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| Why is some ebay shipping so high? |
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| james_s:
In the early 2000's up until about 2010-2012 I used to exchange boxes of various stuff with a friend in England. He'd send me interesting bits from that part of the world and I'd do the same. At one point he even sent over a couple of 3' long SL/I lamps and it was not unreasonably expensive. Then shipping prices started going up, then USPS dropped the surface option causing prices of larger items to rise dramatically. The last time I had to send something business related to him it cost something like $75 for what would have been maybe $25-$30 just a few years before. Shipping from the US has gotten incredibly expensive and there isn't a thing we can reasonably do about it. I kind of dread selling anything at all on ebay anymore. The way fees are calculated makes it risky to sell anything that is expensive to ship but not guaranteed to fetch a price significantly above the shipping cost and the way ebay's buyer protection is heavily stacked against the seller makes it a risky proposition for individuals like myself who are not volume sellers that can write off the occasional loss as a cost of doing business. More often lately I've given something away rather than trying to sell it. |
| jfiresto:
--- Quote from: james_s on February 21, 2020, 12:13:56 am ---... Shipping from the US has gotten incredibly expensive and there isn't a thing we can reasonably do about it.... --- End quote --- On the contrary, all the U.S. citizenry need to do is convince their representatives to direct the post office to reverse the decision of 27 January 2013 and return first class international packages to the "market dominant price list" (what a euphemism). Good grief, that authority is written into the U.S. constitution to address situations like this. Why not use it? |
| LaserSteve:
You ought to see the tiny, incredibly complex form I need to fill out/sign for an outside the US shipment. This form arrived about a decade ago and replaced a very simple form. It must have been designed for pixies, as I cannot write that small with a ballpoint pen. Its designed so several government agencies can see and search your shipping data, that much is for sure. Fedex, Postal, UPS, doesn't matter, similar horrible form. After FEDEX got "burned" by a domestic terrorist type using their services, its a **&^%##&*ing inquisition by a non techie counter person to ship anything, and international is even worse. You might understand that it is now a royal pita to send technology goods outside the country, and the lookup of the data required takes a lot of time, even for a sample packet. So what your seeing is the charges of 1. Greed, 2. Avoidance, 3. Profiteering, 4. Legit sellers using customs brokers /shipping services for shipping ANYTHING . Etc, Really takes the fun out of anything Ebay as a seller, unless you have some form of "trusted shipper" status, etc... I used to be able to go to the local airport, pop something on Delta Air Freight, and get modest size lab gear across the country or to Canada, at say 35$ + 67 cents a pound, no more. A modest security inspection might occur, but it just would be a delay. If I want to do that again, I have to arrange a visit by Homeland to my house and undergo several interviews/background checks. Then pay serious fees for a professional security inspection of the package. Its just NOT worth it. Shipping anything over a few ounces is no longer a service, it is a greedy virtual TAX. This is one of the reasons Amazon has their own aircraft and trucks... RANT over... Steve |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: jfiresto on February 21, 2020, 04:40:03 am --- --- Quote from: james_s on February 21, 2020, 12:13:56 am ---... Shipping from the US has gotten incredibly expensive and there isn't a thing we can reasonably do about it.... --- End quote --- On the contrary, all the U.S. citizenry need to do is convince their representatives to direct the post office to reverse the decision of 27 January 2013 and return first class international packages to the "market dominant price list" (what a euphemism). Good grief, that authority is written into the U.S. constitution to address situations like this. Why not use it? --- End quote --- Oh is that all? Maybe you can tell me how to convince my representatives to change something because I haven't figured it out. I can vote for the lesser of several evils but beyond that they're gonna do what they're gonna do. Between the nightmare that is our healthcare system, various silly wedge issues like guns and abortion and the general polarization of American politics getting someone to fix international shipping prices is one of those "yeah good luck with that" propositions. Unless you are a wealthy corporate entity it's pretty hard to influence such things in a reasonable time frame. I'd be battling against big companies like UPS and FedEx who would rather USPS didn't compete with them on price. |
| jfiresto:
--- Quote from: james_s on February 21, 2020, 05:17:07 pm ---Oh is that all? Maybe you can tell me how to convince my representatives to change something because I haven't figured it out. I can vote for the lesser of several evils but beyond that they're gonna do what they're gonna do.... --- End quote --- Well, the U.S. has done it before. Three generations ago, the moneyed interests had an equally powerful and corrupt stranglehold on American society, and despite that the people prevailed. If you predicted in the 1920s that by 1944 the rich would be paying a 94% marginal tax rate, few if anyone would believe you, or that the rich were glad to only pay that rather than have society confiscate everything, as it was prepared to do and happened elsewhere. The tricky bit is that will take a revolution to roll things back, but at least people know the requirements, and the solutions that used to satisfy them. Many of the solutions have just been weakened or suspended, meaning the revolution is much less than you might suppose. EDIT: Changed "within a few years" to "by 1944". By 1932, the U.S. marginal tax for top earners had been raised to only 63%, an enormous rate during peacetime. |
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