Author Topic: No more free shipping from China to USA?  (Read 6856 times)

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Offline rdl

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #25 on: October 18, 2018, 04:04:36 am »
I think you misunderstand. If you buy from a US seller you are usually going to pay for mail delivery, but they are not bringing their stock into the US by mail. At least I don't think so. If they're buying in quantity, container loads would make more sense.
 

Offline station240

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #26 on: October 18, 2018, 05:30:44 am »
Not a bad thing. Keep in mind that under UPU rules, when China ships things to US, China only pays the part to get the goods shipped to US boarder. US pays the distribution fee, which is very expensive due to labor cost. As a result, USPS is subsidizing this fee.

Under this rule, the more a country ships, the less a country receives, the more it takes advantage of UPU rule.

Since USPS has to absorb the cost, that means you pay more to USPS when you ship anything abroad.

Last time I shipped something from US to China, it costed me $13.75 for a bloody piece of paper.

To me, this is a good move. I live in US, I ship to China and many other places outside US, and I don't buy much from China without an US stock.

The subsidized chinese postage only applies to certain products and sellers, the average person on the street in china still has to pay the full normal postage costs.
For international courier services, this is much the same as we pay in the west.

In Australia the postal service has jacked up the prices for all parcels, not just international ones.
So the result of chinese free postage, is I pay more to post something within Australia.This makes selling or even giving stuff away un-viable at times.
 

Online ebastler

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #27 on: October 18, 2018, 06:00:30 am »
The subsidized chinese postage only applies to certain products and sellers, the average person on the street in china still has to pay the full normal postage costs.

I don't think you got this right. The trick is that the "full postage costs", i.e. the cost to the Chinese mail service for sending something to Western countries, are very low, because they are subsidized. The Chinese mail service only has to handle the transport to the destination country or region (via low-cost bulk shipments). The mail services in the destination countries handle the much more expensive distribution to the individual recipients. But the compensatory payments the Western mail services receive from China do not even cover their costs.

Looking at all the small operators who sell direct via ebay etc. at very low (or free) shipping cost, apparently the attractive shipping rates are generally available to Chinese senders.

Quote
For international courier services, this is much the same as we pay in the west.

That may be the case, but I believe these courier services are not covered by the UPU treaty.
 

Online all_repair

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #28 on: October 18, 2018, 08:32:13 am »
Postage goes up in most places is NOT due to China parcel.  It is due to the collapse of snail mails.  The postman cost if almost fixed, if they carry less mails per trip then the cost per unit goes up.  Any additional item is zero.   If they charge $1 for local, and say 20cents for China.  No, they don't loose 80cents each parcel.  They make additional 20cents.  Without the 20cents, the increase shall be more.
 

Online ebastler

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #29 on: October 18, 2018, 10:09:04 am »
Postage goes up in most places is NOT due to China parcel.  It is due to the collapse of snail mails.  The postman cost if almost fixed, if they carry less mails per trip then the cost per unit goes up.  Any additional item is zero.   If they charge $1 for local, and say 20cents for China.  No, they don't loose 80cents each parcel.  They make additional 20cents.  Without the 20cents, the increase shall be more.

That's beside the point, I think. The alternative to buying an item which is mailed from China would not be to buy nothing, but to buy an item that gets mailed from elsewhere. And it is a subsidy if the Chinese seller pays 20 cents to get his stuff delivered to a US customer, whereas the competing US seller has to pay $1.00 for a local shipment.

Yes, I have personally benefited from cheap shipping from China. But I would happily pay an extra few Euros here and there to help correct that imbalance.
 

Online Siwastaja

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #30 on: October 18, 2018, 10:48:47 am »
I'd be happy to pay for actual, real shipping cost unsubsidized for the cheap stuff. Due to the volumes, it wouldn't be massively expensive either, and it would be a simple, fair system.

This is way better than building excessive barriers instead. That's something I don't want. Just remove all subsidizing and let the free market sort it out.

I like to do business with the Chinese because often there is fairly innovative or at least functional tech business with at least manageable customer service, and it's not bloated beyond usable by either ridiculously high quality standards (on paper), or ridiculously greedy multi-level profit margin and multi-step "authorized distributor" bullshit system. (The problem isn't only about price; I can communicate my needs in days with the Chinese, but going in negotiations with Western tech companies may easily take months, and require participation of non-technical personnel, i.e., the "suit guys". I'm an engineer, I just want to buy components for my product, is it so hard to understand?)

