Advice for collecting in Eastern European country

I believe Mister No (a forum member who is not super active anymore) is Croatian, and he bought most of his of stuff from eBay.

I don't think Mr No would describe Croatia, a member of the European Union since 2013 as 'Eastern Europe', although some older definitions did include some of the Balkan republics.

In fact it is clear from his contributions to a previous discussion of the topic that it is easier and cheaper to import Plarail into Croatia than it is into the UK. Just saying.

I don't think that the term "Eastern European" is anything bad, of course, but you're right Chris, I wouldn't call my country Eastern Europe... rather Southern European or Mediterranean? The capital of Austria, Vienna, is located, actually, further east than the capital of Croatia, Zagreb. And Austria is not exactly "Eastern Europe", is it?  

I actually bought my first Plarails (Tomy Tomica World Talk'N'Action Magic Rail set and Silver Streak) at a store in my town 100 years ago. Later, Plarail disappeared from stores completely. After that, I bought Thomas & Friends trains from a (now defunct) British webshop.

Recently, I bought from Japanese sellers on ebay (especially for older or hard to find Japanese commuter trains), and the Japanese webshop Plazajapan.com turned out to be very good (very pleasant prices and excellent packaging). However, after covid, the postage prices increased a lot in the case of ordering outside the EU. 

(For AEGs I mostly shopped within the EU, at the German Amazon and the Polish Allegro, and some AEGs appeared in local stores. But not Plarail.)

---

In fact it is clear from his contributions to a previous discussion of the topic that it is easier and cheaper to import Plarail into Croatia than it is into the UK. Just saying.

Ok I wasn't fully right when I said high shipping fees were unavoidable. I totally forgot that a lot of ebay listings from japan have free international shipping.

That's true. There are listings with free international shipping. But, as far as the EU is concerned, let's not forget the VAT, which is charged to the recipient by the state when the shipment is delivered. This increases the price again. And it is not the same if someone from Germany orders something from Japan and pays 19% VAT or if I order it and pay 25%, because that is the VAT in my country. (Hungary seems to have the highest VAT in the EU - 27%).