Flogging Vodka to the Finns
August 30, 2013 8:26 AM   Subscribe

In the 80s, it was said that you could sell your jeans in Russia and fund your stay. An article by a US writer suggests you should buy cigarettes at Duty Free and sell them in London pubs to fund your trip (which is possibly illegal and very likely to get you thrown out). What other 'foreign' goods, legal, grey or outlawed, do tourists and travellers (not traders per se) tend to sell at their destination? Do you get, for example, Canadians flogging prescription meds to pay for their LA holiday apartments, or Latvians selling cheaper spirits in Scandinavia? Has the internet killed this kind of trade?
posted by mippy to Travel & Transportation (32 answers total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
Response by poster: Should have said I don't mean illegal/narcotic drugs - obviously drug smuggling exists and there are people who probably go to some other country to make a quick buck from selling E or whathaveyou.

I'm more interested in whether people are selling things readily available from their country of origin. This is definitely a thing online - there are a lot of eBay sellers selling US, French or UK groceries or cosmetics (the latter because in Australia for example cosmetics are very expensive) - after reading about extreme couponers selling their 'stash' on eBay to foreigners, I wondered if there was still a less virtual version as with the jeans to Russia phenomenon.
posted by mippy at 8:35 AM on August 30, 2013


I once visited a girlfriend who was living in Bolivia, who told me to bring as many dehydrated ranch salad dressing packets with me as I could. Customs didnt even blink at them, and we made enough off them to fund a (frugal) weekend at lake titicaca.

You'd have thought the stuff was saffron. Really rich friends and employers of hers were the ones purchasing it.
posted by furnace.heart at 8:38 AM on August 30, 2013 [7 favorites]


Due to the prohibitively high cost of mailing anything to Russia (or from Russia), there's a whole unofficial courier system to get goods between the two countries. Basically, just about everyone travels with an extra suitcase for just stuff to both take there and bring back for friends and relatives (for money, of course, although usually no more than cost.)

One of the most frequent things brought to America is tinned black caviar. Also, there's a lot of medicine and medical treatments in Russia not used in America because they're either ineffective, outmoded or just plain dangerous, and that sort of stuff tends to be brought back as well. I'm hesitant to consider that as drug smuggling simply because most of the stuff tends to be remedies that there's either no market for here, or the contents would make it impossible to get past the FDA.

This sort of thing was a lot more common in the immediate pre- and post-Soviet dissolution than it is now.
posted by griphus at 8:42 AM on August 30, 2013


Wikipedia has a page on grey market items, which provides some views of historic grey markets, as well as ones that currently exist.

Electronics (such as cameras and watches) and textbooks are often marketed at local prices, meaning they cost more in wealthier countries, and less elsewhere. For electronics, the difference often comes in the warranty coverage, which you can't get on items sold out-of-region.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:46 AM on August 30, 2013 [3 favorites]


There are a lot of surprising differences in ordinary grocery store stuff between the U.S. and Canada. I didn't actually try to arbitrage it while living there* but whenever I went back to the states, my then-wife would have a list of things I was to bring back.

Chief among them were U.S. Wheat Thins and Mentadent toothpaste.

Mentadent is not legal for sale in Canada. And U.S. Nabisco products like Oreos and Wheat Thins are branded as Mr. Christie in Canada - and they aren't as good. I can only assume that they licensed off the brands to some Canadian partner at some point in the past, and they've stayed the same in Canada while Nabisco has evolved the recipes in the U.S. All I know is that we could consistently differentiate between U.S. Wheat Thins and Canadian Wheat Thins in blind taste tests, and the U.S. ones were much more to our liking.

On the other hand, candy that is plentiful in Canada is either harder to find or simply non-existent in the U.S. "Smarties" refers to a completely different physical object in Canada. And they have a lot more white chocolate up there. It's a commonly found confection in Canada. In the states, you typically see it only in the form of bunnies around Easter. Canadians might be able to make drinking money in the U.S. selling me white chocolate and Maynard's Winegums.

