Crazy prices by Ebay Global Shipping Program

[Simon]

We're not bad sellers, we're just generally not making a living from eBay and have full time jobs otherwise. 

Having to service you like a cheap hussy and invest a lot of time into a minimal profit item to make a sale isn't really beneficial. And it wouldn't be beneficial for you to do the same for a US customer. If a seller is using global shipping program they mean that they want to ship it easily within their own country, but if you want to pay for it, they'll ship it to you as well.

On high dollar or particularly interesting (more rare) items I will do 'normal' international shipping to keep it interesting as long as it's not a restricted export item like krytrons, thyratrons. etc.. But if you want to buy a bar of lead, then ship it internationally, I want nothing to do with that so it'll cost you whatever the simplest method costs.   If it doesn't sell internationally, there's always someone in the US who will buy the item eventually. People buy cool electronic stuff just to put it on shelves and look at it (figure that one out!  )

I sell overseas all of the time, as much as in the UK. if it's a one off larger item I jst put a high shipping cost on the item in case someone tries to be clever and ask that the overseas buyer contacts me to confirm shipping at which point I can quote for the correct country and it will be cheaper than my safety net price

[Bored@Work]

Just don't offer your item to us if you think foreigners don't deserve it. If you think you are clever by letting eBay and Pitney Bowes ripping us off, well you better try to find a local idiot buying from you.

Every day millions of Chinese sellers find their way to their local post office or courier office. So do European sellers and sellers around the world. Hey, even Dave finally found the way to the post office after his adventure with a "professional" mailing house.

The only ones having a severe problem or severe aversions finding their local post office or courier office seem to be US sellers. And since eBay offers them a deal with the global shipping program were only the foreign buyers are ripped off, they happily sign up.

[Simon]

mailing companies would only ever be feasable on large quantities of prearranged items, one offs are going to incur huge costs, that is obvious

[gregariz]

China's cheap shipping prices seem to be a result of gaming the UPU rules .

So China isn't subsidizing international postage. Instead, governments in the 1st world are subsidizing international postage so they can lose more money and create a trade imbalance against themselves?

What does that say about those voters who elected those governments? 1st world voters, 3rd world intelligence,

Nobody is saying anything now but a few years back china post, ebay, and usps came up with the e-packet scheme whereby sellers in China and HK would pay less than a dollar for small packets sent from China to the US.

I think its a fair bet that chinapost and usps are being subsidised (chinapost) or raising domestic charges to pay for it (usps).

The only way to know for sure however is to figure out how many packets at a dime or less that goes to usps are getting loaded onto an aeroplane, and then figure out whether that pays for the fuel/pilot/operational/maintenance cost to run that aircraft. If you could actually show that it doesn't add up then its probably illegal for usps to be passing that cost on to domestic consumers in the US. That would be a nice court case for a consumer/labor group. Why ebay was involved in the deal at all - and who brokered the deal would also be of interest. If it doesn't add up like alot of people suspect it will probably end at some point, particularly since usps are somewhat broke. However that is probably too late for all the US sellers who have gone away because Chine->US post is now cheaper than US domestic post.

Prices in the US for international shipping are high so I suspect that is simply what is driving the lack of interest by US sellers. The only one that is half way sane is the flat rate shipping box service that usps provides. About $16 for a small box and $25 for a slightly larger one. For really small stuff and light goods it is possible to ship it overseas for just under $10 using usps first class mail, but I believe tracking is only to some select countries like canada, aus and uk.

[dannyf]

its a fair bet that chinapost and usps are being subsidised (chinapost) or raising domestic charges to pay for it (usps).

Probably not a very good bet. China Post is hugely profitable - if it were to be IPO'd, it would be one of the largest IPOs ever. I have never heard of them being subsidized, other than here.

The only way to know for sure however is to figure out how many packets at a dime or less that goes to usps are getting loaded onto an aeroplane, and then figure out whether that pays for the fuel/pilot/operational/maintenance cost to run that aircraft.

Postal services are one of those businesses with large fixed cost. So pricing here is on marginal costs - The marginal costs for the items listed above is almost zero.

If you could actually show that it doesn't add up then its probably illegal for usps to be passing that cost on to domestic consumers in the US.

I wonder why no greedy lawyers have take on that case if it were so full of merits.

Why ebay was involved in the deal at all -

for higher volume - ebay is a middle man here. Higher volume means higher fees to ebay.

A win-win deal: USPS gets more volume that helps it incrementally offset its fixed costs; China Post gets more business; US buyers benefit from lower prices and better access to Chinese sellers; Chinese sellers get more business and a larger market.