Let me give an example: when in need of a custom designed optical lens for LED beam shaping (i.e., I need both optical simulation to my parameters, then injection molds), there are approx three options for a startup:
1) Outsource to China what they can do best,
2) Don't do anything.
3) Instead of actual design work, do a Design-for-Investors (DFI) mockup, hire marketing guys, and make collecting investor money in millions your goal, preventing you from working innovatively with your actual goal, so that you get your $1000000 to do the most trivial tasks. After you have your $1M, you have most likely lost your focus and are already a stale tech fraud startup and looking for another $1M or $2M to keep it going a bit longer.

Western players either won't talk with you at all, or quote you $10000 for an optical simulation, talking utter bullshit about how much expertise it requires and how much it costs yada yada, totally not understanding your requirements about "this doesn't need to be perfect". In reality, it's still a half-an-hour job. But it's taking half an hour for ten managers and ten salesperson as well.

Now, just by posting my needs on Alibaba, I had several Chinese do the optical simulation for free, and the results were just as expected. Then, you get to injection molding. The Western quote for a "optical quality" prototype mold is $30000 - if you can find someone who talks with you to begin with. From China, it's $800. And finally, the lenses I have here now are just as I expected, no issues whatsoever.

In Western technology, I sometimes think we have totally lost our reason. Doing anything can easily cost you $10000/hour. It's a free market, mostly dominated by dysfunctional industry giants who need to outsource every job, and they can pay $10000/hr, so for a subcontractor, why take lower-paying jobs?

Chinese engineering has brought us product segments that simply didn't exist; not competiting with "the West" at all. I can buy a Western $5000 servo motor with great specifications and all that jazz, and anyone who bought this product before "the China syndrome", still buys exactly the same product and won't even thing about getting to Alibaba. But now there is a new segment, I can buy a $50 servo motor with decent specifications. The purpose is different, the customers are different. This possibility also drives Western innovation.

Sometimes it's about harsh competition and pushing prices down, but really, this isn't always the case. Often it's getting something that wouldn't exist otherwise.
 
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Offline kosine

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #31 on: October 18, 2018, 11:28:33 am »
If anyone wants some background as to how the international postal service evolved:

https://psmag.com/economics/the-international-postal-system-is-profoundly-brokenand-nobody-is-paying-attention

Here's the crux of the matter:

"At the 1906 Rome congress of the UPU, Italian representatives noted that they had delivered 325,000 pieces of printed matter—magazines and newsletters—while sending out none to other countries. This meant they were providing a great deal of postal service to fellow UPU members in exchange for ... nothing.

Italy pleaded for a system of compensation, but relief wouldn’t arrive until after World War II, when a wave of liberated colonies entered the UPU. Like other developing nations, they received far more international mail than they sent. Because the UPU’s standards are set through a one-country, one-vote democratic Congress, this influx of net importers led in 1969 to successful implementation of a delivery compensation payment, dubbed terminal dues.

But the terminal dues system quickly created another problem. The initial payment rate was uniform, while variations in currency value, wage costs, and level of service meant that actual postal delivery costs were not. Postal services with lower costs soon received more in terminal dues on inward international mail than it cost them to deliver it. From benefiting net exporters of mail, the UPU had begun to benefit the lowest-cost importers—including both many developing nations and low-cost industrialized nations like the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

The history of the UPU since 1969 has largely been a war of position over who wins and who loses on terminal dues.
"
 

Offline technix

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #32 on: October 18, 2018, 11:41:17 am »
As a Tindie seller in China this will hurt me quite a bit. For me since I have a largely original product portfolio there is no price point to compete against, but a raised handling & shipping will dissuade some potential buyers.

p.s. Don't tell me that UPU still has to rely on pre-WWI rate setting mechanism with some half-hearted enhancements. Given modern technology it shouldn't be hard to actually pre-query and pre-route mail and generate a detailed quote in real time over Internet.
 

Online all_repair

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #33 on: October 18, 2018, 12:27:44 pm »
Postage goes up in most places is NOT due to China parcel.  It is due to the collapse of snail mails.  The postman cost if almost fixed, if they carry less mails per trip then the cost per unit goes up.  Any additional item is zero.   If they charge $1 for local, and say 20cents for China.  No, they don't loose 80cents each parcel.  They make additional 20cents.  Without the 20cents, the increase shall be more.

That's beside the point, I think. The alternative to buying an item which is mailed from China would not be to buy nothing, but to buy an item that gets mailed from elsewhere. And it is a subsidy if the Chinese seller pays 20 cents to get his stuff delivered to a US customer, whereas the competing US seller has to pay $1.00 for a local shipment.

