China shipping help and customs info

I am new to importing. I was wondering if anyone had some practical informaiton regarding ways to manage shipping costs from china. I found what I thought to be a great price on a product but was surprized to see that shipping was 60% additional. Seems exorbanate to me. Also, anybody have any good info about customs, fees and what is required? Maybe someone has a good resource that is simple and to the point but accurate? Are there some cool tricks to know about?

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You'll get their lots of usefull information.
You can also checkout the following link to get more information about your local custom rules.
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Yeah check with your local border security office.

Also try starting with small items you can ship via UPS or something. And when dealing with a manufacturer try to arrange your own shipping. Protect yourself from inflation.

Hey Rupert

I am new to importing. I was wondering if anyone had some practical informaiton regarding ways to manage shipping costs from china

first of all you didn t say in your post what did you import! I ll tell you the rules for europe that i think apply as well for US.

It dependes if you ordered textiles (clothes) , electronics or other kind of goods!

As a general rule objects with a value below 40 USD are not customed!NO TAX! For items that exceed 40 usd in and are from another continent you pay as follow:

-for textiles VAT tax (i don t know the value for US) in europe is between 16-19 %; the cost will be item value + 16%-19% item value

-for electronics you pai iva another kind of taxes(sry but i don t know the spelling :D but it is most of the time not appied because it is little) and custom taxes!

So let s say we import an mp3 player from china wich values 60$! The total sum that we re going to spend on the item will be:

60 USd + 16-19% VAT ( about 13 USD in our case) + custom tax

The problem is that the custom tax is very big.In my country is outrageus.They once tried to make me pay 138 euros for an mp3 player that wort 78 euro.

The sollution to this problem is very simple! Arange with the seller before you buy to put a package value below 40 usd!
I have never paid these taxes in my life! I don t know how strict they are in your country but for the first time playing dum is the best solution!

i m kinda young so for me it worked many times!But know i have relationes and other ways of cheating the state 8)

i hope that what i ve wrote will help somebody!!bye