Is this possible?

[Ako Si Jamie]

If I was to ship a TV from the UK to the Phils would it work (via adaptor of course) ?

Something tells me that it won't.

[JimOttley]

Depends on how old and what type, most recent TV's support NTSC as well as PAL so it should work.

If it's a CRT then it's not worth the trouble it will cost a fortune and even if it is LCD or Plasma you need to weigh the shipping cost against buying a similar new one in the Phils. They are more expensive over there but not by a huge amount these days so shipping costs, custom duty etc. would all play a part if it is an old set.

[Ako Si Jamie]

Thanks Jim

[Englishman2010]

is it worth the hassle and expense Jamie? TV's are pretty much the same price everywhere in the world now. I suppose if you have a spare TV at home that you don't need it might be worth it. But probably best to take it with you on your next trip as long as you've got a decent luggage allowance. Recently someone said they have a spare LCD TV and they were going to put it in their case and take it.

[Ako Si Jamie]

is it worth the hassle and expense Jamie? TV's are pretty much the same price everywhere in the world now. I suppose if you have a spare TV at home that you don't need it might be worth it. But probably best to take it with you on your next trip as long as you've got a decent luggage allowance. Recently someone said they have a spare LCD TV and they were going to put it in their case and take it.

More of a business idea really. I got the idea when I stayed in different hotels and saw that the TV's were prehistoric. I asked Maria's dad how much small sized second hand telly's were in the Phils and I think he said about 5,000 peso's. I might have got that wrong though.

With people in the UK upgrading to the new TV's, the old types which nobody longer wants are now going for peanuts over here. Just thought there may be an opportunity if the shipping costs weren't too high.

[Englishman2010]

More of a business idea really. I got the idea when I stayed in different hotels and saw that the TV's were prehistoric. I asked Maria's dad how much small sized second hand telly's were in the Phils and I think he said about 5,000 peso's. I might have got that wrong though.

With people in the UK upgrading to the new TV's, the old types which nobody longer wants are now going for peanuts over here. Just thought there may be an opportunity if the shipping costs weren't too high.

Good luck to you then Jamie

[Ako Si Jamie]

Good luck to you then Jamie

Sounds like a dead 'un after what Jim & Terpe said about older TV's. Anyway, it was just a thought.

[JimOttley]

More of a business idea really. I got the idea when I stayed in different hotels and saw that the TV's were prehistoric. I asked Maria's dad how much small sized second hand telly's were in the Phils and I think he said about 5,000 peso's. I might have got that wrong though.

With people in the UK upgrading to the new TV's, the old types which nobody longer wants are now going for peanuts over here. Just thought there may be an opportunity if the shipping costs weren't too high.

New CRT's can be got for 3000 peso, but yes second hand goods are often irrationally priced in the Phils, at least by our idea of a second hand market, so you might get people willing to pay 70 quid for a second hand TV.

You would be looking at filling a whole container though in order to make the shipping economic but even then I doubt you could pack enough in to offset the cost of the container, the Uk costs and customs fee's at the other end.

Certainly old TV's can be extremely cheap these days, I rented mine for years and then bought it for 50 quid a few years ago, big 32inch monster of a thing must weigh over 40 kilo, so it's big heavy and not worth much.

Just a guess but I think the margins would be pretty lean by the time you factor in all the costs.

And just a personal opinion but hotel tele's tend to be prehistoric everywhere, I virtually lived in hotels for 8 years (well 100 days a year or more) and I've never seen anything fancy even in the good hotels In the Phils the hotel owners have limited margins and the main reason they don't update stuff is that it is good enough, they really don't want to spend any more than they absolutely need to.

[Ako Si Jamie]

You would be looking at filling a whole container though in order to make the shipping economic but even then I doubt you could pack enough in to offset the cost of the container, the Uk costs and customs fee's at the other end.

I was thinking that.

In the Phils the hotel owners have limited margins and the main reason they don't update stuff is that it is good enough, they really don't want to spend any more than they absolutely need to.

......and it's not just TV's
Go to the bar/restaurant in the Bakasyunan Resort in Iba to get all the proof you need

[JimOttley]

I was thinking that.

Thinking about it again (mind experiment) if you were going for small 15 inch CRT models a 20 foot container could fit about 17 by 6 by 6 at a very rough guess that's 612 units. If you could pick them up at 5 to 10 quid each say 7.50 each then that's £4,590 quid base investment.

A lot of running around later you would have a container full ready to ship, lets guestimate a selling price of 2500 peso each in the second hand market assuming they are A class condition and that 90% survive the journey then the return could be £19,600.

Then you have contacts and distributors and security over there to organise plus import duty etc. but there is quite a lot of margin to play with potentially, I might change my mind on this one it might not be crazy after all

PS again the issue would be that older CRT's might not be NTSC compatible.

