Hi there. I’m having an argument with my wife about importing secondhand bigbikes legally and need some opinions.
My question to you guys n gals is: Would people in Taiwan be interested in buying cheap second-hand road-legal bigger bikes?
I want to do it as a business and have done a fair bit of research, as have many others, into the process and want to take the next step in the next 6 months or so, finances and Guanxi depending.
I’d be looking at mostly refurbished older bikes like early 90’s GPX250R’s, ZZR400’s and the like. My rough estimation is a sale price of around $120k after all import taxes, emissions tests etc.
Do you think people would be interested in such beasts at said prices?
I think you would find a few foreigners interested if you were able to sell them for that price. But I’m not sure if you’ll be able to, for most bikes it cost $80,000NT to get it passed the tests, tack on impot tax and shipping and you’re pretty close to $100,000NT. I’ve done a lot of research, and have owned several (legal) big bikes in Taiwan. You coud make a profit, but you would have to import special or exotic bikes to attract some big fish Taiwanese buyers. Few big bike buyers would consider buying a bike that is over even 3 years old, so a 10 year old bike will be very hard to sell, even with yellow plates on it. Especially with so many big bikes already in the market and with the market being so limited. Right now a '02 250 Hornet can be picked up for $120,000 and a '03 CB400 VTEC II for $220,000. It just isn’t profitable enough to import old second hand bikes into Taiwan as a business. Even the big guys like SBS and Eiko struggle to get their last year models out the door, even at a very discounted price. But hey, that’s from what I have gathered. Maybe if you have the right connections and can get the bikes at give away prices, then you might be able to make a buck.
If not I suggest you read it carefully especially Plasmatron’s post at the bottom.[/quote]
Its all good, joe. Read it and most of the others. Also read Director General of customs, moea, and the tax, and the testing center in Changhua websites…with a little help from a friend who reads chinese…
I am importing a ZXR250C as a test case in a month or so. I chose it cause its cheap and the % duties wont add up to much…If it fails or i cannot do it…It didnt cost me too much
I’ve recently found out there’s a Taiwanese owned outfit in Gaoxiong that import about 20-30 2nd hand bikes a month… mostly CB400’s, 600 Hornets, basically standard issue used Japanese bikes that are mostly in good shape… they sell them fully legal with temporary plates, with all the paperwork necessary to apply for the yellow plate (at your own expense) starting at about NT$100,000… a friend of mine in Taichung just picked up an excellent condition 2000 CBR400 all stock for NT$100,000 because they thought it was misfiring, but some minor carb work had it running a treat…
There’s another outfit in Taichung that do the same and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone up North isn’t doing the same thing… It’s a pretty easy thing to arrange if you’ve got the capital and the inclination, there are any number of companies in Japan and I think Singapore too, who specialize in buying, preparing and consolidating 2nd hand bikes in Japan for export, they offer quotes on individual bikes but usually have 20’ container minimum quantities… like I said before as a business prospect it’s not great since you’d only be able to move them at very low margins and hope the quantity adds up to something, but with such low margins on something as risky as sight unseen 2nd hand bikes one “lemon” is going to be a heavy hit to your margins on a whole shipment…you can tell by the prices that these guys are selling them at that they’re not making any real money… it’s more a side line thing…
who knows though there might be a niche for a by foreigners, for foreigners type of thing… good luck…
my friend Danny imported a couple of big Yammies, 750 cc about 3 years ago.
His broker handled everything. about 600 USD for shipping.
I’m told that the new bikes are all on a circuit, among the bike thieves. Steal em in Kaohsiung, sell em in Taipei, and keep moving em around the isand. But that may have changed.
The 2nd hand bike business is probably safer. Who wants to steal a 5 year old bike?
I had a 250 cc Yamaha in 1988. Bought it off a fishing boat. heh - he
I’d suggest that you specialize in one brand, Yamaha or other, and try to stay with lots of the same model so you can interchange parts.
If you do a service operation you’ll do very well because many of the local shops don’t have the tekkie books in Chinese. And the users know this.
Knowlege is power.
There’s a shop in Xindian that sells used CBR400s, mostly super fours, but the prices aren’t anything to shout about, or they weren’t when I asked, but that was about a year ago.