Importing goods into the US

[paulney]

A few months ago I asked people on this forum, on how to ship stuff into the US and got a few helpful responses.

Well, the ordeal is now over - we have received our custom-order goods from China, safe and sound. All in all, not bad for the first time - we only incurred a $150 penalty for a late filing of one of the forms.

The process, essentially, is like this:
- find a credible overseas manufacturer
- you pay the manufacturer to produce the goods
- they produce the goods, and, if they've been in the shipping business for some time, ship the items to you via a shipping broker
- you receive a bill of lading and an ISF (10+2) form
- you contact the shipping broker in the US and fill out a bunch of forms
- shipping broker files all necessary paperwork with the customs for you
- goods arrive and clear customs
- you pay the shipping broker
- you pay the warehouse for storing your stuff
- you pay the freight company for moving your stuff
- you can haz your goods! yay!

So, overall, not too bad.
I've put together a longer blog post on how all of this works in case anyone's interested:
http://bilingva.com/blog/importing-commercial-goods-into-the-usa.html

/anandtech.com blog

 

[rudeguy]

What did you buy?

 

[zerocool84]

What did you buy?

Mail Order Bride

 

[RavenSEAL]

Mail Order Bride

 

[paulney]

What did you buy?

We bought interpreting booths - those sound-insulating booths where conference interpreters sit and work during a multi-language event. Those aren't manufactured in the US - only in Canada, China and Europe. Canadian are twice as expensive, somewhat lighter, but more fragile. Chinese are very nicely built, but heavy, and twice as cheap. European are so freaking expensive and take forever to build, we did not even consider it.

 

[FoBoT]

sounds like a business opportunity