Just recently had to do some research on imports and here is what I came across that is very important.

I definetly recommend hiring a customs agent or broker, just look up in google “customs broker [name of your city]” and look around, call them up, etc. One thing they mention is to get ready to place a BIG order, because usually minimum quantities for shippingare pretty high. Hope this info helps.

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Things you are going to need to have.

• Commercial invoice - the declared value of the items
• Packing list - what you are importing
• detail sheet - outlines how the product is manufactured so customs can determine the duty classification
• bill of lading (if by sea) - used mainly as a receipt, for proof of shipment and insurance purposes

By air

• easier
• faster
• most expensive
• DHL is good for this - vendor supplies list of documents to DHL, and the DHL handles all the rest and ships to the address specified
• have to show customs a company ID number

By sea

• hire a good customs agent to do:

1. Customs Documentation – They will take care of any and all documentation required in the entire process
2. Customs Entry – They will take care of getting your goods from the port directly to your office
3. Customs Duty – They will take care of calculating and billing you for any duties associated with your goods.
4. Customs Single Entry Bond – You are required to buy a bond that acts as insurance with Customs in the event you should default on the customs duties. Your customs agent will take care of this for you .

Of course all of these services come at a cost. For our last shipment, we paid over $300 dollars to our agent but it was worth every penny. We got our goods through customs swiftly and without hassle.

To give you an idea of the savings, our last shipment would have cost $1600 dollars by air, but by sea it only cost us $250 + $300 = 550 dollars. Overall, we saved about 3x. The tradeoff was that it took over 3 weeks to receive our shipment as opposed 4 days by air.