Yeah honestly it's amazing. I've ordered some stuff from there and at that cost I can't believe it makes it to me. Though the post office does require a signature on a lot of these and then holds it hostage and it's not worth me making a trip to the post office to retrieve my $1 item.
A free shipping mystery
101–110 of 202 posts
Re: A free shipping mystery
#102The postal service is a networked delivery service, just like the Internet. The difference is that the data packets are physical envelopes. Now, the cost of running the postal service is the cost of supporting the whole network of delivery vans, sorting offices, collections and so on, including all the staff. The cost of supporting the network is the same whether it carries a very large number of packets or zero pack…
If that made sense, why can't I get 3 cent wooden buttons shipped to me within the US for free?
China's Government subsidies logistics to increase exports.
Re: A free shipping mystery
#103It's a combination of subsidies in China [2] and really low Universal Postal Union rates for terminal delivery from China to the US.[1] Terminal delivery in the US is about $1/Kg. Market rate from Shentzen to Long Beach to ship a container is about $1200 right now. [1] http://fortune.com/2015/03/11/united-nations-subsidy-chinese... [2] http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cp396.pdf
Why can't the postal treaties be something more sane like: "Find the amount charged to domestic senders to go from the incoming drop-off point to the destination. Got it? Okay, if the foreign post drops it there, they get charged that amount." Then, everyone gets charged the same, and you can't overcharge foreigners without also screwing your own people. Plus, foreigners get cheaper postage as they drop it closer to…
Because if I want to ship a birthday gift to my uncle in Indonesia, and I show up at the post office wanting to do that -- how are the people at the post office supposed to figure out how to much to charge me, where the 'incoming drop-off point' in Indonesia is, and how much it would cost at that moment in time to ship from the 'incoming drop-off point' to my uncle in Indonesia? For every possible location on the planet?
That's the idea of the treaty anyway, an idea that pre-dates internet and computers of course, which do make it at least theoretically possible for my local post office to figure this out.
Re: A free shipping mystery
#104Re: A free shipping mystery
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why can't the postal treaties be something more sane like: "Find the amount charged to domestic senders to go from the incoming drop-off point to the destination. Got it? Okay, if the foreign post drops it there, they get charged that amount." Then, everyone gets charged the same, and you can't overcharge foreigners without also screwing your own people. Plus, foreigners get cheaper postage as they drop it closer to…
Because if I want to ship a birthday gift to my uncle in Indonesia, and I show up at the post office wanting to do that -- how are the people at the post office supposed to figure out how to much to charge me, where the 'incoming drop-off point' in Indonesia is, and how much it would cost at that moment in time to ship from the 'incoming drop-off point' to my uncle in Indonesia? For every possible location on the pla…
The bulk of this problem is for online orders where they have to look up a shipping from some postal API anyway. Plus, each country is going to have some flat-fee option they can default to. It's not hard to come up with a better scheme than "foreigners pay nothing".
Re: A free shipping mystery
#106I am 90% certain that a majority of international dealing Chinese vendors simply use counterfeit postage.
Wouldn't that fail when trying to use a tracking number along with it?
Just like gift cards, it might depend on who manages to use the number first ;)
Even if an entry scan isn't made, it still gets scanned along the way.
Most of this stuff is shipped untracked though.
Re: A free shipping mystery
#107The postal service is a networked delivery service, just like the Internet. The difference is that the data packets are physical envelopes. Now, the cost of running the postal service is the cost of supporting the whole network of delivery vans, sorting offices, collections and so on, including all the staff. The cost of supporting the network is the same whether it carries a very large number of packets or zero pack…
Ships, airplanes, trucks, and postal workers have substantial ongoing costs. The marginal cost of additional traffic is still pretty high, and indications are that these sellers are getting away with paying less than that actual marginal cost.
I also guess registered mail is common or very cheap in China. I'll have $5 packages shipped registered, which must incur a dollar or two in direct costs by the mail carrier.
Re: A free shipping mystery
#108This also surprised me: I ordered stuff on AliExpress that I wouldn't ship back to China for € 0,70, even if the item was free (which electronics aren't). I asked around and it turns out that postal services in rich (EU) countries have a special, heavily sponsored rate for 3th world nations. This wasn't a problem with the occasional letter from Afrika, but the post services didn't really saw this coming: Mass free sh…
[deleted]
Re: A free shipping mystery
#109If you discover a product that sells for ten times more on Amazon than AliExpress, your first instinct should be to arbitrage the opportunity by ordering the product and selling it on Amazon (and letting Amazon handle the fulfillment: http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/benefits.ht...).
Re: A free shipping mystery
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Ships, airplanes, trucks, and postal workers have substantial ongoing costs. Yes, those are the network costs, ie the cost of supporting the collection-and-delivery network. They're assumed to be (more or less) constant, regardless of traffic. You don't make any money running a network with empty vans.
By "ongoing costs" (maybe the wrong term) I mean costs related to the amount of traffic. The number of trucks or airplanes you need to run on any given day depends on how much traffic you carry. The amount of fuel you need to buy then depends on that. So does much of the maintenance you do, and how much you pay the workers. A postal network carrying zero traffic will be a lot cheaper to run than one carrying lots of…
I'm sure that a router sitting idle is going to consume less electricity and require less cooling than one operating at full load.