New "door to door" for tax-free online shopping: more than half of products arrive from China

The new online shopping system that arrives "door to door" and without paying taxes has made its debut with good numbers. The modality promoted by Correo Argentino and AFIP it had been a month since orders had increased by more than 30% and at the origin of the purchases, there was an obvious winner: China remained at least with 56% of orders in the early days of the system..

Although this figure may be surprisingly high, it would be even more so, because China is followed by countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Laos, which together add 23%, and from which surely come purchases that come from also from the Asian giant, from various subsidiaries or large depots of sites selling products on the Internet, including Aliexpress, the market place of Alibabá, "the Chinese Amazon". In the "rest of the world" category, deliveries are recorded from "the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom, the main countries, to a lesser extent, Switzerland, the United States and the United States. Spain, Japan, Austria and Belgium ", details in the agency that manages Leandro Cuccioli.

The market or channel where the order is placed is not publicly announced, but for now, the idea of ​​acquiring from Amazon, the leading brand of e-commerce in the West, does not seem to permeate everything that hides between the preferences of the Argentines: only 4% of orders arrive from the USA. There is no doubt that the dollar component will have an impact of nearly 18% this year (with a peak of more than 21%), as well as the price of products: in China, they are much cheaper.

"Everything comes from China because of a price problem. The new system works better. Of course, that could not get worse. The franchise has been updated and everything is much simpler. If you had to adjust some things, such as speeding up: a purchase took me a month to get home since I entered the country. In addition, some initial technical issues have been resolved ", badures Guido Di Paolo, which has been running the Aliexpress Argentina blog since 2012, with guides and tips for buying abroad.

What are Argentines buying? "With regard to articles, toys (card games, anime), clothing, vehicle parts (new), cell phones / tablets and works of art (not requiring an affidavit) are highlighted", they detail in AFIP.

"Products change, before buying shoes, but now with the change of the dollar, not so much … Today, you buy clothes – jeans, divers, t-shirts and a lot of jerseys women's bath – and also toys, where there are differences up to 70% in value, then there are gadgets and electronic accessories, "said Di Paolo.

In almost all cases, for the limit of purchase and the weight of each shipment (up to 20 kilos), these are small products that do not affect, according to the authorities, the local sales volumes of these items.

Before the introduction of the new system, about 9,000 products arrived every day, but it was heavy and had to be removed from customs, in the middle of long queues and with an inefficient system. Since April, with the new modality, it has increased to 12,000 per day, 33% more in 30 days. "In the new system, more than 130,000 users have already registered," says Correo Argentino on the website where all the procedures are now running so that the products arrive directly at home.

Thus, every Argentine can enter the country without paying taxes, 12 shipments of 50 USD per year, not cumulative. In total, 600 USD. All "door to door" operations are centralized from the new international shipping portal, on the website of Correo Argentino. There, the user has to download his data and those of the purchase and will receive notification of the arrival of the shipment in the country by e-mail (previously, it was by telegram) and can track traceability to their online home. Nor should we make a double notification in AFIP.

However, the customs reserve the right to ask the buyer to withdraw the shipment itself if it has disadvantages such as weight and deductible. This caused delays and protests in the early days of the operation.

"Since April 1, more than half of the shipments have been held back due to an error on the part of customs, but this has already been resolved in its entirety. In addition, many parcels pbad through the circuit face to face because users indicate in the statement that they are unaware of the contents of the shipment; either because it's a gift, or because they do not know what's in it. In these cases, the presence of the person will always be required, but from the new changes, it may request to be represented by the official mail before customs.", they detail the official body.