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Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

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421–430 of 610 posts

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DHL doesn't accept packages anymore (or temporarily, hopefully) either https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/22675...

Understandable, they have to reevaluate the effort and probably adjust pricing. Upwards. > DHL B2C shipments to the EU are generally held in customs until the duty is paid, which makes it slow but ensures DHL isn't left holding the bag when people decide they don't want to pay unexpected import duties. Nothing is unexpected with DHL considering the amount of paperwork they want you to fill each time :) Even if you ch…

Yeah, DHL has been usually a pain with customs paperwork - needed far too much hand-holding compared to other options (eq. a regular local European carrier doing the same thing).

Unfortunately, with DHL this can even end up costing a lot of extra as they might even start to accumulate a storage fee as they hold the package while they make sense of the documents you sent them. :P

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#422
post #297
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Levoit humidifier Be careful with that. I liked mine too until it burst into flames one evening.

I’ve had it for years running 24/7 and nothing happened. You might have gotten a dud.

Bursting into flames shouldn't be possible, that's a LOT worse than a "dud". (Assuming parent isn't exaggerating)

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China makes quality things, they just keep it for themselves, and ship their crap to us.

That's hilarious. The most popular grocery stores in Shanghai right now are Costco and Sams, with lines everyday out the door, not Chinese grocery stores. Chinese citizens don't want to buy cancerous food products for example.

Comparative advantage in action!

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression, having visited the place, is that the Chinese laborers just work ridiculously hard. Part of this is due to culture and very heavy handed management, part of this due to the working class seeing huge returns on their labor (wealth has grown exponentially in their own lifetimes).

Don't know about China specifically, but "working ridiculously hard" is just "working" if everyone around is doing the same and you had no points of comparison. If you've seen enough people graduating into non-working class, or you have had yourself, that changes your perspective.

I guess that would add credence to the culture element. All of east Asian shares in this practice really. Given a structure/framework in which to work productively, they tend to really crush it economically. However it seems this often comes at the expense of other aspects of society (underemployment, low fertility rates, elder poverty, deflation etc).

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#425

This is going to utterly fuck so many R&D projects at my company. We actually do large-scale manufacturing of industrial valves in the USA. But a lot of our prototyping involves working with Chinese suppliers and getting small batches of samples / prototypes / revisions sent in packages on airplanes. I literally do not know how the electrical and firmware engineers will do their jobs now if we cannot receive packages…

It’ll be circumvented with proxy shipments from other locations, or third party shipping companies. Just like Russian sanctions and anything else people prepanic about or think will have any effect good or bad.

Any raise in cost will disappear and be absorbed as profit in supply chain shrouds of smoke and mirrors, permanently. Unless it legitimately costs slightly more money or causes any inconvenience to companies and we hear about it on the news.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if "utterly fucked" somehow means you can still pay a bit more to DHL and get packages even faster than USPS. Your fast prototypes coming by air freight likely aren't routed through USPS at all unless it's the last leg of a consolidated shipment that's broken apart once it reaches the US. Those would be using some other carrier to get them from China to the US and then USPS only inside the US. USPS all the way f…

> Paying ~$30 for express shipping through DHL (plus whatever the new tariffs end up being) will still get you those parts in 3-5 days to most major shipping hubs in the US, your suppliers will just need to start filing the export paperwork correctly. In my european experience, DHL is anything but fast when customs are involved. And I doubt they have the manpower to handle it for the new US rules. > These changes wil…

> In my european experience, DHL is anything but fast when customs are involved. And I doubt they have the manpower to handle it for the new US rules.

yeah, but like with t-mobile, I think the US branch might be working better than what we are used from them in europe/germany.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheaper and better. This country is so painfully stupid. Now I have to pay 2x as much for inferior products, if not the same exact stuff imported by an American company. This alone is probably going to cost me about 1000$ to 2000$ per year. We literally don't make much most of this stuff in the US. For example I just ordered a guitar bag, 15$ direct from China. The same exact bag, made in the same exact factory is go…

> This alone is probably going to cost me about 1000$ to 2000$ per year. This is a temporary hold while they figure out what’s going on. They’re not announcing that shipments from China are over for the year.

They're not going to stop. But they'll need more people / time. And everyone will have to pay extra for that.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if "utterly fucked" somehow means you can still pay a bit more to DHL and get packages even faster than USPS. Your fast prototypes coming by air freight likely aren't routed through USPS at all unless it's the last leg of a consolidated shipment that's broken apart once it reaches the US. Those would be using some other carrier to get them from China to the US and then USPS only inside the US. USPS all the way f…

> Paying ~$30 for express shipping through DHL (plus whatever the new tariffs end up being) will still get you those parts in 3-5 days to most major shipping hubs in the US, your suppliers will just need to start filing the export paperwork correctly. In my european experience, DHL is anything but fast when customs are involved. And I doubt they have the manpower to handle it for the new US rules. > These changes wil…

I had the same experience with DHL while I was in the Netherlands. Here in the US its been fine, my best guess is that it has to do with how customs and duties are handled.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#429
post #120

This is going to utterly fuck so many R&D projects at my company. We actually do large-scale manufacturing of industrial valves in the USA. But a lot of our prototyping involves working with Chinese suppliers and getting small batches of samples / prototypes / revisions sent in packages on airplanes. I literally do not know how the electrical and firmware engineers will do their jobs now if we cannot receive packages…

>I literally do not know how the electrical and firmware engineers will do their jobs now if we cannot receive packages from China As a software engineer who works closely with electrical and firmware engineers I know what you are saying is completely true. The question is how did we let it go this far? Why has there never been serious Western alternatives to JLCPCB, PCBWay, JLCCNC etc.? Has anyone asked themselves h…

> The question is how did we let it go this far?

I've tried to get PCBs fab'd stateside and I think its multidimensional. I didn't NEED to get them made stateside, but I wanted to try. The price for a board for a run of ~150 fairly simple PCBs was 2-3x what the chinese fabs offered. On top of that, American fabs are typically for ITAR/defense contract work. They'll snub their nose at small orders, give you the runaround, etc.

When working with Chinese fabs, the main downside is the time difference. JLC and PCBWay have both been great to work with, offer a good price, especially for a hobbyist(which is important if you want more hardware R&D).

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#430
post #326

Unless I've missed a thread, no one seems to be saying what counts. Changing duties, taxes, and rules is fine. It's how a society adjusts. Changing them instantly is literally the most anti-consumer, anti-business concept ever. No 30 days? 90 days? Nope, block it all now! That's sheer stupid on a caliber almost unheard of. It sends a signal "Don't do business with the US, the rules change on a whim". Don't do busines…

For what it's worth, the Project 2025 documents with all of these measures written down as bullet points has been up for a while. Getting rid of China's de minimis exemption is listed on page 789.

Americans, American businesses, and businesses with American clients would be wise to read through the document to see what they can expect the coming year(s). The current executive branch sure won't give you a heads up, but the plans are out in the open.

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