I don't see how "buying from China and reselling locally for more" can be GENERALLY considered bad. Sure, buying from Chinese marketplaces (via shipping proxies) has gotten a lot easier but I can list at least a few reasons why people buy locally instead of doing that:
- They don't know how to and don't want to find out how. Yeah, they actually have other more profitable endeavours to attend to, instead of spending time navigating a foreign marketplace and potentially saving pennies (compared to what they earn).
- They want to buy products that are readily available with certain levels of assurance and after-sale support.
So, it's not just the "legwork", it's also the assumption of risks that add to the profit margin. So what if one is greedy and try to push that margin beyond reasonable? Of course it's not sustainable and they will get called out because guess what, it's not 1979! People have something called the internet now.
I'm not sure why I'm explaining this basic business concepts here. Guess I just don't like people calling others "stupid", or "donkey".
With regards to the IC itself, I appreciate OP putting in the time, but IMO it's unlikely something like this will fly.