[imagine]

i tought tv s , computors ect would be cheaper in phil, being near to hong kong, am i wrongly informed ?

actualy i cant imagine a need for a tv in such a place

[Englishman2010]

i tought tv s , computors ect would be cheaper in phil, being near to hong kong, am i wrongly informed ?

actualy i cant imagine a need for a tv in such a place

That was certainly true a few years ago, electrical goods were much cheaper in the middle and far east. I'm a bit of a gadget fan and always compare prices of phones, cameras, laptops, TV's ...etc when I'm in Asia, and over the last few years I really think Britain has become very competitive. I can only put this down to internet competition driving down the prices so much that retailers don't make a great deal per unit, but rely on volumes of turnover instead. Think of it this way. Whether the TV is sold in Phil's or Europe, it is still made in a factory in China and stiil costs the same to make it. The only difference in cost to the retailer is the cost to transport it from China to wherever. However retailers in wealthy western countries will turnover more TV's than a Phil retailer, so they tell the manufacturer they want a bigger discount for volume.

[JimOttley]

i tought tv s , computors ect would be cheaper in phil, being near to hong kong, am i wrongly informed ?

Even 6 years back electronics were not noticeably cheaper than the UK, I once patiently explained to a computer salesman in Malate that while the machine and parts he was trying to sell me were cheap they were also three years older than the modern parts I could buy in the UK for the same price.

So usually I bought the bits here and took them over (I have had a 40KG luggage allowance for 5 years) and built the computer over there, I could buy the big bits like monitor and case over there but everything else was cheaper in the UK.

Saying that my machine over there is now very old and really needs a massive update :(

Camera's are sometimes a little cheaper but that's a tax issue.

actualy i cant imagine a need for a tv in such a place

I would miss the Tele, I'm not a big fan but I do like some of the cable channels over there.

[Terpe]

Most, not all but most, modern LCD TV's are capable of PAL and NTSC. Anything more than 3 years old is iffy.
Should be able to be configuarble either from the user menu or local TV engineer.
Check the electrical input, is it OK for 50Hz and 60Hz.

[JimOttley]

By the time you got that far I would guess another 6 or 7 grand would accrue in costs so not really a 300% return on investment.

CRT's are probably a lost cause, the time when they were dying out was during the rise in LCD's and Plasma's and I think at least over here most sets were PAL only but I could be wrong. But small LCD's could potentially pack into a smaller space (packaging is going to be one of your costs) so the shipping costs might be cheaper, I mean containers come in various sizes http://www.sjonescontainers.co.uk/dimensions.htm.

Chances are that recent LCD and Plasma tele's will be NTSC compatible but you would need a definitive database when you were trying to source the second hand models here so as not to get landed with lemons and I guess you would also want to test here as well but that should not be too hard to set up.

[Englishman2010]

A better idea may be to buy 15 inch LCD's, if you trawl around enough car boot sales and ebay you might pick up older ones for £15 - £20 each. Whilst they are more expensive, you can probably fit twice even three times as many in the container, and sell them for a lot more This will give you a far greater gross profit on your container load inorder to cover the other costs which Jim has mentioned:

Edit: Jim beat me too it and posted a few minutes before

[Ako Si Jamie]

A better idea may be to buy 15 inch LCD's, if you trawl around enough car boot sales and ebay you might pick up older ones for £15 - £20 each. Whilst they are more expensive, you can probably fit twice even three times as many in the container, and sell them for a lot more This will give you a far greater gross profit on your container load inorder to cover the other costs which Jim has mentioned:

Edit: Jim beat me too it and posted a few minutes before

Just noticed your post. £15 -£20 sounds more like it but getting enough to fill a container would take an eternity if you did it this way.

[JimOttley]

A better idea may be to buy 15 inch LCD's, if you trawl around enough car boot sales and ebay you might pick up older ones for £15 - £20 each. Whilst they are more expensive, you can probably fit twice even three times as many in the container, and sell them for a lot more This will give you a far greater gross profit on your container load inorder to cover the other costs which Jim has mentioned:

Edit: Jim beat me too it and posted a few minutes before

Correct me if I am wrong but the small ones were not really a big market over here, really we are talking about small LCD computer monitors of various native resolutions, i.e some of them 1024x768 some 800x600 and so on.

LCD brings other issues, it only looks good at specific resolution and in the Phils NTSC is king, NTSC has lower vertical scan line resolution than PAL so again you might find that the result is poorer than what the locals are using already, there is a chic factor but they are not stupid, if the picture looks crap on local cable they will want their money back, flat screen or not. CRT is good that way, in that the good ones can cope with different scan rates.

[Ako Si Jamie]

I don't think the LCD's would be viable at the moment. They just seem to costly even second hand.