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[Dragonborn]

It depends on the embark...

 - Iron/Steel anvils/toys/weapons to melt if my embark has no iron ore
 - Leather because it's hard to generate large amounts through breeding animals alone
 - Codices and books.  I'll buy a few of these within the first couple of years and make a library.  It seems like dwarves get distracted easily from lack of abstract thought if you don't have a library setup after at least a few years.
 - Fish/meat for diet variety.

Importing musical instruments sounds like a great idea in theory.  Most of the time, they sit unused in the taverns and temples, because no one knows how to play them.

[Codyo]

Basically food and drinks for variety. Since my dwarves commonly complain for  eating the same stuff.
Usually a lot of backpacks, quivers, and the like for my military since I rarely focus on leatherworking.
And I trade for steel stuff for the heck of it, so I can smelt it for raw ingots.

[neotemplar]

Exotic animals and booze but most of all leather.

The amount of leather you can trade for is crazy if you max request all leather  types. And ots really cheap stuff even then.

Besides you end up with fun stuff like 50 Chimp leather shoes

[FantasticDorf]

Gems, metal ingots & food mostly.

I steer away from buying booze because it often comes in wooden barrels and i keep those in a locked seperate supply, and sometimes indulge in buying the 'bumper packs' of cloth & leather just so my weavers & tanners can take some time off.

[Eric Blank]

I buy mostly raw materials i dont have in bulk yet like leather and cloth, pets i want to farm, and ores. I also buy some cheap military equipmemt if they have any

[gchristopher]

I buy exotic tamed animals from elves, and nonlocal plants/seeds from elves and humans.

I use the request feature to keep dwarven caravans bringing things that are not renewable or scarce:

- High value gems
- Colored stone (for color-coding levers and constructions)
- Steel if not melting coins for steel
- Exotic leather for cloaks (So everyone can wear polar bear fur or giant flying squirrel leather!)
- Meat/fish if looking for non-vegetable food variety
- Clear/crystal glass
- Flux, some gypsum

Stone, especially, is scarce because it's used in constructions and I avoid unnecessary digging to preserve FPS.

[Fearless Son]

Oh, an amendment to my previous post. 

Anything my local region's biomes lack that I might otherwise want.  For example, I would regularly import sand if my biome lacks it so I can use it in glass working (windows behind fortifications make great arrow-proof observation decks.)  Likewise, if I am not able to locally source coal (and wood is sparse) I will often import coal and lignite stones so I can make them into fuel.  I often import gypsum powder, since I am unlikely to find much of it (and yes I know splits serve the same purpose but I like my medical dwarfs to have options.)

If I am building a library, I might also take in various books.  Need to get that knowledge into the fort somehow.  I would also import various scribing materials, because though I can produce such things locally they involve a lot of steps and a lot of different materials, and importing those goods expedites the process.