I want to buy a phone which costs around $300, from sites like Banggood or Aliexpress. I have couple of questions on this subject:
1-the customs fee rules are way too complex! There are lıts of seperate fees. What would I pay if the cost is declared as such.
2-these sites generally declare the price less, sometimes without your knowledge. In such a case, what happens?
3-I would like to hear about your experiences regarding ordering high valye items from sites like these. If you don't want to share them publicly, then I can also read them if you send it as PM.
I've bought very expensive stuff from banggood recently, not had a problem, one package got held up at customs as they didn't fill out a declaration, the other I paid extra to have it sent by a proper carrier both where 3d printers.
And yes, unless you pay extra they always enter a load of old BS on the declaration - eg gift $10 with is guaranteed to set off swiss posts alarm bells, when they use someone like DHL they have to fill it out properly.
I order in the range of 50 parcels a month from Aliexpress...
Most are low-value, but not all.
The vast majority (even the low value ones) have wrong declarations (e.g. the cufflinks I got yesterday were put down as "accessories - gift - 0.01$".)
I paid them under 5chf, so not a huge deal (i.e. still tax free).
In the last 6 months, I have had to pay one bill - where the sender used DHL (a robot vacuum)... otherwise, nothing has ever been stopped.
Conscious that now, everything will get stopped and challenged
i've ordered hundreds of things from aliexpress. most are low value. some where more expensive such as 3d printers which either were declared and paid or somehow slipped through. interestingly the only item that was stopped and invoice requested was on a roll of 3d printer filament which was just below the taxable value and so after a copy of the invoice was sent, it was released without charge.
i basically have a constant stream of stuff arriving from aliexpress.
during covid crisis, i saw that the stream of goods was interrupted for maybe a month, but now everything seems to be flowing again, maybe taking slightly longer than expected.
of course sometimes packages also go missing. i already received 2 destined for somebody else so the problem can also be on the swiss delivery side...
Really ? For personal consumption or for a business ? I'm just being nosey... every time I look at those sites it just boggles my mind how anyone could want (nobody could 'need' any of it) all that (admittedly very cheap) stuff..