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Importing from china - customs!
 

Hi everyone, wasn't sure which catagory this would fit in so here goes.

I plan on ordering 21 pairs of branded shoes from china every week, to match my planned selling pattern.

Now, my supplier has told me the best way to do this is for him to mark the items value down, list it as a gift, and to put approx 8 pairs per parcel, to split the delivery up.

I've never ordered in bulk before, so has anyone ever ordered these sorts of quantities in to the UK and if so did you have any problems?

Are addresses stored on customs's systems, meaning I would have to swap addreses around?

Any advise you can put my way would be awesome man.

cheers!

hey there, customs will probably notice 3 packages coming around the same time to the same person at the same address, get 1 sent to you and couple of family members/friends etc

Its always a good start when you have a supplier that uses the tips you mention, ie marking things as "gift" and putting a low value. This tells me that this is someone who knows the score and with someone who has these thought in mind then you are likely to have smoother transactions.

My advice would be to stagger purchases as tenggo says and just be careful when listing them, make sure you are shifting them and they are not being removed by ebay.

Always the worst for me is to be stuck with a lot of stock and a limited ebay and PP account, but best of luck.

Nice one lads, so what i will do is use 3 different addreses each time, but question is, i will be doing this on a weekly basis , will deliveries get connected at all if you know what i mean? (like i will be using the same 3 addresses every week)

Thats good thinking and I think that a positive step.

sorry to be a pain but just to clarify, using the same 3 addresses week in week out should be ok?

ah,no. All incoming parcels get marked in HM Customs database. Don't be using x3 residential addresses for this. Never c**p in your own nest.
If anything goes wrong, you don't want home addresses available.

Double check the cost of x3 commerical addresses like PO Boxes. That allows some protection for you and makes you appear business-like

you are ok on residential, until your 1st seizure, after that play it safe and go for another address, and so on....

youll be ok getting a parcel every week, ive never had a problem

Are you telling me that these clowns at HM customs have a super duper database where they record everything and cross reference?

It could be possible. However there is a hell of a long way to go from even a mild suspicion to attempting to nail someone, its the "mr Big" importers they go after.

Plus no matter how good the database is I have met many people who work for HM customs. Most of the charactors I wouldnt even trust to clean my toilet so I wouldnt sweat it too much, but if I am ever proved wrong I will happily eat my words.

Still good to be careful though, but I feel that you have more chance of a tree falling on you than customs coming after you. Only my opinion.

You cannot list it as a "gift" if you buy in bulk,as the custom have attention this kind of shipping.

Can you get a STEALTH P.O. Box?

some good points there, yeah i was thinking the same as you neo with regards to them recording every parcel.. i mean surely it would be impossible. The UK must receive about 10's of thousands of parcels every day.

I was just concerned about the packages getting seized if the same addresses were being used every week, i really dont know how i works.

I suppose it's down to trial and error. But with the gift thing I know what your saying about it causing suspicion.

It would be awesome if there were any members here who have experience of regular ordering in these kinds of quantities, i mean they are not big quantities though.

i would never do business with china. told myself i never would again. your increasing the buy at your own risk factor in dealing with anyone from china, just so you know. i did a deal like that once, with a weekly order. as the money was rolling in the orders of course became larger and larger. eventually setting me up for 1 insanely large order i made through our established business repore, which ultimately ended up with me getting a bunch of counterfeit product, and the little china man having no repercussions or liability. different game over there. they know what their doing and they do it well. as i said in another post in the US 90% of counterfeit products comes from china. thats what they do, thats their thing. their the best at it. they have a surplass and infinite amount of accounts paypal/ebay/banking, and can do pretty much whatever they want without repercussions cause quite frankly, their government doesnt care most the time lol.

I wouldnt ever get a stealth po box, in my opinion there is no point as it is not the post office that you need to fool.

Plus you have to use utility bills and ID to set up a PO box, and I would not play the photo shop game with these documents.

Stick to your real details with the PO box. ANyone else have thoughts on this?

My point exactly, what's the point of having a PO box when you have to fill out an application with you address on it anyway?

so how do you guys do it, whats the secret of getting repeat items through customs on a weekly basis!

dont do business with china. thats the secret. im a strong advocate for that. lol

You don't need to be worried about U.S. customs. After over 3 years of purchasing anywhere from 50-100 pairs of "branded" shoes a month (haha you sound like my suppliers) directly from China I've never had one single problem with U.S customs. Even with multiple packages delivered to the same address on the same day.

You have to realize that even though the package is coming from China a lot of times it will hit different major airports. Even if your supplier ships them a day apart there is still a possibility of them getting sorted for delivery on the same day.

I have, however, had a few packages seized by China customs during the Olympics when their security was at an all time high. But that is a one off event...

You don't have to worry about customs. At least I don't. Your supplier should be good enough to cover you in the event an unfortunate event were to happen with your package...

Yea, when I used to sell brand named shoes, I used to get HUGE boxes, sometimes split orders on the same day as well, over 50-100 pair a month as well all going to the same address. I never had any problems with customsI had one package that took like 3 weeks to arrive, but it eventually came.

It's good split orders, this may avoid custom problem. I also do like this.

Thanks guys for your 'reassuring' comments!!

I just hope I have the same luck with UK customs.