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No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

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Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#441

Post by Scoundreller »

bkor wrote: post #435
trhway wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>despite shipping from China being obviously more expensive in real world resources. 3 weeks container shipping on a super container ship vs. even cheapest truck shipping ?

> 3 weeks container shipping on a super container ship vs. even cheapest truck shipping ? Container shipping is ridiculously cheap. See e.g. https://www.joc.com/maritime-news/capacity-cuts-keeping-asia... . Seems around 640 USD from Shanghai to North Europe as per above article/source. This for a 20 foot container. A lot of containers are 40 foot. US has loads of 45 foot containers. If you'd go very far inland you wo…

Just FYI: EEE-class ships carry ~18000 20' equivalent containers. That's $11.5m per journey.

Presumably they make a profit on the journey to N. Europe, and take a loss on the return.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#442

Post by Litmus2336 »

hedvig wrote: post #419
TrackerFF wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've experienced something similar here in Norway. The commerce unions have been lobbying hard to get rid of toll-free imports, which we have up until a certain limit. (Turns out that the majority of imported Chinese goods fall under that limit) So they've been fighting tooth and nail to get that limit removed, which means that every single item gets slapped with additional brokerage fees and what-not, essentially r…

Why didn't the fee get put on the vendor/shipper?

Fees basically always fall on the consumer (in part) as higher item cost

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#443

Post by adrianmonk »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #307
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.

A better question might be to ask why US taxpayers should continue to subsidize direct marketers. Thats all I get anymore. Everything else is electronic.

It's my understanding that direct marketing mail helps keep the USPS profitable. Here's an excerpt from a report on whether they should offer simplified addressing for saturation mail (every address in an area), but the point is more general.

Source is https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library..., and emphasis is mine:

> The implementation of new products that support customers and improve its bottom line is of paramount concern for the Postal Service. In fact, profitable new volume benefits all mailers and consumers in the long run by helping the Postal Service fulfill its fundamental obligation of affordable universal service. Volume is significant because the Postal Service is a network industry and the vast majority of the costs for its delivery network are fixed. Greater volume spread across this network would lower the average unit cost of every mail piece delivered. A service such as simplified address mail, which has the potential to significantly increase delivered volume could dramatically help the Postal Service and all users of the network.

In other words, they are going to visit everybody's mailbox 6 days a week no matter what. Stuffing more mail into it while they're already there costs them very little.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#444

Post by nitwit005 »

trizic wrote: post #432
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.

US taxpayers are not subsidizing shipping costs. Domestic shippers probably are. "Zero tax dollars used. The Postal Service receives NO tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations." https://facts.usps.com/top-facts/

Saying "US taxpayers" is essentially the same as "US citizens". The parent wasn't suggesting direct tax payments into the postal service.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#445

Post by Taniwha »

shkkmo wrote: post #436
Taniwha wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because they are buying space that otherwise would be empty, and maintain an elastic buffer of packages to fill those spaces as they become available - the outgoing mail containers on planes are likely booked and paid for months in advance so the people paying for them will happily take 20% of their normal rate to fill the rest of them at the last minute

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)

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#446

Post by Taniwha »

Scoundreller wrote: post #426
Taniwha wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because they are buying space that otherwise would be empty, and maintain an elastic buffer of packages to fill those spaces as they become available - the outgoing mail containers on planes are likely booked and paid for months in advance so the people paying for them will happily take 20% of their normal rate to fill the rest of them at the last minute

That, and air freight only costs around $5/kg at regular rates. The low-rate consolidators are kinda shameful by only bringing goods to the closest port to the origin, not the destination. E.g. in Canada, they only bring it to the Vancouver port, while wealthier countries will pre-sort and air it to the closest intl mail port (Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver).

this is a trade off between cost and speed of delivery - shipping out of China I have the choice of many different carriers - for example I can use cheap (and slowish) China Post, or faster and $6 more PostNL who will also give me tracking - I give my customers the cheap China Post for free and charge $6 for PostNL

(in the near future if US mail prices go up I may be forced to charge US customers more, I may also have to raise prices to US customers if I find that Trump's sanctions start to apply to small packages and I'm stuck paying from my end)

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#447

Post by mistermann »

ikeboy wrote: post #368
mistermann wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where we're getting our wires crossed here.... You described the "if you or I wanted to send a three-quarter-pound package..." scenario as "very misleading", because "They aren't comparing apples to apples. In particular, they take a retail price for fast shipping with tracking and compare to a wholesale price for slow shipping without tracking." I asked: "Do US sellers have access to this slow shipping opti…

No, US sellers can't ship using an international shipping program. It's two fundamentally different things. You can try to set up a comparison that's closer. That would involve sorting discounts on the US side. Chinese shippers sending packages through UPU are going through UPU wholesale rates, because they're all processed in bulk before it gets to the US. USPS doesn't pay for getting it from someone's local post of…

> No, US sellers can't ship using an international shipping program. It's two fundamentally different things.

In which case the Planet Money episode isn't misleading.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#448

Post by superfrank »

leshow wrote: post #310
hbosch wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a A1 sized picture frame from a french seller for around $50 on Amazon. It was a total pain getting an affordable frame in A1 size, because the best we can get easily in America is a 24x36" which is just far enough off to be unusable. When it arrived, it had some damage to the acrylic and I wanted to return it. Amazon Support said they would reimburse me up to $20 for shipping it back, but when I took it to…

I find that price hard to believe. Has anybody else had an experience like this?

I have. I left my Kindle on a plane in Germany while on vacation a few years ago and didn't realize until I was already on a different plane back to the US. I got a hold of at lost and found at the airport who said they had it and if I sent them a shipping label, they could mail it back to me.

When I started looking at different shipping options, UPS wanted about $107 to ship it back and FedEx was a similar price. I think I ended up using DHL which was the cheapest I could find at about $80, which still felt crazy to me.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#449

Post by analog31 »

hinkley wrote: post #370
Scoundreller wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Moreover, for me to send any parcel (even very small ones, like 2 oz.) outside the US costs a small fortune these days, again because I'm subsidizing the Chinese shippers. International shipping was expensive before China flooded the market b2c. If you sent a pkg to China, the US would only have to drop it off in China, the last mile delivery cost is mostly up to China. The actual air freight cost to USPS is about…

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 when I'm on a trip -- the process is totally painless.

Now, who knows if my shipping is being subsidized. Probably, when one considers subsidies to transportation infrastructure. But I suspect that if we lose USPS, whatever money the government saves will be more than made up by having to bail out one or more of the private shipping services every few years, like other "too big to fail" industries.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#450

Post by delfinom »

verisimilitude wrote: post #250
lighthazard wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So where should I be buying my automotive car parts?

I like RockAuto. But since I had a bad run-in with a supposedly-quality oil pan for an Aisin transmission, I've increasingly been using OEM. Like, from the local dealers. But, there's always things like brake calipers from TRW which are identical to the VW-branded ones (but far cheaper). Anyway, I avoid Dorman and a whole host of other parts manufacturers. If I need to get it done in one day, OEM helps...

I had one bad experience from RockAuto and haven't gone back. One OEM lists a part as compatible for a Honda Accord 2006 V6 belt tensioner when it is basically incompatible it comes in as the pulley's are different sizes from factory (and you can't tell in their images). They made it incredibly difficult for me to return it for god knows what reason.

A different OEM sourced elsewhere was the correct kit out of the box :/

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