Price Doubled Before the Goods Even Arrived!
I paid £62 for the goods. At checkout, shipping was shown as £0.
Only afterwards, following our email exchange, the company informed me that I had to pay an additional £21 for shipping in advance.
When the goods arrived (purchased from Europe), I was then faced with another £40 in additional charges. My actual cost was therefore approximately £123 instead of £62 — twice the advertised purchase price!
This is not transparent pricing.
Both UK and EU consumer rules require traders to disclose the total price and unavoidable additional charges before the consumer commits to the purchase. UK law specifically prohibits “drip pricing” — adding mandatory fees later in the purchasing process. The UK CMA states that mandatory delivery fees, taxes and other unavoidable payments must be included in the total price or, where genuinely impossible to calculate in advance, the consumer must be clearly told about them and how they will be calculated.
EU consumer law similarly requires the total price, including delivery and other applicable costs, to be disclosed before purchase; consumers should not have to pay shipping or other costs that were not clearly indicated when ordering.
The additional costs in my case were not transparently disclosed before payment. This appears to be contrary to the mandatory price-transparency requirements applicable to consumer sales in the UK and EU.
I would NOT recommend this shop unless the company clearly confirms the full delivered cost before payment.
