There are several issues that arise with foreign sales.
1. Purchasing - you and the maker would need to find a medium of exchange that you both can access and that will allow you to convert into each others currencies. This can be difficult, and there's always a fee. Many banks will not handle small transactions at all. Many citizens of countries outside the EU may not have bank accounts, and many who do have them in banks that do not access international currency markets. They may also have restrictions on US currency. Even EU citizens can be limited to how much they can withdraw in currencies other than Euros (Greeks are limited in both Euro and foreign currencies for example.) So, you have to find a way to get local currency to the seller; that usually requires a middleman (there's a fee). I have found it best to find someone who travels to target countries if I'm not going myself. This, of course, requires you to trust they won't disappear with your cash.
2. Taxes - You will need to pay taxes on the item, probably on both ends. Most countries have a VAT (Value Added Tax) that's part of the purchase price. In the EC it starts at about 17% and goes up. In some cases you can claim a refund on this, but you'll need to look that up case by case. You will have to pay taxes and import fees on what you bring into the USA. Those can be steep too, and depending on what the item is you may need to pay an import broker.
3. Shipping - There are limited numbers of trustworthy international shippers. The USPS for example will not track anything outside the USA, and won't guarantee delivery either. That's because Postal delivery is regulated by national agreement, and you have no recourse to those other nations postal services. You can read the stories on this forum to get an idea as to how those work. Personally, I trust the services north of Switzerland and as far east as Berlin, and not much else. FedEx, UPS, and the like are better, but expensive. And if your package gets stopped in customs their service stops too.
4. Laws - Let's just say that you cannot be sure what you think foreign laws say is how the officials in those countries will interpret (or enforce) them.
I used to have a business importing from Europe. I found that people in the USA don't understand the costs of doing this (neither do people outside the US), and had trouble competing against large importers and local manufacturers due to the margins I needed to make to do business. A guy in Russia thinks because something sells for $50 in the USA he should get all of that $50. The guy in the USA thinks because you can buy something in Germany for $5 he shouldn't pay more than $5 for it. Nuts. The truth is that it's hard to buy something outside of the USA and sell it in the USA for less than 400% mark up. It just costs that much to finance, ship, receive, package, and market a product. For something you just want for yourself, figure it's going to cost 2-3 times what you see it for sale at. And you stand a fair chance of paying for something that never arrives.
My advice to you is if it's less than $500, find someone in the USA to make it for you. If it's more than that, buy a ticket and go get it. If it's custom, you need to go and work out the details before it's made, while it's being made, and then pick it up. Because if they make it, and you don't like it they'll expect you to pay for it anyways, and you'll expect them to make it right. Nobody wins those fights.
