[mee]

Occasionally I see pretty decent prices for lenses on auction sites, but then I got to wondering if there are any duty/customs fees involved that is not shown in the final price...

What has been your experiences, as example with buying lenses through ebay with a seller in China or Japan?

[tim60]

I have never heard of an export customs fee for ordinary consumer products. People post parcels all the time. Although I have never received anything from China or Japan, but I do get stuff from other countries in that region.

The customs fees of which to be aware are the import fees in your country. Probably a quick look at either the post office site or the customs site (government) should give the details. In Australia incoming parcels under AUD1000 are not taxed. (This has the retail industry objecting because of the competition of overseas online traders. It is also ironic that the tax free threshold for a traveller to bring in in their baggage is only AUD900.)

Whenever I buy from overseas, I got a numberof tings from the MP and eBay, I let the sender declare whatever it is and the value, and given the generous threshold I would rather is be an honest "used camera lens, USD 65" than some lie anyway.