* Though note previously on MeFi, Pirate Joes, whose business model is to buy Trader Joe's products in the U.S. take them into Canada, and resell them in Vancouver.
posted by Naberius at 8:46 AM on August 30, 2013 [3 favorites]


Do you mean goods that you can make "real money" with, or just items that are better one place than another?

If the latter, then definitely candy (Swiss chocolate, British Cadbury goods, etc.), and maybe booze.

If the former, well...my dad has clients from Japan that he's dealt with for many years. In the 1980s, they would fly to the U.S. with one bag of clothes, go outlet shopping, and then check several new, stuffed-to-bursting suitcases as their personal luggage for the flight home. See, they had shops in Tokyo that they stocked purely with Ralph Lauren "seconds" and other outlet store things just because they were from America. This was a long time ago, though, so the practice might be dead now.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:04 AM on August 30, 2013


I know of a Japanese guy based in L.A. who buys old jeans at thrift stores in the U.S. and then sells them for more back in Japan.
posted by Area Man at 9:05 AM on August 30, 2013


I go to Italy frequently, and the things I am most often asked to bring are ibuprofen and zip-loc sandwich bags. I doubt that I could fund my trip selling them, though. I am also asked to bring CDs which are not available there, and I probably could make money with those.
posted by ubiquity at 9:14 AM on August 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: wenestvedt - I meant things that people take from their country of origin to sell in their destination, really - not so much things people bring over/back for friends because they're cheaper or more readily available. Kind of an international version of those people who live near an IKEA and make decent money selling small items from there online to people far away from a store. I was wondering if the internet plus the fall of communism in Europe had killed off combining tourism with commerce.

The Trader Joes one is interesting - those stores are basically just Aldi with better branding, right? And I say that as someone who would go out of their way to see what a Wal-Mart is like were I int he US.
posted by mippy at 9:26 AM on August 30, 2013


More "get us X and we'll pay you" than bringing things to fund your trip: Levi 501s are listed at £70 on the UK site; they're $52 on the US site, and even considering retail discounts, there's something close to a 100% markup. Carhartt has a very different range and market position in Europe, but the standard workwear stuff still sells at a big markup.

A tablet is pretty easy to stick in your hand luggage (dispensing with the box) loaded up with sufficient stuff to render it personal. It doesn't have a physical keyboard for localisation, and there's less fuss with chargers. And we already know about the people who buy unlocked iPhones in the US and send them back to their country of origin.

Broadly speaking, the internet has changed the market for "expat homesickness remedies", so you can't fill a suitcase with Yorkshire Tea and find a market for it. (In fact, I saw a local discount grocery selling 160-bag boxes of PG Tips for $3, which is cheaper than Tesco.)

Latvians selling cheaper spirits in Scandinavia?

The ferries have that covered to some degree, but I've been told that if you do travel to Scandinavia, you should take as much duty-free vodka as customs and airline regulations permit, even if you don't drink it yourself, because it's a very good way to make new friends.
posted by holgate at 9:28 AM on August 30, 2013




I have a British friend who used to bring Élixir Végétal de la Grande-Chartreuse to the States, though he was mainly giving them as gifts (or selling at his cost) to bartenders and cocktail aficionados. He probably could have made some decent money doing it.

Apparently now it's occasionally stocked by Cocktail Kingdom though I'm not sure how they're getting it, since last I checked it's not available for commercial import. I'm guessing they just know someone that brings some through on occasion.
posted by komara at 9:33 AM on August 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


I have also heard of people buying Apple products and designer handbags in the US and selling them in China, because both those things are cheaper here. Also, vitamins and fish oil pills. However, to do this you kind of already need a network of people to sell to. I don't think a random tourist could do it.
posted by tinymegalo at 9:34 AM on August 30, 2013


A friend from Japan used to stash Japanese cigarettes (very cheap) in checked luggage and sell them for a profit in Canada.
posted by snorkmaiden at 9:37 AM on August 30, 2013


those stores are basically just Aldi with better branding, right?

Sorta kinda, but not quite. They're run by the other Aldi, as a separate entity, and while they use the standard Aldi playbook in sourcing goods, they're not the Banana Republic to Aldi's Gap.