The only ones getting hurt are US sellers.

From a social welfare point of view, it is a no brainer.

[iloveelectronics]

Nobody is saying anything now but a few years back china post, ebay, and usps came up with the e-packet scheme whereby sellers in China and HK would pay less than a dollar for small packets sent from China to the US.

I'm not sure what the rates were when it first started but now you can't ship anything with tracking for less than a dollar anymore. The lowest rate to ship from China to the US is about $2 for a package up to 60g, through the ePacket system. And it's slightly more expensive from Hong Kong for up to 50g. It is still possible to ship for under a dollar though (for something really light), but only without tracking, which eBay doesn't allow for shipments to the US.

[gregariz]

its a fair bet that chinapost and usps are being subsidised (chinapost) or raising domestic charges to pay for it (usps).

Probably not a very good bet. China Post is hugely profitable - if it were to be IPO'd, it would be one of the largest IPOs ever. I have never heard of them being subsidized, other than here.

How do you know? It's a state owned enterprise run by a communist party with a monopoly in this space.

but a simple google will give some clues...

http://www.postalconsumers.org/postal_freedom_index/China_-_China_Post.shtml
http://thediplomat.com/2013/06/reforming-chinas-state-owned-enterprises/

[iloveelectronics]

Here's some annual reports for Hong Kong Post (completely separate entity from China Post): http://www.hongkongpost.hk/eng/publications/annual/index.htm

They are a government department but are financially independent and are responsible for their own profits/losses. They have stayed profitable up until the 2010/2011 financial year. The deficits in the last 2 financial years prompted them to increase postage fees by roughly 20% towards the end of 2013.

Postage fees in Hong Kong and China are rather comparable so if HK Post can be run as a self sustainable business I don't see why China Post can't.

[gregariz]

The problem is and has been for quite some years that because of the lack of transparency it's very difficult to quantify the way in which subsidies are being applied. For example the simple fact that China is managing it's exchange rate with the rest of the world insures that all exported goods are leaving undervalued. In HK Posts example it would be nice to dig deeper into the numbers and understand how much of their revenue is being generated from export traffic from Shenzeng. If the prices on goods were to rise as they should in a market economy HK post would see traffic drop off and then simply move deeper into the red. On top of that HK has a relatively small area to collect from. Imagine the profit equation for the west of China, which then becomes a similar problem as that of USPS. If HK post is in the red, China post might be drowning in debt.

[Simon]

For people moaning about the chinese undercutting us the fact is that plenty of people don't want to deal with china due to shipping time and risk of dodgy goods or being screwed. That is where I find my niche, I provide a fast service and I respond to messages quickly and offer advice to those who ask and am genuinely helpful. No I probably don't earn a lot if i look at my earnings on time put in but that is the nature of retail and there is more money in doing design work and supplying bespoke units.

The other side of chinese sellers is worse and i have an example. there are lots of goods being sold for the same or little more than if they came straight from china and typically located in china, glasgow or other large towns. They are chinese sellers that are importing stuff over by the container and selling it from here with a man or two on the ground so practically the same costs as sending from china but you get it faster but still they offer crap service.

I bought yesterday a signal generator by mistake as I then found a nice old one with better specs second hand, so i contacted the seller within 1 minute asking him to cancel. I just got a message back with chinese characters in the from address asking what the problem was, so I repeated my request (poor soul probably no speak much english) and immediately get an automated email from ebay saying that it was dispatched which i know is not true. So i messaged him promising him negative feedback, but he won't care, he probably has dozens of accounts on the go moving from one to the other as poor feedback brings each one down. This is a nasty world and the way you get on in business is the old school way, be nice, helpful and honest and you keep your loyal customers

[dannyf]

How do you know?

With better knowledge?

China Post is actually a Fortune 500 company - one of, if not outright the largester employer, in the world. It is in a variety of businesses, aside from postal services. Unlike its peers in the west, it is growing like crazy and tremendously profitable.

It's a state owned enterprise run by a communist party with a monopoly in this space.

If you understood China, you would come to realize that it is probably the most capitalist country in the world right now.

If the prices on goods were to rise as they should in a market economy

Be careful what you wish. If RMB were to materially appreciate, we would have massive inflation overnight. And it impacts the poor particularly hard.

[dannyf]

Be aware... be very aware!

So true.

Our leaders unfortunately are too stupid or too cowardly to lead.

[Simon]

same for the UK they own the major share in our London waterworks because all business cares about is making profits now so will sell themselves to the devil if necessary to get it

[lpc32]

charge  $114.16 (approx. NOK 677.59)  for shipping with International Priority Shipping to Norway!

