ordering from the USA - tax etc

I've been looking at ordering some products from the US to China - books from Amazon (20-30$ incl shipping), and a small electric guitar amplifier (160$ incl shipping). Is it worth the trouble? What kind of customs and duty would I be paying?

p.s. in another thread here, people have been charged with 20% on electrical appliances, perhaps the rate is the same in my instance. The items would be shipped by UPS.

I've never ordered an electrical appliance, but suggest you buy locally as the voltage is 220 here, so if you were to just plug it into a wall socket it would get fried. If you go to a local music shop, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the value of what you can get here. Your customs fee on the books depends on their declared value. For something that small, I doubt if there would be a customs fee. If there is, you will receive a notice in the mail to come to the P.O.. You carry in the notice, they get the book from the back, and you pay the fee. Just like picking up a package in the USA. I've had good success finding the books I want, "used" on ebay! The reason I use ebay is that I can hunt around and find a seller who will just charge his cost for shipping. I email them ahead of time and ask what the shipping would be. Most of them have equipment / tools to weigh it and calculate shipping, so you know exactly what you're getting into before you buy the item. This tends to be a bit less than amazon's international shipping rate, plus you can discuss ahead of time with sellers exactly what carrier to use etc.

i agree you should buy locally (if you plan to stay long term). also doesn't amazon sell locally or som local book co. might have what you want. you could try http://amazon.com.hk

the 220v is a good reason for buying locally or in Hong Kong but if you want to buy professional quality music products, go to Hong Kong, because what you can get here is a joke.

I ordered a book through amazon.com and the book arrived in the mail w/o problem.

I also ordered some electric guitar spare parts from the US, and that got slapped with a 20% duty fee, so that seems to be the standard.

i am sorry i thought you were in h k now. anyhow, have you checked "tom lee" music store? i have seen them in h k and shanghai. i've never been inside one but i think they have eletric guitars amps ect..


on the other hand there are musicians here too and they get their equipment from here don't they?

to get professional stuff in Shanghai, you either order it and it takes 6 months, or go to HK. this is slooooooowly changing, as for ex., REAL Epiphone guitars have just appeared in stores in Shanghai, although Epiphone amps are NOT allowed to be imported, yet - as an example of the small buying power of this sort of stuff here and also the beauracratic hurdles to overcome by foreign companies trying to enter China.