What types of goods are you seeking? I'm no expert in that area, but it almost sounds like you'd be better off going to Asia for that purpose.

I've never brought back a serious amount of expensive wine from Europe - just my duty-free limitation. I think if I was looking at buying some serious wines, I'd start with a local distributor and accept their markup as assurance that the stuff arrives in my cellar intact and not exposed to damage en route. I have no problem bringing home 2-3 cases at a time from Sonoma on a domestic carrier, but I'm never going beyond $50-75 bottles.