[Help] Buying Steam Deck locally vs internationally
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This is a really good point, thank you!
Especially considering that warranty is usually region-locked. You usually can't claim warranty from outside of the country where you bought it.
So if your friend in France has to claim warranty, they'd have to first ship it to Canada so that someone else (e.g. you) can do the warranty claim for them.
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The difference, like the other commenter already pointed out, is whether you take something across a border, and then leave it there.
If you take the stuff you brought with you, back when you leave, then you didn't import it. Import tax is exactly that, a tax on stuff moving from one country, to another. If you bring it in, and then out again, nothing changed.
As such personal items aren't subject to this, because the owner is coming and leaving with them. Technically there's a whole song and dance that should happen when you come and go, but that's massively inefficient, so customs will just sit there and trust that if you have something to declare, you will.
And a lot of the time people don't. Like a phone they bought while abroad. That's technically something you need to pay for, but it's not that harshly enforced. It just doesn't matter compared to the import taxes collected for large commercial shipments.
If you're a professional travelling with expensive equipment you'll need a carnet which is precisely the "song and dance". Basically a list of all the stuff, they look at it and at your stuff when you come in, then again when you come out.
