Becoming an importer / distributor in Germany

Hi All,

I am in talks with an American company to distribute their product in Germany. It would be sold via e-commerce (online store). Is there some special German importer license I need to do this? I have read over the German Consulate's page for information, but it is all quite vague.

The product itself has been approved for sale in Germany by the German government.

But I have no clue how to go about importing it officially other than just having a shipment sent and seeing what happens?!

Any help from someone importing would be appreciated!

I´d talk to the Zollamt and Finanzamt for starters.

I suspect this man knows a bit about the subject.

Thanks, have PM'd him!

Looks like he will know his stuff

Or this one.

For those interested in selling online over here, I personally find the biggest pain in the butt is the lack of people using credit cards. So you have to offer all these pre-payment, post-payment, cash-on-delivery, cash-by-carrier-pigeon options. I reckon we get maybe 1 in 8 orders at the most via credit card which just makes things more fiddly.

What really amazes me is why they dont have debit cards like we have at home - Visa Debit or Maestro etc straight from your bank account. Would be much better as these could be processed like a regular credit card.

Commercial import from the US for local re-sale is a little more complicated than (I presume) JEs business dealings as you lose the EU "protective" trading umbrella, but it's no big deal. Just more forms to fill in to satisfy the customs people, the VAT people and the German national bank...

As it happens I do also import from the USA and Israel amongst others!

Hi there!

My company (www.gofigure.de) imports mainly from Asia and from within the EU. I've had to learn all of the red tape myself over the last youple of years and it's not too complicated really.

- the seller is usually willing to organise shipping. in the case of freight by ship you'll need to organise the transport from the arrival port to your headquarters. in every port there are hundreds of "freight forwarders" who will take care of all of this for you. there are also country-/worldwide companies that can do this (e.g. DACHSER)

- depending on the type of product, you'll have to pay import tax (Einfuhrumsatzsteuer) on the imports, which is a levy equivalent to German VAT (MwSt) and deductible as such

- you'll need to acquaint yourself with the INCOTERMS (worldwide standardised terms for the different types of shipping => who is responsible for the goods for which section of their journey)

- you'll need to register with the finanzamt and with the trade office (gewerbeamt) to register yourself and your business respectively. depending on the business type, you may need to register in the handelsregister.

Feel free to PM if you have any questions.

@DanaRae - My other half works in the freight forwarding business (esp dealing with importing/exporting between Germany and the States). I'm sure he could answer just about every question you have in that area. He's help one other TTer get things up and running with a new business. I'm sure he'd be happy to help you out too. Send me a PM if interested or maybe the two of you can chat at the "get together".

I haven't played Go in Coon's age! What is your TT membership discount!

No extra discount for TTers as such, but I could throw in a freebie or two with a decent sized order.

[img]http://www.gofigure.de/images/sneak_go.gif[/img]

@ Johnny English. why don't you use direct debit (without a card)? Customers fill in their bank details, and you get the money within few days from their bank.

We do. Its called ELV on our system. "Electronic Lastschrift" from Worldpay. But it still sucks hugely because you need to wait 2/3 days for the payment to be processed, so you cannot despatch the orders immediately, then you also need to monitor your bank account to match up the payments, and more importantly to check for bounced payments.

If you don't have ELV I guess you probably need to do some extra bullshit paperwork by hand?

Even worse is you can get a payment IN but actually still need to leave it another 2-3 working days because they show you the credit on your account, but without checking for the funds, so if it is gonna bounce it will be 24-48 hours later!! So just seeing the payment DOES NOT mean you have a cleared payment.

Oh yeah and when it bounces the bank hits you for a 6 Euro fee every time.

Fortunately only a tiny percentage of our orders are with German customers, but it would be a full-time job for 1 person to monitor if all our business was done this way. The payments I consider the single biggest hinderance to mail order trading in this country.

But - as far as I know - you have the same risk with a credit card online charge - because a credit card charge can also be canceled by the customer..like the german direct debit you have some weeks to do so. We use direct debit for some minor transaktions in our company, do it manually with our online banling programm, and hat one withdrawn payment in the last year.

what about pay pal

It is not the same. Once the payment is taken from a UK debit or credit card you KNOW that at least you have been paid, and that the cash is with you and not the customer. If they later wish to cancel the transaction then they must apply through their bank. It then must go through the "chargeback" process and they must prove for instance that you did not ship the goods etc. If the original payment is gonna "bounce" it happens right at the time of payment - so the order in effect never completes.

With the Lastschrift you are on a wing and a prayer. Customer can place an order with ZERO in his bank account. Your bank will then a few days later show a credit on your account regardless. Then 1-3 days later when the bank has actually tried to get the funds the payment will be refused, and you as the retailer must also pay for the failed bank charge. Like waiting for a cheque to bounce - it hasn't bounced until it bounces!

On all systems - credit cards, debits cards, Lastschrift etc there is consumer protection. They can apply for a refund up to 6 months later but need a reason! The cannot simply "cancel" the order just to get their money back. The customer needs to prove you did not ship them any goods etc.

Paypal? Paypal sucks. It is amateurish and a total drama if you want to pay by credit card because they force every consumer to register with them. For credit cards it is unprofessional and you will never see a reputable decent size internet retailer using them. It is a 100% necessity of course for Ebay trading, but aside from that you should leave well alone.

Just received my first delivery of stocks from the USA (from Needham, MA - wherever that is!!)

Got stuck for about 24-48 hours with UPS because they needed a "Power of Attorney" document that should have been shipped with the order. Turned out this was weird wording, and all they actually needed was a signed fax from us saying we were acceptin the goods.

Only $1700 worth of goods, but no extra taxes or any of that rubbish, so pretty smooth really. My stuff from Israel also arrives with no dramas.

Ironically it has beeb loads more trouble buying a digital camera from Ebay than importing stuff!!

So no excuses folks - get on in there and start trading :-)

@johnny english and DanaRae.

If you need help with im/exporting regulations or anything else around this matter let me know! This is what I do all day. I have done it here, in the US and now here again.
..and Johnny. Whenever you have a shipment which is heavier than 40-50kg (watch the density factor) don't use UPS, DHL oder Fedex. Call a forwarder! U would save a ton!