Ok. Great post and great thoughts....To put things in perspective, I'm already moving towards doing what is proposed......I'm based off Texas and own a home in Bangalore, India. I deal with branded liquidation merchandise from high end department stores in US.....so..in the recent past...sourcing hasn't been the problem...
Selling...You would notice 2 issues here...which I may potentially overcome as I have capabilities to route logistics in India....
a) Let's take an example of Ebay. You have 2 options. Either register as a ebay seller in India (ebay.in) which would require you to verify account through an Indian phone number (i just got this process done) and then Paypal will require you to have an SSN equivalent (called as PAN - Permanent Account Number) in India...to receive funds into Paypal account...
b) Option B - Use ebay's global shipping program. I'm unsure of the extreme value we could add through this process to a country like India or China. For example - I had a recent buyer from Hongkong who bought an authentic Longchamp purse I sold. It was through the global shipping program. Net effect, she probably saved less than $50 in the entire process of $585 retail priced product....But unless we can find products that really tick in these countries (and with the dumping of replicas happening from China - No offense meant, but it reality), it is going to be hard.
So why I still think this would work...? As one of my MBA professors said, if you cannot sell to a population of 1.2 Billion+, you can forget about selling your products anywhere else :) Also, research proves that over half of large corporate revenues are from the sold called 3rd world countries due to growing middle class (as rightly pointed out by our friend in this forum). For example, I did a quick search on ebay India and looks like fashion clothing was selling for a significant value (for most part brand did not matter)...So I'm headed in that direction...My dad is based off India currently in our Bangalore apt......so..i'm sending my first shipment of goods to India(20-30 summer dresses and fashion clothing) ...shortly...to India...and logistics would be handled by my dad....
Will keep the team here posted on how it goes.......Do write with any questions you have or any thoughts you have....and I would be happy to contribute...