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No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

sellercentral.amazon.com

251–260 of 508 posts

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When does China claim to be a developed nation? Also, is there any reasonable metric by which China is not a developing economy?

is there any reasonable metric by which China is not a developing economy? Here's one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... Here's another: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)

By those metrics, Bangladesh is more developed than Luxembourg.

That's not what I'd call "reasonable." You have to normalize by population.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in automotive parts (ASE Parts Specialist Cert.) and Amazon carries all the same substandard automotive goods Autozone and the other Mexican car parts stores have. Valuecarft line is dangerous Mexican made remans, duralast same crap. Most the time you go to one these Mexican car parts stores to get hard parts your getting something marked up 200% and searching it on amazon gets you same identical part. Your ri…

So where should I be buying my automotive car parts?

From the OEM as much as possible. I know their parts are "expensive" but nobody debates that they have the best fitment and quality compared to places like AutoZone, O'Rly, etc.

The only other option is to look for the company who builds the OEM parts and find their suppliers. For example, you'll find Exedy builds clutches for companies like Honda. So if you can get an Exedy clutch from your local parts store, it's usually the same as the OEM part.

If you do research too, you'll find that there are a lot of high-quality aftermarket parts suppliers too. If you are looking for bearings, you can usually look for places that sell SKF bearings (or whatever you prefer), and measure and cross reference the sizes to find what fits your application.

So what it comes down to is, it depends on the part, and it depends on what is available from where. It's basically a giant research project for every part.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#253

> 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…

They'll have to raise their prices to accommodate the additional expenses, unless their plans include selling at a loss to eliminate competition.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#254

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…

The advantage of having a US based middle man is that he can be held accountable if the goods sold are unsafe or counterfeit. These days it’s difficult to buy genuine goods of eBay and Amazon unless you buy from a reputable seller. It shouldn’t be this way.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#255
post #2

Here's a good background article, but I worried it was too political to submit directly: "On October 17, 2018, President Trump announced that the United States will withdraw from the Universal Postal Union (UPU), an intergovernmental organization that sets the rules and rates for international mail delivery. The decision to withdraw has been widely seen as another salvo in the Trump administration’s campaign against…

That post, like everything else I can find about this news, is a year old. Did this really happen?

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#256

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…

FTA:

"This is all related to the Universal Postal Union agreement that allows Chinese sellers to ship products to the U.S. for less than it costs us to ship to the same state."

The USPS has been losing money on this arrangement for a long time, it's one of these things that has stuck around despite being a total embarrassment due to industry pressuring. There is no reason taxpayers should be subsidizing this -- in fact, THAT is the most American of tales, everyday Americans paying for the privilege of bad downstream consequences.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#257

> 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.

Given that income for the bottom 40% has barely budged in 20 years, keeping the price of goods low (i.e. low inflation) is probably a net benefit to America, no?

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#259
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. I absolutely fucking hate Amazon now. It's full of white label products. You can tell the seller does no real safety testing of any kind from their broad array of random shit. You can't even trust the kitchen equipment for chance they made the steel with lead or the silicone is mixed with something toxic, etc. Completely unregulated market place of stupid. And this is on top of Amazon's counterfeit probl…

> I absolutely fucking hate Amazon now. It's full of white label products. So is Walmart and Dollar General. It's always been the customer's responsibility to buy the product they want, not the store's. Don't want counterfeit crap? Don't buy IFONE FROM APPEL in the listings. I don't know when the last time I got counterfeit crap from amazon is because I look at what I buy before I buy it.

Caveat emptor has to have limits. If merchants can just write whatever on whatever package and sell it, how the hell are consumers supposed to function as informed or responsible? How long until every transaction turns into a sketchy used car buy, having to take my package of fucking toilet paper to a maid so she can use her expertise to make sure they didn't make the paper out of razorblades and carbon fiber?

I'm all for free markets but merchants have proven time and again, and long before China for that matter, that they can't be fucking trusted with anything. Sure, some are good, but the vast majority especially online will do any damn thing they can to increase bottom line.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#260

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…

This has been happening for literally years already. Basically dropshippers would buy products list them and ship direct in the way you're describing. Then, when a manufacturer noticed that a product was popular enough, they would undercut the dropshipper and just list the product directly. Most of the "advanced" dropshippers though have white label products with some branding and design changes and then buy them in blocks of inventory and have them shipped to a 3PL partner anyways.
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