HELP: Brazilian Customs

[Thalia]

This is for anyone who lives in Brazil or who can give me insight into their postal/customs systems.

I am very close to shutting down offering any shipping to Brazil from my E-bay store. My Brazilian customers are amazing, they have great communication, they buy a lot from me and are very nice, but Brazil is the only country giving me problems with Customs.

I've had more than one customer get their items held up in Customs for almost 2 months, one who had to pay the same amount in taxes as the item was worth, and one right now who's item never showed up ><

E-bay just sent me a letter saying they are going to start sending generic e-mails to anyone who buy items from me that is located in Brazil asking them to be patient as there is ongoing issues with their customs office.

What is going on? Why does it take so long for people to get their stuff? Is there anything I can do to make my customers experience better short of lying on the declaration papers?

I really want to continue my relationship with the Brazilian people, but it is starting to get stressful every time I get an e-mail saying they have not received an item, only to go back and forth for a week and it just magically shows up from customs hostage out of the blue.

Anyone have any advice?

Thanks!!!

[Snake-Aes]

It's basically bullshit.
The delays tend to be because they are slow to process everything. I do not recognize a pattern: In January I bought a game and it spent a month there, but in February I bought a new xbox controller and it arrived in a week.



On paying the volume's price: There is an import tax on almost everything. Clothes are taxed by around 60% of the product's price I believe. Books are free. Electronics vary anywhere between 60% and 100%.
If I recall correctly, a normal person can send up to US$50.00 worth of stuff without being taxed. If a shop is sending the product, on the other hand, it's always taxed.

Here's what they have to say about taxes.

[Thalia]

Wow...that's the most amount of customs taxes I have ever seen =(

[Snake-Aes]

Eeyup.

[Fivelives]

Make friends with a smuggler? Those import tariff rates are outrageous.

[Gab]

Make friends with a smuggler? Those import tariff rates are outrageous.

Or just fuzz the invoices...

[Thalia]

lol ya people often ask me to do that but no way Jose. I would risk losing my shipping license with my pricing discounts. Also if you do lose and item, you cannot claim the full insurance if you report is was worth less.

Oh well... guess I can't do much as a seller.

[Fivelives]

Try getting a business partner in Brazil? I know that (used to, at least) work in some countries, where you could ship it to your "local office" and it wouldn't get tariffed quite so hard.

Have you also tried volume? A lot of times businesses that do volume importing/exporting get lower tariffs than businesses that ship small orders to individuals.

Caveat: I'm not a tax lawyer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

No, really, the air conditioner blew a gasket here again and I couldn't get anyone out to fix it until this morning.

[Passionario]

Anyone have any advice?

Russian customs/postal services are even worse.

[Shoju]

I sadly, just refuse to ship anything to Brazil anymore.

When I worked on eBay full time for a coin dealer, whenever precious metals of any type were sent to Brazil, it was a "Hope and Pray" that it made it through customs. OFten times, the package made it to our customers, with nothing inside it.

When I sold gaming stuff part time for myself, I ran into woefully bad customs problems like you are experiencing.

When my current employer decided to start selling on eBay, I decided that there just wouldn't be enough business in what we sell to warrant the headache that seems to come from dealing with Brazilian customs.

I feel bad, because it definitely seems to be a government problem.

Russian Customs crack me up. They actually contacted the US, which contacted us, because they didn't like what I had shipped there. (Engine parts) They felt I was trying to sell bomb components.

[Malthrax]

I thought this post would be about the OTHER "Brazilian Customs"...

I am disappoint.

[Brekkie]

Some countries just have crappy customs. Nothing you can do about it. When I lived in Saudi Arabia, they would open all my mail and packages and root around in them for a couple weeks looking for alcohol, pork, or Jewish paraphernalia.