Yes, I have personally benefited from cheap shipping from China. But I would happily pay an extra few Euros here and there to help correct that imbalance.
I am addressing people who blamed their local postage hike on China.  The postal system are not loosing on China parcel, they are not making as much.  Bulk of the local mails are local, has to be local. when snail mails and greeting cards are not feeding the system, the rate has to go up.  The person that is affected is the one doing head on competition with China dropshippers, unlikely it is the local tech as they should not be in this line.  It would be the local distributor/resellers.  When the so called cheap rate is equalised, the benefits go yo the post office and local trader vs the losses of the buyers.  If I am the buyers, I would prefer to donate my benefits to worthy causes and let other struggling innovators hold on their benefits.
 

Offline TK

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #34 on: October 18, 2018, 01:17:23 pm »
If I, as a one-person company, can price my products competitively and still have plenty of resources for R&D, then the big names have no excuse. OTOH trying to "grow" the business, hiring, and marketing are great ways to piss away a lot of money and have nothing to show for it; we've all seen how the big kickstarters that raised millions flopped in the end and ran out of money without delivering anything.
Regarding the kickstarters, they fail because they did not have a compelling product, to start with, or they were too early in the development process and could not overcome volume manufacturing issues, not because of hiring talent and overhead staffing.
 

Offline bitwelder

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #35 on: October 18, 2018, 07:40:20 pm »
US pulling out of UPU would mean that every single mail item going internationally to or from the US would need to have basically two stamps, one to pay the US postage and one for the UPU countries  (i.e. rest of the world) ? Niiiice...
 

Online ebastler

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #36 on: October 18, 2018, 08:17:24 pm »
As a Tindie seller in China this will hurt me quite a bit. For me since I have a largely original product portfolio there is no price point to compete against, but a raised handling & shipping will dissuade some potential buyers.

p.s. Don't tell me that UPU still has to rely on pre-WWI rate setting mechanism with some half-hearted enhancements. Given modern technology it shouldn't be hard to actually pre-query and pre-route mail and generate a detailed quote in real time over Internet.

Hmm, I am not quite sure what you are saying. Adjusting the cross-charge rates to a more balanced model would hurt you, but it would be technically easy to do?
 

Online ebastler

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #37 on: October 18, 2018, 08:19:46 pm »
US pulling out of UPU would mean that every single mail item going internationally to or from the US would need to have basically two stamps, one to pay the US postage and one for the UPU countries  (i.e. rest of the world) ? Niiiice...

I don't think this is about actually wanting to pull out of UPU. It's about threatening to pull out, and trying to use that threat as leverage to renegotiate the terms. The typical Trump approach which may or may not work...
 

Offline TK

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #38 on: October 18, 2018, 08:31:27 pm »
I don't think UPU has anything to do with the real problem that is ePackets.  It looks like it was something that was introduced around 2010 and it backfired.  Here is an interesting article that explains how ePacket works:

https://www.productpro.io/blog/epacket-china-wins-america-loses
 

Offline Domagoj T

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #39 on: October 18, 2018, 09:18:32 pm »
Croatian post office tried charging 4,50 HRK (roughly $0,70) for incoming "small packets". People started complaining and it lasted for a few months. They don't charge it any more.
 

Offline scuzzyTerminatorTopic starter

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #40 on: October 18, 2018, 10:53:24 pm »
Some info:
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE
Inbound China ePacket Costing Methodology Audit Report
February 25, 2014

https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2015/ms-ar-14-002.pdf
« Last Edit: October 18, 2018, 10:59:27 pm by scuzzyTerminator »
 

Offline Kawar

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #41 on: September 12, 2019, 03:28:49 pm »
I prefer to pay shipping on the items I purchase and not subsidize the millions and millions of packages that get shipped from China at US taxpayer's expense.
I had to make an account for this post.

honestly my friend you are clueless.  Who cares it was better before and you know that.  why would you pay for shipping or support tax on china when you know in the end they will pass the problems on to us.

so for example you buy a phone on aliexpess or really anything you rather pay more to the government that goes in there pocket rather then money you can keep. then you got shipping fees on top of tax.

so for all people who do not see how dumb and backwards that idea is this is a little examples. all fake numbers

lets take a 40 dollar smart watch right. before the trump bullshit comeing from a man who has no idea the worldwide damage he is doing to us anyway.

40 dollar smart watch - free shipping with no tracking number - if you want tracking like 3 dollars - no tax = ether 40 dollars or = 43

now lets do the new system what ever part of the country your in it will change depending on your tax law.

