I bought some from China for the internal lights in my car. They are great. They have an adapter on them and fit straight in.
I have read about other people having them in the caravans and say they are good. There are different shades ranging from white to a warm colour so you will have to make sure you get what you want.
I never paid any duty when they came in the normal post.
Never paid duty on goods from China....but I try to keep the cost below £20....although I did buy a digital r/c transmitter this year for £35 and didn't get caught by the duty people
Value has a lot to do with if tax is due, Don't know about the UK limit but sending to NZ I make sure the goods within, therefore the invoice is less than their limit of circa £85. I'd assume then the LED's won't reach the UK tax due threshold or sent in separate lower value packages?
Chinese LED's though have to date been generally considered short life rubbish!
Almost every Chinese seller marks the value down on their goods. Typically they'll come through with a declared value of $10 so well below the personal importation limit.
Just be aware that many of the LEDs being sold are of older technology and are being sold off cheap to get rid of stock. They are ok but not as efficient as the newer versions. I recently compared the brightness of a new 3W led against a 5W unit purchased about 5 years ago and the 3W version was much brighter than the 5W version. The technology is moving forward at great speed. Somewhere I saw a graph of light output against power consumption and it closely followed Moores Law as used in processor development.
------------- 'A sure cure for sea-sickness is to sit under a tree'
LED's should be rated in Lumens as it's a true representation of light output. More expensive units are rated this way but cheaper direct from china units likely will not be.
Lets face it if you're spending a couple of quid on a lamp and it's not quite as bright as it might be then it's not the end of the world.