Basically, given the cost of container transport, the friction points now exist where there are limitations on supply -- local licensing issues, tariffs to protect domestic markets, different brand positioning, market asymmetry.

You could potentially make money selling stick deodorants to American expats in Europe and roll-on deodorant to European expats in the USA, but you'd have to do it on a decent scale before it became more than beer-money profitable.
posted by holgate at 9:39 AM on August 30, 2013


Response by poster: I took the ferry from Estonia to Finland, and the amount of alcohol coming off that boat when it docked was comparable to the 'booze cruises' people in the UK take to Calais and back. Made me wonder whether it could possibly be all for personal use or whether there are Finns selling alcohol outside pubs as you sometimes get with cigarettes in the UK.
posted by mippy at 9:44 AM on August 30, 2013


On cigarettes to the UK. A mate of mine, who should have been smart enough to know better, got talked into this one by his mate and they had a two week holiday in Tenerife a long time back on the future profits.

On arrival back in the UK they were singled out by customs. Both had their luggage, crammed full of ciggies under a thin layer of clothes, examined. Customs were perfectly pleasant about it but the confiscated the cigarettes, made him pay the taxes on them, and fined them. It cost him a few hundred quid he didn't really have.

Anyway - antiques and retro stuff is an obvious arbitrage. I don't know that you can exactly fund a holiday on it but if you have an eye for stuff and know prices in your home and destination market you can definitely make good money. I was talking to a barman in a hotel whisky bar in Iceland and I reckon I could have got a decent discount if I'd sourced and brought a rare whisky for them and sold it to them because of the tax and faff of sourcing it.

The other one is 'the toy' at Christmas. If you're in a market where there's a lot of supply, you can come back to a very short period of fat profits.
posted by MuffinMan at 9:57 AM on August 30, 2013


In the middle 1980's it was very hard to find American candy in Asia. So my sister and I would ask our grandparents to send candy for gifts, and we would also bring as many Jolly Ranchers, Nerds and other great 80's candies back to not only eat, but also to sell or trade with our friends. This is how got my first Swatch watch, trading Nerds and Jolly Ranchers. But then Toys R Us expanded to Asia, and ruined my pipeline. Now anybody could could buy Big League Chew.

One year only my mother loaded an entire full sized suitcase with Tupperware samples to bring back to Singapore. Not that you couldn't find appropriate local food storage options, but Tupperware baby! She had a plan to the first Tupperware salesperson in Singapore, and they were were a big hit on the expat dinner leftovers circuit. But like Toys R Us, the next year a K-Mart opened in Singapore and carried Tupperware. There went my Mom's opportunity to corner the lucrative Singapore Tupperware scene.

My father would travel to Bangladesh and Burma on business. When traveling in either of these countries, he would always bring bottles of Scotch or Whiskey, and use those bottles as currency to hire a sole use taxi or car and driver for a few days. Not sure how that was entered on the expense report........
posted by lstanley at 11:00 AM on August 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


You can make money on a trip to Romania selling saline solution for contact lenses. A 175 ml bottle was going for $16 on my last visit. (For salt water!) 500 ml bottles are $3-5 in the US, depending on the brand. You have to know some locals, but people are pretty stoked to get a deal on the stuff.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:18 AM on August 30, 2013


I buy ibuprofen gel at the pharmacy in Frankfurt airport. It's not legal in the US and I can't find it in Africa. I don't know if you can make money on that because most Americans don't know about it. I would be willing to pay at least twice what I pay for it, though. The shit works like magic.
posted by Gringos Without Borders at 11:42 AM on August 30, 2013 [2 favorites]


Ha, like Istanley, when I lived in Singapore there was big business being done in Nerds and Jolly Ranchers by American kids who had just come back from trips to the US toting giant sacks of them. Those two candies primarily, although Laffy Taffys may have been involved as well. I remember sitting in choir in fifth grade, wondering if I should just buy watermelon or if I wanted green apple as well. Some kids didn't sell the whole box of Nerds, but would charge for a "pour" into your hand.
posted by PussKillian at 11:46 AM on August 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


One thing I like buying in Canada, that isn't available in the US is AC&C. Asprin, Caffeine and Codeine. As much as I like Excedrine for headaches, that little touch of Codeine is just great!

