[Mashiro]

Thanks for sharing your experiences.  Wow - a real eye-opener for sure.  I'm curious about Russia though.  Which city and shop did you buy the Xiaomi from?

What was particularly interesting for me too is that the prices you paid for some of the products may even be half that of Amazon in Germany.  Looks as though gearbest.com is having a super sale on as well. 

Only drawback for me would be customs in South Africa also in Canada.  They're two countries who can kill with custom duties because of how protected their economies are.

The city was Omsk and I don't remember the shop anymore. It was a local shop that ordered the items for customers from Chinese shops.


Tax and customs fees are indeed always a drawback with these. So far I never had an issue though. Usually in such cases express shipping methods are taking care of taxes and customs. They might be a bit more expensive than free or standard shipping but in most cases still cheaper than having to pay the important tax/customs fee. And often you get very cheap or free express/priority shipping on Chinese shops.