So under that, what qualifies as an over the counter drug exactly? If something comes in a bottle, tube, or tablet form? Does something herbal count? Do things like containers of protein?
This seems like a joke really. A ton of stuff you can’t even buy in taiwan to begin with, and if you can it’s a ridiculous markup.
Is there an actual list of the exact products determined to be ‘drugs’ here, like what’s the criteria?
I can probably deal with getting what I want even with the limits, but then there’s all the hoops to jump through, and what about people with health issues who rely on some of this stuff for their well being?
No, it’s all health supplements, not just vitamins. We faced a six month battle to bring in our whey protein because the government is already cracking down. We actually had a shipment that was right there in my hands and they took it away from me and sent it back to New Zealand. All pills, powders, and herbs as far as i can tell will fall under these new laws. They want to crack down on people selling this stuff illegally on Ruten and Yahoo. That’s why I’m glad we’re legal importers.
Ah, thanks, that makes a bit more sense. Well, no, actually it makes no sense at all, but it helps explain what may be going on. And if you get a customs worker on a bad day, I suppose anything can qualify as a health supplement. After all, the label on the tomatoes says that it contains 15% of the recommended Vitamin C amount. Must be a vitamin!
Grim reading, but it was almost too good to last. Still, I had 2 packages come through Ok in Nov (both about $60US and 12-14lb), although one had been obviously opened and reclosed.
Well the law doesn’t change till july 2015 so there should be no change right now assuming you’re underweight.
My orders should fit well within the limit of 12 bottles/1200 tablets per 6 months, though I might be going over 3000NT and paying tax…still worth it compared to local gouging.
btw, is there an actual local alternative to order online from? I see PChome has quite a few supplements, don’t they require a taiwan ID# to order though? And places like GNC stores are a total ripoff.
I don’t mean to toot my own horn and it depends on what you’re looking for, but we carry whey protein and creatine currently. Our stuff beats the heck out of that other place you mentioned and it’s better tasting and cheaper to boot. We are the local distributor for our brand and we import directly from New Zealand.
I’m looking at carrying vitamins, ZMA, and a veggie/whole food blend but I will take baby steps to try those out. The government is already cracking down hard on imports for us importers because us legal guys go through legal channels, controlled by the government of course. No one is waiting until next year. A new law was already passed last year, the one next year is just the latest iteration.
If you’re looking for the range of options that a large supplement store back in the States offers then you will never see that hear. Even GNC here overs little but their house brand for that reason. All of us legal importers have to pay high import taxes on this stuff which cuts severely into the profit margin, making many supps unsellable here unless it’s cheap junk.
I could care less about the vitamins and seeds restrictions. The problem seems to be that any order from iherb is getting highly scrutinized and higher duties are being imposed.
I don’t mean to toot my own horn and it depends on what you’re looking for, but we carry whey protein and creatine currently. Our stuff beats the heck out of that other place you mentioned and it’s better tasting and cheaper to boot. We are the local distributor for our brand and we import directly from New Zealand.
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Thanks but basically I order a couple of herbal things, plus some amino acid supplements. Hope you guys can steer through this nonsense though if you’re looking to expand.
Considering the local market is so limited/inaccessible for a lot of the things they’re limiting imports on, what’s the real point to any of this anyway?
Latest news: we’re still unsure about customs and imports fees, but they apparently need to test all the whole grains to see if they can be grown: I guess that’s the bulgur wheat and the quinoa, and perhaps also the coriander seed?! Who knows, maybe they’re trying to grow the chocolate chips and black beans and tomatoes as well. That’ll apparently cost NTD1200, and will take 4-5 days - payment requirements unsure, but presumably we need to wire money later.
Again, this is all being handled by my wife (while she’s at work, which can’t be good!). I’m unsure how or even if arranging this would be possible for those without a Chinese-speaking spouse or excellent Chinese skills - I can manage barely manage this kind of stuff in a face-to-face meeting, but absolutely not on the phone.
Dunno really. If vitamins, seeds, and herbs and things that look like them are ruled out, that affects pretty much everything I buy from them. After all, I assume there are seeds in those canned tomatoes, or in the tomatillo salsa I also occasionally order.
My operating assumption at the moment is that customs have been told to cause as much trouble as possible for anyone trying to import products. This is just bullshit.
Conspiracy assumption: people in Taiwan no longer want to buy food sold in Taiwan - and the powers-that-be have decided to give them no choice.
EDIT: Never mind the sheer hassle value involved! I guess next week I’m going to have to send a money order to some office in Taoyuan?! Figuring this out has taken my wife a significant amount of time.
I too just got into a limbo with my iHerb package.
