on your carbon bike!

      Pooer quality frames will develop cracks over time on the welds and even the frame subject to such loading (like another aluminium frame that I had)
      Steel is king!

      Having said that one can find old 80s and 90s bikes with good steel frames that can be repurposed, but you need to know what you are looking for and be prepared to spend the time building it up

      • Euphemistic on 07/02/2025 - 10:27
        +1

        I get the steel thing, and quality tubing does make a difference in weight.

        I was surprised that when i looked at their range that the equipment levels were lower than i expected for the listed price.

        • stickingly on 08/02/2025 - 08:08

          Yes i agree. That seems to be a common thing with more "speciality" bikes like touring bikes and cargo bikes.

          I see this on a lot of ebikes as well. Why would they put a crappy tourney derailleur on a $2000 bike?

  • Porker on 07/02/2025 - 09:25

    Might seem a bit extreme, but have checked to see how much it costs to fly there and back to get the bike?

    I used to fly to NZ with my Mountain Bike. At the time, the extra fee for 'heavy item' check in was only $25 each way.

    A few times I scored some great deals such as $300 round trip.

  • CaptainJack on 07/02/2025 - 09:47

    Could you share the website… wouldn't mind having a little browse. And let us know how you get on.

  • Sye on 07/02/2025 - 09:59
    +3

    Just ride it home

  • DashCam AKA Rolts on 07/02/2025 - 09:59
    +1

    From my experience of importing bikes from the UK, you'll be up for 5% duty and 10% GST including on any shipping charges, before the bikes were released from Customs.

    I received notification from Customs, filled forms in, online and made the payment with CC. Second time different shipper, DHL, completed all of the paperwork, I had to send the funds for the duty & GST to them, along with a small handling fee.

    Mine had the 20% VAT, from the UK, removed from the initial pricing as it was being sent out of the country. YMMV

    • MS Paint on 07/02/2025 - 10:49
      +1

      Imports add percents. Cheers

  • TALL1one on 07/02/2025 - 10:51
    +1

    Yes, I agree. Expect a 5% import duty and 10% GST on the shipped item, on-top of the shipping fee and original item price.

  • elgrande on 07/02/2025 - 12:01

    I attempted once.. however when I rang for a quote and asked how many $ to import, the person on the phone said 'sex', and I tried to explain I wasn't interested and they said that in that case they couldnt help me.

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