I don't know that I could sell it for more in the US, but I do know that if I go to Canada, a few folks will ask me to bring it back. Also, Coca-Cola sweetened with sugar instead of corn syrup.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 12:52 PM on August 30, 2013


Selling Codeine in the US without the appropriate licensing is pretty squarely in the illegal drug category, which the OP said they weren't interested in.

I'd love to be able to buy some of the used silk kimonos that are sold cheaply in Japan. I haven't come across it as a thing people are flogging to sell to weird Americans who want other people's old clothes, but I sure wish I would.
posted by yohko at 1:09 PM on August 30, 2013


Chinese gal in my lab suggests that Lenovo laptops are cheaper to purchase in the United States than in China despite being made in China.
posted by oceanjesse at 1:38 PM on August 30, 2013


I hear this is also true for cameras.
posted by Rash at 1:54 PM on August 30, 2013


In Argentina, people do this with basically any Apple gadget. People will take them out of the boxes and put like an iPhone in each pocket, two macbooks in their bag, and a couple ipods in other pockets so as to reduce the risk of customs catching you.

Actually, this is such a big thing that if you *leave* Argentina with legitimate electronic gear, you can get receipts at the airport on your way out, and hang on to them on the way back to avoid being hassled or charged import duties.

Selling expensive stuff in Argentina is not the easiest thing in the world: the infrastructure of payments is a lot clunkier, perhaps consequently the usage of things like the local equivalents of craigslist and ebay is a lot lower, but people pay for trips to Buenos Aires all the time by smuggling iPhones and Macbooks through Customs from the USA.

Anything electronic is generally way cheaper outside of Argentina, but Apple stuff is insane. In an emergency, I bought a replacement power adapter for my Macbook Pro there at an authorized reseller. I think it was roughly USD300.

There used to be a website where people who were travelling to the USA from Argentina could find orders from people with bounties. "I'll pay you 25% surcharge if you bring me a new iPhone," for example.
posted by jeb at 2:08 PM on August 30, 2013


Response by poster: "You could potentially make money selling stick deodorants to American expats in Europe"

That link baffled me, as stick deodorants are available in the UK and have been for a long time - we might not have the same brands, but I used to use a Dove one. I'm allergic to spray deodoreants a lot of the time so I have done my research.
posted by mippy at 2:22 PM on August 30, 2013


I know someone who bought a bunch of collectibles in Ghana - beads, beaded necklaces, masks, etc., and sold them for a profit in the us.
posted by bq at 3:30 PM on August 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


we might not have the same brands

It's the range as well as the brands. Go to the US, and the roll-ons and sprays are confined to a small section while the sticks rule the aisles. Go to Boots, and it's the reverse. On the continent, the stick is even rarer.

Another example: instant coffee. You can get instant in the US, but it's either Folgers or Nescafé unless you enter the parallel world of ethnic markets, Aldi own-brand, or the upscale realm of Starbucks VIA. Now, Americans will laugh at people who drink instant coffee, especially devotees of shade-grown single-estate whole-bean whatnot, but they have drip machines and buckets of stale ground coffee as opposed to six different types of Kenco.
posted by holgate at 3:52 PM on August 30, 2013


I think one could make a killing selling aspirin in Germany. Last time my in-laws had to get some from the local apotheke I looked at the price and it was like €1/tablet or something crazy. I'm not sure why, something to do with the fact aspirin can only be sold in drugstores.

So every trip I pick up a 1,000 tablet tub at Costco for $7 and I'm a hero. Same for the little 200mg Ibuprofen tabs.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:24 PM on August 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


When going to Iceland you should stock up on as much alcohol as possible at Duty Free. This was a tip from my Icelandic friends and rang true because not only is hard liquor expensive, it's also very inconvenient to physically buy from the few stores. We didn't try selling any of the stuff we got, but we were certainly the party house for our entire stay there.
posted by homesickness at 11:41 PM on August 30, 2013


Tequila is much less expensive in Mexico. Surprise!
posted by oceanjesse at 8:35 AM on August 31, 2013


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