40+tax+shipping even at 63-70 cents to have the slowest shipping.
40+tax+3-4 dollars for faster shipping with a tracking number.

you tell me what you would like more spending more for the goverment to make more money you wont ever see or for you to keep money in your pocket you can use for bills or to put food on your table?

what would you do?
 

Offline Kawar

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #42 on: September 12, 2019, 03:29:42 pm »
More reason to move R&D to China.
thing is companys will just move to a new country they will never come back to the US they are gone.
 

Offline CatalinaWOW

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #43 on: September 12, 2019, 04:21:49 pm »
I prefer to pay shipping on the items I purchase and not subsidize the millions and millions of packages that get shipped from China at US taxpayer's expense.
I had to make an account for this post.

honestly my friend you are clueless.  Who cares it was better before and you know that.  why would you pay for shipping or support tax on china when you know in the end they will pass the problems on to us.

so for example you buy a phone on aliexpess or really anything you rather pay more to the government that goes in there pocket rather then money you can keep. then you got shipping fees on top of tax.

so for all people who do not see how dumb and backwards that idea is this is a little examples. all fake numbers

lets take a 40 dollar smart watch right. before the trump bullshit comeing from a man who has no idea the worldwide damage he is doing to us anyway.

40 dollar smart watch - free shipping with no tracking number - if you want tracking like 3 dollars - no tax = ether 40 dollars or = 43

now lets do the new system what ever part of the country your in it will change depending on your tax law.

40+tax+shipping even at 63-70 cents to have the slowest shipping.
40+tax+3-4 dollars for faster shipping with a tracking number.

you tell me what you would like more spending more for the goverment to make more money you wont ever see or for you to keep money in your pocket you can use for bills or to put food on your table?

what would you do?

You are saying you like free lunches and want them to continue.  Someone is paying the bills for delivering those packages.  The question is: who?   And the answer is: you or your neighbors and countrymen.  You may not use snail mail (either sending or receiving bills, notices and the like) or send any domestic parcels or pay taxes so the lunch truly is free for you.  More likely the cost is just hidden from you. 

As several prior posts point out the expense of delivering these packages comes in sorting and delivering them to all of the myriad locations.  That cost is real and hard to adjust by large amounts.  Gasoline, trucks and labor are real costs and can't be reduced at the wave of a wand.  While there is room to argue about the efficiencies of the USPS (I worked there for a while once upon a time and agree that there is plenty of room) I don't see huge reductions in prices.  If they were available UPS, Fedex or others would be bigger than Apple in profits and possibly have driven USPS totally out of the business.

One thing that might be a good argument in the US (and possibly in other countries) is to eliminate the subsidized rates on "junk" mail.  This class of mail dominates the volume, is usually handled below cost, and is generally undesired by the recipient.  This is actually a bigger drain on the system IMO than the Chinese package shipping, but it is another of those sacred cows that is hard to attack.  The advertising industry has well paid lobbyists.

 
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Offline tooki

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #44 on: September 13, 2019, 11:08:18 am »
Maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't think the US sellers were be bringing their stock into the country by mail.
What alternate methods did you have in mind?

Nearly all the international shipping methods use the USPS for the last mile, except when package size, hazardous materials and/or delivery time demand something else.
Even at the consumer level, I doubt that's true. There is a LOT of UPS/FedEx, etc going on.

But at the bulk level, which is precisely what would be happening, it's done by ocean freight. And that is very, very, very cheap. Fill a whole shipping container and send it. That's how most non-perishable goods from Asia make it to USA and Europe, and why it's cost-effective to do import so much. I don't know the exact rates, but for example, back in 2008 when I was planning my move from USA to Switzerland, I did investigate how much it would cost to ship my car. I lived in Baltimore (where there is a seaport), and while door-to-door shipping would have cost thousands, port-to-port from Baltimore to Rotterdam would have been a whopping $600.

A cursory Google search seems to indicate roughly $3000 all-in to ship a 40 foot container from Shanghai to Los Angeles. You can fit a ton of Arduinos in that and spread the cost among thousands and thousands of units. That's precisely what retailers do.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: No more free shipping from China to USA?
« Reply #45 on: September 13, 2019, 11:09:31 am »
For nearly every cheap Chinese item I see on ebay, I can find someone in the US selling the same thing. Pay a buck or two extra for shipping, but get it in less than a week. Fair trade off in my opinion, been doing it for several years now. I do still buy from China on occasion though.
Unfortunately, not everyone enjoys such options. Here in Switzerland, the local vendors tend to charge 3x the Chinese price, and then shipping on top of it... :/
 


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