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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

#461

Post by kuzimoto »

analog31 wrote: post #449
hinkley wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet I've never had a reliability problem with USPS-shipped packages, whereas I've had so many problems with UPS that it's a joke among my friends that someone at UPS has a personal grudge against me. Lost packages, dented packages, me being home all day long and the doorbell never rings but there's a post-it on the door saying they couldn't deliver because nobody was home. In theory USPS takes longer, but for me…

USPS has been great for my tiny side-business. They are cheaper than anybody else for packages under a pound, and you can create a first class shipping label from within PayPal. This is cheaper than priority mail, and seldom if ever takes longer. I've simply never had a lost package, despite shipping a couple hundred units per year for almost a decade. On the receiving end, I like USPS because I can have my mail held…

In addition, if you're shipping smaller heavy items, you can get free shipping supplies like padded envelope and boxes for flat rate shipping which can be a better rate in some cases.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#462

Post by shkkmo »

Taniwha wrote: post #445
shkkmo wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, the prices were dictated by the UPU, a global treaty organization that the US is part of.

I think you're confusing "terminal dues" (which is what countries charge each other for delivering a package in the destination country) and the actual cost of shipping between countries (which is what I'm talking about here)

Since you are responding to someone comparing US domestic (in town) shipping prices to international shipping price, I don't see how you are not talking about "terminal dues".

International freight costs could explain why international shipping is more expensive than domestic shipping, but even if international freight prices are 0, they can't explain why domestic shipping is more expensive than international shipping.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#463

Post by m463 »

Scoundreller wrote: post #95
dev_dull wrote: post #75

> This is great news for U.S. sellers, especially eBay sellers. Exactly the intended consequence. Why should US taxpayers subsidize shipping costs for products to come from China? It made no sense at all in today's economy unless the only thing you care about is paying less for your goods regardless of the consequences, which I don't think is a majority position of adults today.

The actual consequence will be Chinese sellers using US warehouses and drop-shipping from there. Others send over a container with each ordered good and slap a local post’s label on it. Possibly that local post’s label is attached in China and the container just gets dropped off at a USPS DC by the private freight forwarder. It’s already fairly common. Overall, a few more US jobs, and maybe more USPS revenue for what…

Wouldn't that also have sales tax and product liability consequences?

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#464

Post by m463 »

mistermann wrote: post #181
Scoundreller wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just not going to be a boon to US drop-shippers, the Chinese ones will still have a lower cost of operations by dealing direct and almost 100% Chinese labour costs.

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.

But won't there be import duties on the goods from china, sales tax consequences for goods in the US, and regulations that will have to be met?

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#466

Post by syedkarim »

codebje wrote: post #428
varjag wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does, although AFAIK noone in Europe is quitting the postal union yet. However here in Norway VAT is being introduced on all packages now, which is going to cut Aliexpress down quite a bit. Previously it was duty free below €35 combined value & postage.

I pay Australian GST on AliExpress imports, but it doesn't make local outfits more viable. I buy hobby electronic components primarily, local suppliers are often one to two orders of magnitude more expensive, not just a few percent more.

One or two orders of magnitude? Isn't that ten-times or a hundred-times more expensive? What product could possibly be marked up by 100x?

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#467

Post by jacob019 »

noonespecial wrote: post #349
jacob019 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy an ESP8266 board from me for $1.85 shipped domestically via First Class mail: https://www.ebay.com/itm/113772095761

Not to pry, but how can you do that? The cheapest way I can find to send any package to an address even across the street is $2.66. Do you just stick a stamp on it and mail it like a letter? Will you still be able to get your ESP's cheap enough after the shipping change?

Non-machinable letters with the automation discount cost $0.65. Protective mailers add $0.30. No tracking though. I import by FedEx and ocean freight. This change won't affect me directly but the tariffs are killing me.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#468

Post by will4274 »

dev_dull wrote: post #249
kevstev wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most will agree that is a "fair" competitive advantage. What myself and I think most find problematic is that the USPS is actually subsidizing Chinese packages inbound to the US, to the point where its somehow cheaper to send from China than domestically. That may have made sense at some point when China was still in its embryonic phase of development, but they are well past the point where this is necessary…

The fact it went on this long is the confusing part to me. Why didn't anybody come and say "Hey! This is weird. Let's stop this" before 2016?

Honestly? Probably because partisan politics has wrecked my country. China as a trade manipulator has been a Republican talking point my entire lifetime. So Dems wouldn't touch it, regardless of the merits.

And before that? Well, it wasn't a big problem in 2006.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#469

Post by SmartJerry »

baybal2 wrote: post #399
Kadin wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US doesn't manufacture those items because it's cheaper to have them shipped from China. Raise the cost of manufacturing them there and importing them, and the balance changes. The domestic vs. offshore production calculus is actually closer than a lot of people realize, in many instances. Often it's a choice between a highly-automated and capital-intensive production process in the US, vs. a manual process at a…

> The US doesn't manufacture those items because it's cheaper to have them shipped from China. Raise the cost of manufacturing them there and importing them, and the balance changes. The US doesn't manufacture those items because it has no capability to do so. There are no factories, no supply chain, no expertise and no known how. There are some things that are cheaper to manufacture in US, (surprise!) if you manufac…

Even in industries the U.S. does have manufacturing for the cost of manufacturing is insane. I shopped around to literally every apparel production company listed on any list in the U.S. 50% of the companies said they don't have bandwidth to take any more orders, they literally didn't want the business at any price. The other 49% didn't deal in 'small orders' basically anything under 5000. In the last 1% of U.S. companies the very cheapest cost was double the price to manufacture in China - where we got very few quotes because of the language barrier.So Electric scooter or simple piece of clothing, the U.S. just loses out in every single way. This is the smallest of a long road to challenge China, point being if the U.S. companies are more comparable in price they will become more profitable, will be more likely to expand and build, and buyers will be more likely to buy U.S. Not to mention, the U.S. really needs it's own version of Alibaba so businesses can shop easier, it boggles my mind that it doesn't exist.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#470

Post by SmartJerry »

lonelappde wrote: post #224
jarfil wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly this. It has nothing to do with the boat cost or economies of scale because once it arrives it has to still go that last mile - or last hundred miles within the U.S. the same as any package.
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