Importing Products

[quidsin]

Hi,

My wife has a hair salon here in SG and uses and sells high end hair care products to customers.

The product she uses can be bought in the US for 1/3 of the price which the exclusive distributor for that product sells it for here in Singapore.

In order to save costs, she is thinking of making the trip to the US twice yearly to stock up on the products and take them back to Singapore to use and sell to customers on order to realise savings and get a holiday out of it at the same time!

Is this allowed and is she doing anything illegal , i.e bypassing the sole distributor? She intends to pay the GST to Singapore customs.

Cheers
Quidsin

[Strong Eagle]

Two points to consider. From the government aspect, in addition to GST and any duty that might be imposed, you need to make sure that you are properly permitted for the importation of the items you want to bring in. Singapore tries to do a good job of keeping dangerous products out of the marketplace and you will need to check this out.

Second, you need to check distributor rules... they may not permit this. On the other hand, plenty of products are brought in as "gray market", bypassing the distributor but generally meaning that things like warranty, returns, etc are not available to you.

[Fortan]

Two points to consider. From the government aspect, in addition to GST and any duty that might be imposed, you need to make sure that you are properly permitted for the importation of the items you want to bring in. Singapore tries to do a good job of keeping dangerous products out of the marketplace and you will need to check this out.

Well, except from all the foods that comes in from China. Some of it is shocking and carries no content sticker of any kind. I saw a vacuum packed pack of 'Meatballs' last week. Made in China it said and Meatballs was all the information available.... don't want to know what's inside.... yuks

[livingontheedge]

Parallel importing is legal in Singapore, unless you purchase and resell directly from the factories for which you must consider territorial distribution rights held by current distributors.

When bring in goods for sale in Singapore, GST and other import duties needs to be paid, which she can pay to customs.

Don't see this as being a major issue. Its fairly common in Singapore.