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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

#471

Post by SmartJerry »

jrockway wrote: post #240
burnte wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

White labelling and counterfeiting are two different things. White labelling is just rebranding; I go to Home Depot and buy some screws, print out a label that says "jrockway's miracle fasteners", slap it on top of Home Depot's label, and sell them to you, that's white labeling. Counterfeiting is when you inject seemingly-identical goods into the supply chain. You mix up some soap and blue dye in your bathtub, pour i…

What Chinese companies actually do is both really. They take an order of 1000 say Apple iPhones then actually produce 2000, keeping 1000 for themselves. They then sell the knock-offs themselves within China or into the U.S. on e-bay and other 'used' sites.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#472

Post by SmartJerry »

delfinom wrote: post #454
nathanvanfleet wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't blame the consumer on this. Retailers are responsible for the things they sell. That includes if it's low quality or if it says it's something that it isn't (counterfeit etc). Also hosting fake reviews etc is also something they are responsible for.

Normal retailers are responsible. Amazon hides behind the veil of "third party sellers".

Is it a veil? Imagine you are a landlord and you rent to a Walmart. Are you as the landlord responsible for all of Walmart's products? It is the same thing but Amazon owns a virtual high traveled location instead of the landlord who owns a place on a busy street. Amazon shouldn't be responsible for the third party seller, but it should be extremely clear that it is a third party seller, like the sign on the side of a building.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#474

Post by ikeboy »

mistermann wrote: post #447
ikeboy wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Comparing the cheapest international shipping program with one of the more expensive domestic options, when there are several differences I pointed out above, is misleading. You've yet to make a case that they're comparable.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#477

Post by BurningFrog »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #404
BurningFrog wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, it isn't a monopoly But it is. A simple googling gives many hits confirming this simple fact. This one seemed most informative: > The USPS actually has two legally enforced monopolies, as per Title 39 of the US Code. One is over the delivery of anything defined as a “letter,” which is within certain size and weight limits. The second is over the use of your mailbox. From https://www.econlib.org/rick-geddes-e…

That is defining monopoly in a very constrained way. You might as well be complaining that USPS having a monopoly over delivering watch fobs. FedEx isn't trying to capture the $0.55 letter delivery market.

It's the textbook definition of a government instituted monopoly. Monopolies don't get more monopol...ied than that!

> FedEx isn't trying to capture the $0.55 letter delivery market.

Because that would be illegal. Otherwise they would.

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#478

Post by wingworks »

PaulHoule wrote: post #324
Griffinsauce wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience shipping prices from the US to EU are ludicrous. So much so that I'm surprised they have any business. This doesn't sound outside of the realm of possibility to me.

It was two decades ago, but when I lived in Germany it also seemed that they lost about 50% of the parcels that we sent between Germany and the US.

We send small A4 sized parcels to Germany quite a bit and often it never arrives, the same goes for France, if anything it gets lost more often in France. (shipping from New Zealand)

Re: No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

#479

Post by hnick »

0xffff2 wrote: post #128
Scoundreller wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is that a problem? Seems like if they do that then it's US domestic mail, playing by all the same rules (and high rates) as any other domestic mail item. Competing with Chinese shippers would look exactly the same as competing with anyone shipping out of LA/Oakland/Seattle.

This is common in Australia and there are some problems. Any faulty goods purchased here are to be returned to the merchant (rather than manufacturer) and some of them make this very difficult by providing a local sender but a foreign 'return' address. I'm pretty sure it's not strictly legal, but it's too annoying in most cases to fight it.

It also gives them a local business address so they can advertise local shipping but a lot of the time you have to wait for the next cargo shipment to come in so something that should take a few days now takes a week or two. This can be helped with reviews but we all know how those get gamed now with sellers flooding reviews or shutting down and starting as a new account.

These are both differences that arise from a business not having a real local presence, but just the bare minimum presence 'for show'. Luckily, most of them are fairly inept and make themselves obvious on eBay by pasting Australian flags and Koalas all over their store pages :)

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