German Customs Experience: International Shipping from eBay or Online Sellers

[mikeselectricstuff]

Perhaps you can import to a more laissez faire country within the EU and then have it shipped intra-EU?

This is the exact way I do it all the time.

Has anyone in a different EU contry set up a forwarding service for German customers ?  Seems like an opportunity if not.

[corn11]

The German Zoll is known for sweating the small stuff. Don't worry too much for your case.

You can declared all your test and measurement equipment as personal property when you move here. As long as you will not use this equipment to start a business and just use it in your home lab for pleasure, it falls under the category of personal property and will not cost you anything in taxes.

How do I know? I have done this myself, when I moved back from the USA to Germany.

Glad to hear that it worked for you that way.
I would have expected that they don't accept t&m gear as for personal use without any hassle especially if you've a larger pile
That's why I've pointed out the exemption but it seems like I've missed the attribute 'portable' in that case, sorry 

But hey, every bit of kit is portable as long as you've a socket or a UPS around

[pixeldoc81]

I'm odering a lot of Stuff like small(ish) (electronic) Stuff from China to Germany via ebay for years without any Problems with Custom.

Most of the Stuff even get send to my Workplace (Business Address).

But i know 1 or 2 people having "trouble" with Customs.

Fingers crossed 

[razberik]

Perhaps you can import to a more laissez faire country within the EU and then have it shipped intra-EU?

This is the exact way I do it all the time.

Has anyone in a different EU contry set up a forwarding service for German customers ?  Seems like an opportunity if not.

I dont know any. I use my friends and my parents. Example: Czech custom office is more cautious and strict and they stop even small items from China. Slovak custom office is more lax and they let go even expensive items from China.
But it differs in terms of dealing with them when item is stopped. CZ office is more strict but there is no problem with them. SK office ? Terrible.
In practice: when I buy some items from China with more significant value, I let it send to my parrents. When I buy something really valuable or something not from China, I let it send to CZ.
One of my friend has austrian address, he say they let go everything from China.