Because I have ordered chia seeds, the order was over 3000NT (note: iherb will put original price, not the sale price, and the 3000NT will include shipping fee, so just beware). (also beware of the recent depreciation of NTD. )
So the email I got is that I either go to the custom facility in TAOYUAN (I live in Taipei without a car) to take care of the clearing procedure… or ask a food custom clearance company to do it, and that will be $1200+plus whatever additional cost that might apply (most common number I see on these horror stories is 1400). DHL kindly remind me that if the package stays in their facility for over 5 days, each day they will charge 200NT for wasting their space on their storage, and another 200NT per day for storage fee. This is stupid because I have no idea if my chia seeds will sprout under their testing or what not, and how long will that be.
So I thought, maybe if I discard the chia seeds, the total order will be under $3000, and I should be able to get the package. but noooo, even though the order will be under the tariff limit, they will still charge about the original amount exceeded $3000, they will just not charge the discarded portion, but will charge the tariff because the original package exceeds 3000. and the tariff for health supplement is 30% (nuts!)
After some thoughts, I decided to just decline the package. iHerb customer service said I will not be charge with the return shipping (to be confirm later). And I will be refunded 80% of my order, the 20% will go to restocking fee. It might take two months because the product returns to facility 6 times a year.
20% (roughly 688NT) of my order is still a lot better than the NT1400+30% tariff+storage facility from DHL. I will simply just bother some students to bring some extra bottles of vitamins when they visit Taiwan for winter break for MY SICK MOTHER.
[quote=“lostinasia”]My operating assumption at the moment is that customs have been told to cause as much trouble as possible for anyone trying to import products. This is just bullshit.
Conspiracy assumption: people in Taiwan no longer want to buy food sold in Taiwan - and the powers-that-be have decided to give them no choice.[/quote]
Yes. Like everything else government does, they claim to have a good reason. In this case, they claim they want to “protect” people from tainted products that cause harm but all of those products come from China, not the places people are ordering from. The actual reason is to get people to buy poor quality local products.
Sorry to hear about your troubles. I contacted a supplier to provide better quality vitamins here but I just found out that pills require a different license than powders so the government gets to make more money off us as we fill out infinite forms. I’m hoping we can bring in quality Western vitamins starting next year.
Well, I’m still not sure if the hassles with my current shipment are an unusual fluke, or the new standard operating procedure. But at this point I’d recommend trying to order seeds/grains in different shipments from other ingredients. (What counts as a seed or grain? Does that include the dried beans or coriander? I don’t know!) Current progress: we agreed to the germination test last week. Then on Friday they sent another form that I needed to actually sign and send back to them, and we sent that back on Saturday. So the testing presumably only started early this week.
Minor note that the quotes are slightly mixed up in Formosa Fitness’s post above - I think the part attributed to Abacus was actually my own words, rather than the other way around.
I got one, too. It touted shipping rates at 50% off iHerb’s cost:
As it turns out, this is a sly way of announcing higher shipping charges, as I found out today while filling my next shopping cart. Instead of the flat rate of US$8 for up to 8 pounds (plus $1 per pound for weight in excess of that), there’s now a sliding scale. My order-in-process weighs 7.86 pounds and the DHL Express charge - after the 50% shipping discount - is $12.11, which represents a 50% increase over what the shipping charge would have been under the old rates.
And if that’s not bad enough, the current customs exchange rate places the duty threshold at US$96.23.
Well, this may be the end of iherb for me. I ordered a package last week, despite the new higher shipping charge. I kept the amount below $3000 NT, but the package is stuck with DHL for customs issues. I’m not exactly sure what the problem is as it wasn’t explained in the email. I was asked to provide some information that I don’t have (such as a business name, but I don’t have a business), and was given a power of attorney form to fill out. I emailed DHL back and asked for an explanation of what is going on, as this is the first shipment I’ve ever had held up. We’ll see what the response is.
I didn’t order and seeds or vitamins, but I did get one bottle of a herbal supplement. All the rest was food.
[quote=“Tiare”]Well, this may be the end of iherb for me. I ordered a package last week, despite the new higher shipping charge. I kept the amount below $3000 NT, but the package is stuck with DHL for customs issues. I’m not exactly sure what the problem is as it wasn’t explained in the email. I was asked to provide some information that I don’t have (such as a business name, but I don’t have a business), and was given a power of attorney form to fill out. I emailed DHL back and asked for an explanation of what is going on, as this is the first shipment I’ve ever had held up. We’ll see what the response is.
I didn’t order and seeds or vitamins, but I did get one bottle of a herbal supplement. All the rest was food.[/quote]
It sounds to me like they’re looking for an excuse to tax anything, so maybe a supplement tax for any supplement, plus a tax if you go over 3000.
In the email there should be a phone number for the DHL rep you can call, that’s probably the better way to get clarification. In the end the POA is just you agreeing to pay the extra tax on delivery.
Even if they are throwing extra taxes and making you do the annoying POA step, depending on the product it still might be worth it.
Putting up roadblocks to get people to spend more locally - instead of making the local market competitive - is a surefire way to get me to not spend locally whenever I can.