Buying & Selling Thru Ebay & Other Auctions/Selling legal imported products

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Expert: Rob James - 11/28/2007


Question
I've contacted a company in Thailand that I wanted to sell their stuffed animals in ebay, and they agreed with that.

The problem is I don't know the laws here. How can I import a small amount (such as 100) of stuffed animals to sell here?

Can they just send me the toys?
If it's not that easy, what kind of processing would I have to go through?

Answer
Amarin,

I wish I could honestly answer this for you. However, I don't have much experience with importing either. I believe that you can make small purchases direct from the company for resale in the manner that you are looking at without complication. The question I would think to be pertinent would be regarding taxes. For that you may want to contact your accountant or financial adviser to see how importing goods is handled with regard to taxes. Obviously, if you are running your business legitimately you would collect and pay  the appropriate sales taxes for your location. I'm just not sure of any import taxes.

Sorry I couldn't answer you better. If you do find out, please let me know as I would like to better understand the process as well.

Thanks,
Rob

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Rob James

Expertise

Hi there! After being a member of the eBay "community" for the past ten years, I have decided to look elsewhere to sell my items. Ebay has, and will agiain in the next month, instituted rediculous policies and fee increases that are not beneficial to the small seller. They are positioning themselves to be another site such as Amazon and are forcing sellers to reduce or eliminate shipping charges (even when they must pay to ship items) as well as preventing the acceptence of checks or money orders as payment. This is all geared to improve eBay's bottom line. I will still be happy to help answer most any question you may have regarding the buying and selling experience on eBay based on my experiences. However, I am looking at sites such as ebid.net that are much more favorable to us small sellers and buyers. You may want to check them out as well.

Experience

I've been an active member on eBay for almost ten years. I started buying and selling as a hobby and turned it into a business that I ran from home for a time.

Education/Credentials
Nothing special here. Some college. Went to work in the computer industry when the PC was just rolling out to the desktops of the world. I'm streetsmart and self taught in most things I know. Especially with eBay and online selling.

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