pic unrelated I hope
'cheap diamonds/gem you can sell back home' are one of the oldest scams in the book

>Go to Japan
>find bargain bin 100 yen doujinshi
>buy a fuck ton of it
>sell it to vendor at anime cons 3 dollars a pop
>he sells them for 5
>we all make money

>>2710557
why
because most are fake?

>>2710547
In the mid 90's, Levis. I know it's a meme, but it really was so easy to do in Germany...bring over ten pairs of 501s and sell them to a boutique shop on the fussganger for three times what I paid. One time though I took Diesel jeans back in trade, thinking I could flip them in the States (they were wearing them on "Beverly Hills 90210"). Ended up donating them to Catholic Charities...

You won't make big buck there unless you scale up to a full company with logistic chains. Anything in demand has a world market price and that price is there for a good reason as it's how much the product + logistics to get it to you costs with a small margin on top of it.
Sure you can up your travel budget a bit by bringing a phone to sell to Argentina or as non-smoker bring your 200 allowed cigs from Cambodia/China/Vietnam to Australia and sell it but that's it or the reward is simply not worth the risk.
Or we talk about something hyper niche that could work or flop as you depend on a micro market and what they're ready to pay with no set price tag or you can't match the world prices once you price your own logistic costs in.

>>2710547
never try to compete with government tarifs and regulation bullshit. Let me give you an example. Theres a town in iceland I think where caviar is dirt cheap and they make it a special protocol that people can only bring like 2 pounds of it through the airport. Governments will make sure you can't make a profit from traveling to keep prices artificially high

>>2710547
in a small way, yes
i trade coins. i'm from the uk
i know a few people in other countries who collect british coins. commemoratives, silver and gold, pre-decimal and victorian stuff, etc
in the uk i can get those things relatively cheaply
in some asian countries some of those things are pretty collectable and i can sell them for a fair bit more than the uk value

this is called arbitrage. there are literally billions upon billions of dollars made in arbitrage trades every day. this is done both in financial instruments like currencies and bonds and also in goods like agricultural and manufactured products. so the answer is yes.

the reason why you have to declare more than $10,000 dollars or more than $100,000 in jewelry is so that you can't perform arbitrage without setting up a business and getting a licensed business.

>>2710547
Silk in China but only in quantities big enough for making myself a suit

>>2711164
Show your suit

>in San Miguel de Allende Mexico mid 2010s
>see a dope ass carved opal in matrix figurine of a jaguar
>300 pesos
>like 20 bucks for 40 carats of amazing carved rainbow opal in matrix
>even a splash of fire opal on the tail

Its one of my favorite possessions

You can bring electronics into Latin American countries. Tariffs there are so high that you can easily find people willing to buy a brand new ps5 or camera or whatever off you for a lot more than you paid back home.

>>2710586
Essentially, you need to identify a low volume niche product that can't be large-scale imported because of the small size of the market

>>2710566
Not even fakes necessarily, just flaws that tank the value and unless you're personally inspecting each rock you get what you pay for.

>>2711425
Be very careful when trying this. Expect fake bills.

>>2711799
what about trading for silver/gold? lots of these latin countries still have active mining scenes. pretty sure there's a silver smith town like an hour from mexico city

>>2711874
>a world commodity sold at a world market price will for some reason be traded way below the world market price
Unless you mine it on your own (lol) you will buy and sell around the world price with minimal gains/losses unless we talk about moving 100+ kg per trade where you neither have the money, connections nor logistics in place.
What you can move is something like 50-100g and there we talk about $5-20, neither worth your time nor the effort unless you want it as a souvenir/gift.
r

>>2710566
Usually very low quality and already rejected by jewlers. Seems like every third world shithole has cast off gemstone scams.

>>2711422
pics?

>>2710547
I know a guy who had a schizophrenic plan to make money importing water filters to Burma (an active warzone under sanctions). It could have probably worked but incredibly dangerous

>>2710963
wow you are literally retarded, hope you end it soon :)

Of course its possible.
But really you're probably better off just googling wholesale websites and factory direct purchases.
This is literally the business model that every retailer uses, which is buy low and sell high.
But selling is actually a full-time job.

Lets say for example you did go to africa and bought some salable diamonds. You would still have a pain in the ass selling them, because local diamond stores are buying them at wholesale prices for 10-20% of retail cost - and you probably couldn't compete with that.

>>2710566
They are a special kind of scam where you are simply overpaying because of your own greed. They aren't fake. This is why the government (in Thailand for example) does not shut them down. You just got greedy thinking you would make a profit, but in fact there is no profit to be made and you will most likely have a loss if you sell it back home. They are not necessarily bad quality gems either and if you bought it to keep you wouldn't have any reason to complain.

>>2710547
I've heard about people bringing cheap car alternators (usually Lada ones since those were Russians, but Cubans can ghetto rig pretty much anything) into Cuba and flying back with the usual stuff like cigars, making both flights work in their favor.

>>2712030
>>2713439
I'd be tempted to pick up cheap gemstones overseas for personal appreciation (I just like them) but I'm getting mixed messages here if I would be getting decent gems or not.

my uncle did this as a diplomat because he didn't have to pay import taxes on vehicles and would resell his every couple years
I knew a Chilean who lived abroad here and he debtmaxed buying appliances and then just left with 10k+ worth of stuff that he never paid a penny for

I tried this, but I'm going to say the pay off is marginal at best.
Professional traders do this for decades and you think just because you're walking across a border you can beat them?

I've resold duty free goods outside the airport where that's the norm, bought and bartered commodities, brought scarce goods into rural areas, worked out of a backpack doing IT repair and shit. Smuggled goods, medicines, run bricks, drooped freight, did basically everything and never was it actually worth it in terms of time.

Some travelers, broke packers do this as a form of begging at hostels. I wouldn't really class con artists and beggars as traders.

I used to fund my Caribbean vacations by buying a case of Hennessy Pure White in nassau and selling it to American rap fans (niggers and wiggers). I haven't checked the market in a while though.

>>2710547
I have never really done this, but as I live in Switzerland, I have sourced watches for a couple of people and taken a small markup as a finder’s fee. It’s not a particularly viable source of income, though, as a lot of the most desirable watches are as difficult to find here as in other markets, and they’re expensive to begin with. But hardcore watch nerds are sometimes interested in models from specific Swiss makers, that aren’t necessarily desirable just because they’re covered in diamonds or some other flashy nonsense; it’s possible to get comparatively good deals on second-hand or vintage watches that people like for other reasons.

I just did it for friends of friends, and enjoyed the research and picking that was involved, but I wouldn’t consider trying to do it for a living.