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Not all sellers (both U.S. and overseas) are willing to LIE to the government, namely to the postal service and the Customs.  Each country has its own Customs regulations including import duties.  When you receive something from overseas, the U.S. Customs has a $100 limit of the content value, even if the item is a "gift" instead of "merchandise".  This means that if your friend or family sends you a care package, the total value of the content must be under $100 per day to be duty-free, even if the content is "seemingly" not very expensive (i.e., used clothing, cookies, or toothbrush!).  This means that if somebody sends you 5 boxes of Godiva chocolate in one box and each chocolate box retails for $30 in the country where it's purchased, the total is $150 which is subject to import duties.  Each carrier (USPS, UPS, FedEx, etc.) then adds their processing fee to collect import duties (most items 20%) on behalf of the U.S. Customs.  So if you purchase a purse for $400, your out of pocket expense could total up to $480 plus international postage & insurance, and a $5 processing fee if sent via Postal Service.

What if the seller marks the package as a "gift" and declares the value to be $90 to be duty-free?  Even if the package is insured for $400, the U.S Postal Service would only grant you $90 as they go by "what's declared to the Customs as a content value".  You cannot declare $90 and expect a $400 coverage.  EMS (express) usually has a built-in insurance coverage, and it is $100 in the U.S.  But if you send a $30 item via EMS and gets lost, they do not give you $100 even though the $100 coverage is already included in the EMS postage, unless you declared the content value to be $100.  Makes sense?  So in order for you to have your item insured, the coverage MUST match what's declared as a content value, and over $100 would be asking for import duties.

I have sent and received international packages WEEKLY in the past 20 years, and 70% of them are to & from Japan (not a terrorist country!).  The U.S. Post Office has opened the box for inspection upon the packages' entries into the U.S., even when the box is marked as a "gift" from a family member that contained junk and declared the value to be way under $100.  They carefully open the box from the bottom and tape it over with their "inspected by the U.S. Customs" tape, so there has not been any damage by their inspection, but this indeed does happen no matter what you are receiving.  Under $100 is more of random inspections, but over $100 has a BIG chance of being inspected.  If you've had the seller declare the value to be under $100 and mark it as a "gift" without a problem, you've been lucky (not to mention under-insured international package).  You may not get lucky next time, both with the Customs and damage/loss.

I'm not trying to steer you away from international sellers.  There are many experienced & reputable sellers shipping to the U.S. from overseas.  But you need to know that you have to calculate the higher postage into the item price, longer transit time, and duties.  You may still find a good buy even with those additional expenses, but keep those in mind as you cannot complain about them!  Also only EMS or Registered Mail can be tracked online.  This means that regular air mail could get lost, and there is no way of finding out where the package got lost!

Needless to say, there are international sellers who are offering fakes of course!  You could be bidding on genuine "made in China or Korea" Louis Vuitton that has a "made in France" stamp!  Do enough of their background check!!