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No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

sellercentral.amazon.com

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Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#221

Post by throwaway2048 »

scarejunba wrote: post #111
jplayer01 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What would be the concession from the Chinese? What concession? It's a clear market distortion that shipping rates across such distances are so ridiculously low. I'm not sure why anybody is supporting them. This isn't about Trump or not Trump, and always putting these issues in these terms is incredibly distracting from what's actually important. (And I say this as somebody who absolutely despises Trump.)

We don't know that they're below cost. Maybe the market distortion is that internal mail is so expensive. EDIT: whoops, untrue as below. Disregard this.

We absolutely do know this, the UPU (universal postal union) has a mandate to subsidize mail rates from nations that are termed developing under its rules, like China.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#222

Post by ikeboy »

mistermann wrote: post #187
ikeboy wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get costs down on small, light packages by putting it in a big envelope and using good old fashioned stamps.

Interesting. Now, back to my question: Do US sellers have access to this slow shipping option?

Large shippers generally do have access to similarly priced shipping options. It's difficult to directly compare because volume prices aren't all public.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#223

Post by antisthenes »

jrockway wrote: post #126

The impression I get from that thread is that the dream here is now Americans can do what they do best, sit in the middle of transactions and collect rent. Previously, you could go to a Chinese website and have the Chinese factory send you a widget directly to your door. Now that will be too expensive, but hey we have a solution! An American will order a bunch of widgets in bulk, ship them over in a cargo ship, come…

> An American will order a bunch of widgets in bulk, ship them over in a cargo ship, come up with some fancy marketing, and then sell the widgets to you at 200% markup. You know these folks will never hire electrical engineers to certify safety and conformance, or work with the factory to improve the product in response to customer feedback.

Pretty sure that's been going on at Amazon for at least 5 years now. There is no shortage of 3rd party sellers importing garbage in bulk (try to buy a Li-Ion battery on Amazon), marking it up to account for their shipping, marketing and the 15% Amazon fee and then selling it to the end consumer in the US.

No electrical engineers involved at any point there either.

I see this as a good thing. It should cull a lot of garbage listings from E-commerce platforms.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#224

Post by lonelappde »

jarfil wrote: post #204
tracer4201 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have the background on this - help me understand why or how it’s cheaper for goods to ship cheaper from China than shipping within the US? The US taxpayer is subsidizing this? I’m shocked and confused.

It's cheaper to ship 10,000 items in a single container, than to ship each one separately, which is why mail carriers bundle items together (in bags, vans, containers, etc) instead of handling them separately all the way. Domestic mail is like sending separate items, which get bundled together, then un-bundled again to deliver them to their final destination. All these steps happen at domestic wages, and at best with…

This ignores the actual reason, which is that USPS charges less for China->US movement than domestic movement even after bundling like Amazon does at the warehouse.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#225

Post by lonelappde »

adventured wrote: post #186
tracer4201 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have the background on this - help me understand why or how it’s cheaper for goods to ship cheaper from China than shipping within the US? The US taxpayer is subsidizing this? I’m shocked and confused.

It's a UN-based forced rate subsidy for developing nations that China still benefits from. "According to the U.S. Postal Service, it costs around $20 to mail a small parcel weighing 4.4 pounds from one U.S. state to another, yet mailing the same package from China only costs about $5." "The Universal Postal Union, a United Nations agency that sets postal rates among its 192-member countries, dictates USPS's artificia…

In what sense can the UN "force" anything?

The article says that Trump is moving to pull out of or renegotiate the UPU agreement, which at worst is a Presidential choice, and it's not even clear to me why USPS can't do it unilaterally.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#226

Post by chiefalchemist »

Two questions:

1) What are the possible unintended consequences? This is fairly drastic. Certainly, something(s) unforeseen are going to happen.

2) What are the new opportunities? For example, importing in bulk and shipping from here (as opposed to individual orders shipped from China).

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#227

Post by ericd »

Scoundreller wrote: post #121
mieseratte wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wal-Mart merchandise is not shipped via international post. This UPU situation has no influence here.

If Chinese sellers get locked out, where will I turn to buy those same goods?

You're still going to be free to buy those things, you just won't be getting subsidized, below cost shipping.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#228

Post by nkurz »

mikestew wrote: post #4

If the Trump administration had just opened with this, I think we might have saved ourselves a lot of stock market turbulence with tariff pissing contests. U. S. sellers start in the hole by the fact that they can't even compete on shipping prices with Chinese companies. It reminds me of the Shell gas station owner I worked for many decades ago who complained that the local drugstore could sell quarts of oil cheaper…

I can see the theory, but I don't think it's true in practice.

First, the USPS withdrawal from the UPU was announced in October 2018, which I think predates most of the tariffs: https://www.lawfareblog.com/withdrawal-universal-postal-unio...

Second, China is already paying for the cost of shipping the item to the US shores. The change affects how much the the USPS charges for the final delivery once it arrives here.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#229

Post by mistermann »

Scoundreller wrote: post #208
mistermann wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be completely overlooking the fact that it is way cheaper to ship an item from China to a specific location in the US, than it is to ship the same item from within the US.

It’ll be good for the USPS (or maybe not if people just order off Amazon and they deliver), but the benefits to US jobs will be oversold.

I haven't really heard jobs being a part of this discussion at all, the reasoning and the rhetoric has been about leveling an clearly unfair playing field.

The USPS will certainly make more revenue, and in turn they should be able to pass that on by reducing shipping costs for people shipping from within the US.

For companies drop-shipping from China, regardless of whether the person running the business is in the US or in China, the impact is the same. But for US based businesses that inventory items and ship out of the US, this change would be a big advantage.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#230

Post by Scoundreller »

ericd wrote: post #227
Scoundreller wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Chinese sellers get locked out, where will I turn to buy those same goods?

You're still going to be free to buy those things, you just won't be getting subsidized, below cost shipping.

Who knows what Trump will do to their shipping costs to punish China.
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