Somebody in Germany could do tremendous business by shipping Rimowa luggage to FT members if they could manage to prove they're exporting all of them (VAT).
On a side note, what are the closest countries (or cheapest countries from DE to ship to) that wouldn't be subject to VAT and/or does anybody have a recommendation for a forwarding service in that country? At that point even the forwarding company's markup is still much cheaper than USA retail...