Draguen wrotehey, a rule of thumb, expect to pay between 2 to 4 dollars for every 10 dol spent.
first you have the VAT, (expect the item to be highly overestimated), then you have to pay something called "clearance fee" which is usually double the VAT value, in addition to that you have small fees that adds up for about 1/2 the VAT value (overstay charge, VAT on overstay charge, ect.)
Banana republic.
i wonder if any lawyer up here could order like 50 items and use the receipts as proof in order to sue the customs for fraud and abuse of trust.
Sorry for going to rant, but "banana republic" is very insulting term for Lebanon, i strongly disagree with that.
Whoever is doing business shipping will provide proof of payment, proof of origin, certificates and etc, will use clearance agent and things will go as they are defined at law (probably also pre-notification). Your lawyer will spend much more time and money doing paperwork for proper clearance, and at the end customs will not argue with full paperwork.
I passed few times full clearance procedure for large shipment, and it takes few days to complete, plus few days in country of origin. Also seller has to supply necessary papers(he will spend also some time and pay for his government for stamps/licenses copy/ certificate of quality and etc), for <$1000 items they wont even bother to talk about this.
But one thing you guys don't understand, miniscule private shipments always handled with prohibitive fees , depends how wealthy is country (and depend on VAT payments) and amount of clearance of such items they have to do. It is microtransactions for them, and they don't have capabilities especially in Lebanon for them.
Only thing i hope - that they will do online clearance/payment, to save time of people and customs, as it is done for personal shipments for example in spain. Probably someone lebanese should push for this and make publicity to demand it, since ogero did online payments, custom should do as well.