Shipping laptop from US to China - Customs & Tax advice

[Manuel]

I am looking to buy a new laptop to replace my 5-year old desktop which I am selling to a friend. You might be thinking "why not just buy the laptop directly from a local Chinese retailer and avoid the hassle?" Long story short, it's a custom build tweaked for audio production tasks. The manufacturer is US-based company ADK, and their workstations are extremely popular amongst audio professionals.

 

Unfortunately I don't live in the US so I'd have to have the laptop shipped to China, where I'd get customs-raped. I've previously bought a relatively inexpensive item from the US and the amount I was asked to pay was obscene, so I am wondering if there is any legal way to reduce or even completely avoid taxes, and if anyone here has experience importing brand-new computer hardware into China on a one-off basis.

 

I've read that "Hong Kong is a free port and does not levy any duty on imports", would that mean that I could have the laptop shipped to a friend in Hong Kong and then pop over for a weekend, have a beer and pick it up myself?

[abcdefg]

Manuel -- I thought about doing something similar two years ago. Wanted to be able to configure a new laptop; choose the specs; have the factory install the components I wanted instead of just a standard set. Nothing exotic or "special use" like in your case. Just wanted to choose the chipset, amount and type of RAM, size and type of hard disc drive, video card and things like that. Basic stuff.

 

Was hoping they could then ship it to me at a well-known Hong Kong hotel, where they would hold it until I picked it up and just carried it across the border into Mainland China a day or two later. Since it would be for personal use, I didn't anticipate any tax or duties.

 

Ran into a few problems. First off, the maker could not guarantee the ship date. That was not a big deal. If they just sent me an e-mail when the machine shipped, I could fly down and get it. The larger problem was the "chain of receipt." The hotel didn't really want to act in my behalf, as my agent, and sign the delivery invoice, since it made them liable if the computer became damaged or disappeared before I could get there.

 

I also wasn't sure how I would proceed if the new machine arrived badly flawed or DOA. Slug it out with Customer Service (actually a call center in Bangladesh) over the phone, ship it back to the US for repair or replacement or try for some local fix through an authorized service center in Hong Kong? Would warranty cover that? At best, it might entail making a second Hong Kong trip a week or two later.

 

If you have a Hong Kong friend who could act in your behalf throughout the process, that might make it OK. It would depend on the company doing the shipping. Whether they were OK with you paying for it and then having them ship it to someone else instead of shipping it to you, with the recipient being in a different country from the person who ordered it.

 

What I eventually wound up doing was just going to Hong Kong, and spending enough time shopping (about 3 days) to find a pre-built laptop with specs that were fairly close to what I wanted. Not my "dream machine," but close enough. Stayed around long enough to fire it up a few times and check it out before crossing the border and heading home.

 

Actually, I also tried to do that in Kunming beforehand, but it was not a satisfactory experience. Everything I found locally (hardware) was at least one generation behind what was available on the international market, plus there were myriad software issues. On top of that, estimated costs exceeded what I would have paid in the US or in Hong Kong by a wide margin.