That's not too bad. The most expensive shipping + taxes I see in the country list is about $270.

They charge the shipping commission even if they don't handle any of the shipping at any point for an item shipped within the US or internationally, that's just insane.

I read somewhere it's because sellers shifted most of their sale value to shipping.

I think its a fair bet that chinapost and usps are being subsidised (chinapost) or raising domestic charges to pay for it (usps).

Cheap shipping from China isn't only to the US.

[Marco]

Well I got my 50 pound boat anchor shipped from the US for 150$,  took longer to get reshipped in the US than it took to my doorstep also the tracking was just stupid. They give you a link to a page and some numbers which looks like they should be part of an URL, but isn't. A small part is the order reference you need on the tracking page and they make you guess what it is, not that it matters because all it said in the end was "Please contact your retailer for more information."

Somehow my single parcel shipment transformed into a two parcel shipment too, they send me some commercial stackable trolley by mistake (didn't realize the second box wasn't for me immediately on delivery). The original vendor is a bit slow in replying to me about it though ... doubt he is eager to waste his time fixing the reshipper fuck up (which has no web presence and no email). In the end the shipping rates were good ... the service to prepay customs is really nice (DHL/etc often try to rip you off with extra handling costs if you pay this at the door) but the tracking is flaky and both ebay and their intermediaries lack any avenues for customer service (ebay has no customer service form for it's own reshipping service).

[miguelvp]

I have had no problems with China Post or HongKong Post. Regular air-mail seems to take about 10 days (8 business days) if on stock.

Some Ebay sellers just take their sweet time to send goods, it's not their postal service at fault. I bought some transistors that took a long time (couple of months) but to me that is the exception.

Their mentality seems to be shifting into efficiency, maybe because of Alibaba (Also I don't think the name is a coincidence for what it denotes).
I wouldn't be too worried, cheap labor is cheap while their employees don't demand raises. Now China has a middle class and they will have more and more demands until they won't be able to undercut everyone else, has happened before many a times!

[lpc32]

I really hate this style of customer support replies. A lot of fakeness, convoluted sentences, and a general sense that the message was written by a semi-automaton that needs to tick multiple checkboxes.

[ErikTheNorwegian]

Yepp- agree..   But the icing of the cake is this..

"I noticed that you have found a lot of what eBay has to offer, with the excellent deals from our Sellers and the diverse inventory we offer. I took the liberty of locating some items that you may be interested in buying. Please Click Here to view these items. "

[SeanB]

I am going to use a reshipper, it likely will work out cheaper, and will make life easier for me as well. Shipping is more than the stuff in most cases, obscenely so. I can wait, as SAPO will take their sweet time in any case.

[dannyf]

My replay is as follows

I don't think ebay's position is unreasonable, unless you can prove that their assertion that they collect on behalf of the customs is untrue. I would imagine that all shippers do that.

[lpc32]

The point is that there's no customs on a $5 DVD with $9 shipping. Maybe there is if eBay's shipping method somehow inflates the price so much that it crosses the customs threshold.

[dannyf]

When you are dealing with a bureaucracy, the fact that you didn't get charged a fee once doesn't mean you wouldn't be charged the same fee next time.

I suspect that being a large corporation, ebay is likely playing by the rules, more so than a mom-and-pop shop.

[Richard Crowley]

Perhaps you get what you pay for.  After buying my (US$20) "NPN PNP Capacitance ESR Inductance Resistor LC Meter" on eBay and using the USPS "Free Shipping", I end up with nothing. USPS claims they delivered the package, but I got nuthin' to show for it.  Now it could have been stolen from my front door before I got home from the office (that has happened before).  Fortunately, I'm only out $20.

I just got notified that I have received my DropCam which I intend to deploy at my front door so I can monitor what is going on there.  Now, I ordered my DropCam from Amazon and used their secure locker service, so I can stop by the 24-hour convenience store on my way home, enter my code and retrieve my package from the locker. No extra cost from Amazon, and actually faster (and clearly more secure) than home-delivery.  Dunno how they are going to deliver to those lockers when they are using R/C drones, through.



By contrast:  I also ordered the milli-ohm meter kit from iloveelectronics (here in this forum), and he shipped it from Hong Kong, and I received it (also via USPS) safe and sound two days later. Of course, the difference is that the "NPN PNP Capacitance ESR Inductance Resistor LC Meter" was likely left on my front door step, and the milli-ohm meter came in a padded envelope which fit into my secure, oversize mail box.

[dannyf]

It probably has more to do with the delivery channel than the seller.