HTC Desire for ~ 16K - a reality! But how?!

Probably, many of you, like me, were "pleasantly" surprised by the official recommended price (RRP) of HTC Desire in Russia. 25,990 rubles - a rather big amount for a phone based on a young, developing free OS.

The recommended price for the Nexus One suggested that HTC Desire should have cost an order of magnitude less. A quick inspection of foreign online stores showed that the price of HTC Desire fluctuates around 18-20K for monsters like Amazon.de, and 16-17K in online e-Tailers. Indeed, hi Russian taxes and the greed of local retailers ...

After thinking about the guarantee and the total amount of the phone, I decided to buy.


As a store, the British-trusted online store Clove was chosen.. The beauty of this store is that it has international delivery, plus VAT is paid only by buyers from EU countries. Clove provides two types of delivery:

• Royal Mail Int. Signed For - delivery by royal mail of Britain will cost you 18 pounds. In Russia, this package will be delivered by the “beloved” by many Russian Post.
• Parcel Force - delivery is carried out by a courier service, which in the CIS countries miraculously turns into EMS. Such delivery costs 30 pounds.

So, I chose Royal Mail as the delivery. The total cost of HTC Desire with delivery was 348 pounds, or 15,600 rubles at the rate of Alfa Bank. When placing an order, Clove, like true gentlemen, will be interested in the authenticity of your bank card, so they will offer you several possible ways of verification:

• Or you will need to send them a scan of your driver’s license / passport or any other document proving your identity.
• Or you will be asked to send a 6-digit transaction number, which you will need to find out using Internet banking or at the bank’s office.

But what about customs duties, you ask? Clove does not underestimate the cost of the invoice, so there is every chance of getting to customs. However, firstly, for Russia this amount will not be so great (about 1.6-1.7K), and secondly, up to 80% of all parcels with Clove go through customs without any fees. There is another option: for example, such a large e-Tailer as Handtec agrees to underestimate the invoice amount.

Delivery of your desired package sent by Royal Mail in Russian realities can take a fairly large amount of time (1-1.5 months), but for Ukraine everything is completely different - 5-10 days. Parcel Force will work much faster and deliver your package in 14-21 days.

Only 5 days of painful waiting, and my friend found a parcel with Clove in his inbox (in Ukraine). You know, this is really a good option to bypass our Russian mail =)