Has anyone though about opening a start up where you sell goods from outside the country at normal prices and have them drop shipped directly to the end customer here in CH?

I'll give an example. I just ordered rear brakes for my car from the UK. Saved myself 1500 CHF or 300% of the cost.

I wonder what the legal ramifications of setting up a business that simply ships things that are ludicrously expensive here into the country but doesn't inventory anything itself so the taxes would be levied at an individual level.

Thoughts?

When I was 16 I had a business drop-shipping Cuban cigars from Spain (they're even cheaper in Cuba due to ex-colony agreements) to the UK and USA so as to get around import tax/smuggling laws. It worked until the cartels stamped on it.

think it would easier to set it up in france or germany. But why bother? there is nothing stopping anyone doing what you just did, a company doing it would just be a middleman thats not needed.

While it would be cool to earn money like that, I'm not sure it's going to work.
Without inventory, the only advantage for the consumer would be the fact that they don't have to pay in advance via credit-card.
Instead, they would order at your place, you would send them the invoice, due in 30 days, they would pay after 60 (or not)...
Also, you might want to take a look at
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassis-...in_der_Schweiz

It means (AFAIUI) that your business-idea will soon be not necessary any more, because the regular shops will start offering cheaper goods, too.
(Currently, they are forced to buy from the exclusive importer)

But nobody apparently does what the OP just did. It would appear that many folk just don't want the hassle of finding a non-VAT withholding vendor, then to deal with Zollamt - and that's where a middleman might step in - and add value.

"setting it up" might all-encompass a few different functions. For example, where the company is incorporated might be different to where it might choose to source some/all of its goods.

Operating a UK Ltd company is much "easier" than the equivalent in France or Germany.
- Consider the share capital required (1 x GBP1 share in the UK - I think EUR50k must be tied up in DE)
- UK Ltd directors are not required to be UK residents. I'm not sure this applies to German GmbH owners
- Following the most recent Companies Act, the formerly compulsory role of UK Ltd Secretary is not required

Sourcing and supplying goods, building relationships with vendors (e.g. return of warrantied goods, payment terms) and establishing t&c for customers, is another matter altogether - and where the business will be won and lost. Consider Amazon, and its business, financial and customer/vendor model.

Finally - what is your goal?
To really provide the service you allude to?
To provide choice to the not-so-used-to-choices-in-life Swiss residents?
To run a business operating at maximum profit?
To maximise your own income/return from the company?

Seems that your original model/idea is to use your own time and knowledge, to provide essentially subsidised goods for Swiss residents. I wonder how long that can last...?

/GD

Another point of view:

What resources do you need? It is easy to say online business doesn't need any thing but when people are ordering things from abroad and you have to source them and send them and 1 out of 20 cases might have problems so you need to have a phone support so on and so forth.
One person in Switzerland most cheaply costs 100K, considering you are paying person 80K. So even with 2 people, an online infrastructure and setting up of GMBH and formalities makes it about CHF 250K in Gross profit as break even. Even with a 50% margin your BreakEven sales are half million which on an order size of I don't know, but lets say CHF 500 would be like executing 1000 order in 225 working day.

You need to be highly enterprising, understand multiple aspects of business like online marketing, customer support, accounting, energetic, willing to work on weekend etc and what not.

So now if I look at it, if you have all these qualities and abilities to do such a thing then you can earn much more than 80K in the Job market. So why to then take such a big hassle. Out of 1000 client, if you managed to even have 20 mad customer then you are are trouble. Unless the business idea has ability to generate 500K+ it is not worth it in Switzerland. But only my point of view.

Best luck

The problem with having the goods delivered directly from the supplier to the customer means the customer knows exactly where to buy them in furutre.... you won't be needed after the 1st purchase.

Ok, I guess it isn't a great idea but I find it amazing that people MUST be paying these crazy prices for goods or else there wouldn't be a swiss market. Even starting a garage that imported all the parts for 30% of the cost of regular parts would be impressive.

Yes the barrier to entry is low and over time it won't be necessary, but during that time I wonder what could be made profit wise.

Not at all! You have an agreement with the supplier to drop ship. They leave out all literature and include your literature/paperwork which you supply them. I've done this from factories in China.

but you would have to order the parts well inadvance, fine for high volume parts (eg vw brake pads / disc's) but not so good for more unusal bits and pieces, someone isn't going to wait a week for a garage to get the parts in from aroad, and then if customs gets hold of it they can delay it for days.

we order nearly all the bit for our cars online from the uk / ebay but you need to know what you need before hand, the average swiss person wouldn't have a clue they just seem to drive there cars (badly) and let the main dealers sort everything out.

anything else the cars have needed our local garage gets within hours, strangly even parts that arn't available in the uk!! (mg brake master cylinder)

I have a solution to most of this except the delay. If people are willing to wait a few days (obviously for non critical parts) they could save 70%. I waited for my brakes and I would wait 3 to 4 days for just about any part for a 70% savings.

But the Swiss (still 80% of the population) apparently don't.
A lot of the cars here are actually leased - and the monthly invoice goes to the company where they work (or that they own).
Or they have buddies that basically provide a similar service, but without an official invoice (of course, no expat is going to be introduced into that scheme).

I wouldn't say it's a crap idea altogether - but I wouldn't quit my day-job for it.
If you can start it up as a living-room business in your free-time, you could go for it.

So far as I understand the regulations concerning the "Cassis de Dijon" ruling. In theory it is now OK to sell goods from the EU in Switzerland provided one EU country has approved them for sale. BUT, before you can sell food here you have to fill in a Swiss Govt. form to get it approved.
There are also other exceptions - meaning things that cannot be imported. There is a Government list of these exceptions, conveniently in French laguage
http://www.seco.admin.ch/themen/0051...2c_JjKbNoKSn6A--

Rough diamonds seem to be an exception; luckily not a problem for me.