Hola again Carmen, no problems at all, happy to help if I can anytime.
Original brands in China;
You are right by saying that almost everything is made in China these days, however things are made under licence and such licensing contracts are very defined.
Of course they have to be or a company would be undersold on their own products, and put out of business over night!
What happens is once the items are made, they are distributed through the licence holders legal distribution channels, that could be their wholesaler/s or even distributed direct by themselves.
Look at it like this, just because something is made in Spain, it doesn't mean you can get your hands on the item outside of the authorised distribution avenues, being made in China makes it no different.
The only difference is in China, you can get away with making replicas, where as you would no be able to in Spain, and so you don't see products for sale locally at insane prices.
It is a very common mistake that people make, assuming because an item is made in China, then they should be able to get the product there themselves cheaper than what the company actually sells the items for themselves, and of course it is what the replica market now thrives on.
iPhones;
I do believe that Apple does have a limit on the amount that can be purchased, but if I were you I would contact an Apple office close to you, they will be happy to inform you of purchasing requirements and any restrictions.
Ebay;
Not everything you see on ebay is genuine, so always remember that. I personally know someone who has been selling fake phones he imports from China, and he has been doing it for two years!
He asked for my advice at the time he was thinking of starting, and I advised him against doing it, but he went ahead and now here we are two years later and he does very well from it.
That doesn't mean he won't get caught, in fact I am shocked that he hasn't been caught yet. You see you have people like him selling fakes, then you also have the innocent ones also selling fakes, but believing they are selling genuine items.
It all adds up driving the ebay prices way below wholesale, because the prices are not reflective of genuine items, and therefore just make it harder to complete.
China;
It's an excellent market to have anything off brand made, by the term 'off brand', I mean unbranded products. For example, iPods, many have iPod replicas made, but without the branding so that they do not breach any trademark or other related licensing issues.
These types of products can be manufactured at a price that will allow good margin, given the fact that you order in a big enough volume.
Of course that is just an example, maybe not the best one I could have used, but it makes the point.
There is quite a bit involved in dealing with Chinese companies. The best thing you can do is visit in person, that is always respected by Chinese business people as they love dealing in person!
If you can't visit in person, I would always suggest going through an Asian sourcing agency. You will of course have to pay their commission, but they already have contacts that can make it easy to set up deals, and can often get you a better price than you are able to when dealing with a company yourself.
liquidated stock;
Your biggest issue would be shipping, along with your exchange rate against the US dollar. I am not aware what the rate currently is, but my best guess would be that it is not great, and may not represent good value for importing.
If you were in the US, I would seriously suggest that you take a look at the liquidation market as a possible avenue to source products, but in Spain, I'm not so sure.
Of course it would be up to you if you chose to import from the US, but I would suggest that unless you were buying in large volume, it may not be financially viable in the current economic climate.
There are a few liquidators in the Salehoo directory that you could consider if you chose to move froward in that direction. I think you will find that myself and jimmy are the two most active on the forum.
Jimmy is the community manager here, and he runs Link hidden: Login to view. Unfortunately I am pretty sure he is not shipping internationally, but you could double check with him to make sure.
We can also offer you a range of liquidated stock, and we do ship internationally if you wanted to use our services, but again, I suggest that you do plenty of research into your market there to firstly make sure it would be viable for you.
You can PM me with any further info if you like Carmen, always happy to help.
: )