I would stress some things. Anything to the US is a simple China Post
away although contents have to be inspected first to get a Customs
Declaration of 'Gift'. PayPal is the method of payment. Like everone
else the seller will need a Business Account with Bank Verification to
receive CC payments from the buyer. If the seller uses his Bank
account then a Buyer Business account isn't required. I use my CC on
PayPal because if there is a problem I complain to PayPal and my CC
company. This has never happened for any shipments from China.
Ebay is a good way to initially establish a presence on the Web.
There are fees and English is a must. TaoBao is completely free to
the seller I think because the buyer is seeing advertisements but
those webpages are Chinese. I think it would be possible to put up an
English web page on TaoBao. I'm not sure if it supports English
searches. Ebay.CN was suppose to be a TaoBao competitor but that
failed. Alibaba is also another English and Chinese Web portal but
that is mainly for wholesellers. I would order from there assuming no
payment problem but shipments are usually 10 kilos and more. I think
this approach is good for small operations but not large scale. I see
buyer and seller hooking up directly through the web via audio and
video bypassing webpages and email. I had one Chinese seller who
liked to bargain through IM but I don't do IM so just rapid email
exchanges. For online exchanges there is a time difference. Morning
here is evening there. China has the problem of reaching out, and the
West the problem of reaching in.

Jim

PS To make a long story short tell them members of the RFDT community
are already doing direct tea purchasing from china. I'm teaching
myself Chinese so I can communicate eventually on TaoBao. If I get
that far I could open a consulting business of tell me what you want
from China. The whaling industry replaced their harpoon boats with
sightseeing vessels and are making more money than ever. I don't see
the back-to-nature movement going away only increasing. Too bad
Pandas don't like tealeaves.

On Apr 12, 4:10 pm, "pgwk" wrote:
Have any of you come across teas from Liyang --mostly greens marketed
domestically plus some Eyebrow white? Also, do you know about their
biennial Tea Exposition which is being held at the end of this month?
I am scheduled to be a plenary speaker at it and want to help them
understand the US great tea market and how to reach tea drinkers
directly. My main theme is that organic tea, Fair Trade, ecotourism
and hte Web specialty sites are the combination for innovation and
benefits to producers, workers -- and tea drinkers. I am interested in
any RFDT messages to the City and Jiansu Province policy makers (my
contacts are the Mayor and Part Secretary, who see white tea as key to
their eco- and economic development) and to the producers/factories
about how Liyang should build its US distribution.