
No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers - nkurz
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/its-official-no-more-cheap-shipping-for-chinese-sellers/493043
======
magduf
This actually sounds like a good thing. It costs Chinese shippers almost
nothing to send stuff directly from China, while it costs me quite a lot to
send stuff within the US, largely because I'm subsidizing all the Chinese
shippers.

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.

~~~
Scoundreller
> 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 $5/kg.

I think what’s really happening is that USPS (and Canada Post!) are using
international shipping as a profit centre because there’s little competition
and they need to subsidize legislated activities (6x/week door-to-door service
for 53c or whatever it is).

~~~
Taniwha
As I understand it (and even though I live in NZ I manufacture in China and
ship all over the world from there) much of the airmail shipping from China is
essentially founded on arbitrage of the empty space in air-mail shipping
containers from Asia to the West - it's while it takes a while and sometimes
your package goes out of Hong Kong, sometimes Singapore etc

In essence those packets are cheap because some smart person is buying up the
empty space in containers that are already going and filling them - I assume
that Air-Mail FROM the US could be equally cheap if someone was
entrepreneurial enough to do the same there

~~~
nickserv
Don't know about air mail, but for maritime and rail transport, there is much
more going from China to the EU or US than in the other direction by volume.

This means cargo carriers have to send back empty containers to China.

As a result, it's cheaper to book a container, from, say, Antwerp to Shanghai
than the reverse. The difference can be quite substantial, potentially
hundreds of USD per container.

For the other parts of the trip I don't have any hard info but I would think
rail and truck is cheaper in China per km when converted to USD.

~~~
DoctorOetker
>Don't know about air mail, but for maritime and rail transport, there is much
more going from China to the EU or US than in the other direction by volume.

Where can I verify this? Thats looking at only the direct transport? Or also
indirect transport?

Consider a hypothetical container from the US/EU going to Africa (bringing
products, second hand goods, "recyclables", ...), then the container could
pick up raw minerals and resources going to China, now theres an empty
container in China and it _has to go back_ to US/EU?

~~~
nickserv
It's because the shipping containers belong to the shipping company, and are
rented out for the trip.

So the shipping company will have a bunch of empty containers at the port of
landing (destination), and needs to send them back to the port of departure to
be filled again.

If trade between the two ports is balanced, then the containers will always be
full regardless of the port of departure.

But since trade is _not_ balanced, they wind up having to send empty
containers on the "return" voyage. Which is pure loss for the shipping
company, so they are willing to heavily discount routes that have empty
containers transiting.

Which are these routes does change of course, but they are often those
originating in the EU / US and arriving in Asia.

~~~
londons_explore
If the containers were the only concern, they could be melted down and shipped
back to China in a far more compact form.

Container manufacturing is very automated, so it can be very cheap to do so.

------
zizee
Lots of speculating why it is cheaper to ship from China than domestically, a
lot of it misguided.

The root cause is that quite a few years ago the consortium of national postal
providers which setup agreements on who pays for which parts of international
shipping decided that China was classed as a developing country and given
subsidized rates by other countries. This wasn't a big deal when the agreement
was made because it was before the days of pervasive online commerce, and
there just wasn't that much sent from China to other countries via the postal
service.

I encourage everyone interested in this to checkout this podcast episode from
NPR's Planet Money:
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/episode-857-the-
postal-illuminati)

> The reason for this price gap, Jayme claims, is a secretive group of postal
> policymakers that meets every four years to fix international shipping
> rates. A kind of postal illuminati.

> Today's episode: A conspiracy theory that's actually real. How the decisions
> made behind closed doors make it cheap to buy things from across the world,
> but are also distorting the global economy.

~~~
craftyguy
They did a really good job explaining the situation in that Planet Money
episode.

------
dev_dull
> _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.

~~~
Scoundreller
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 are now
domestic shipments.

Edit: OR these buyers Shift to Amazon, which can deliver for less than USPS
can via private courier, and pool every more items per delivery.

~~~
0xffff2
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.

~~~
Scoundreller
It’s just not going to be a boon to US drop-shippers, the Chinese ones will
still have a lower cost of operations by dealing direct and almost 100%
Chinese labour costs.

~~~
mistermann
You seem to be completely overlooking the fact that it is way cheaper to ship
an item from China to a specific location in the US, than it is to ship the
same item from within the US.

~~~
Scoundreller
It’ll be good for the USPS (or maybe not if people just order off Amazon and
they deliver), but the benefits to US jobs will be oversold.

~~~
mistermann
I haven't really heard jobs being a part of this discussion at all, the
reasoning _and_ the rhetoric has been about leveling an _clearly_ unfair
playing field.

The USPS will certainly make more revenue, and in turn they should be able to
pass that on by reducing shipping costs for people shipping from within the
US.

For companies drop-shipping _from China_ , regardless of whether the person
running the business is in the US or in China, the impact is the same. But for
US based businesses that inventory items and ship out of the US, this change
would be a big advantage.

~~~
Scoundreller
> The USPS will certainly make more revenue

Maybe. The main benefactor may be Amazon people switch to them. They have the
lowest domestic shipping costs (presumably, since they’ve implemented their
own in-house couriers).

The actual cost of USPS of delivering a package is kinda complicated. If USPS
is going by your house every day, how much do their costs go down if they have
1 less package to drop off?

Dividing total costs by packages delivered doesn’t tell that story.

~~~
mistermann
> Maybe

If prices are raised as significantly as suggested, you think they'll only
_maybe_ make more revenue? If the sales completely stopped, or there was a
mass exodus (eventually) to Amazon there may not be an increase, but this
seems fairly unlikely in the short term.

> If USPS is going by your house every day, how much do their costs go down if
> they have 1 less package to drop off? Dividing total costs by packages
> delivered doesn’t tell that story.

Of course, but we're discussing revenue.

~~~
Scoundreller
Americans should pray that USPS doesn’t only worry about the short term.

~~~
mistermann
Indeed. But that's yet another topic isn't it.

~~~
Scoundreller
Seems related enough.

~~~
mistermann
Let's finish the first topic before moving on.

------
caseysoftware
This is one way to mitigate knock off products from China. If the shipping
costs come up to the norm, they won't always (if ever) be the cheapest product
so the real one will win out more often.

Various products will have different tipping points where it just doesn't make
sense to ship and/or they aren't getting enough sales to justify it.

Personally, I like it and it seems like everyone wins.. except people who
undercut the real product with cheap, inferior knockoffs.

~~~
entropea
Nonsense, not everything from China is a knockoff and there are a lot of
genuine non-copied products. How weird to think their economy is just
"inferior knockoffs".

~~~
wolco
Resources aren't copied and value-added products like steel aren't either
although techiques to produce or grow may be.

Please cite some examples of geniune products. China is known for making
existing products cheaper. The techology area is mostly copy-paste.

~~~
j-c-hewitt
Almost any top brand you can think of manufactures extensively in China.

------
ajnin
Can someone shed light on the subsidy structure behing the current model, are
shipments from China being subsidized by shipments from other countries or is
there government money involved ?

In any case this kind of subsidy is not necessarily bad for developing
countries, and it was probably instrumental in China's phenomenal economic
growth, but it is now in the conquering superpower category, it's time it
loses this advantage.

~~~
beowulfey
It's not really a subsidy so much as an underpayment by the foreign
goverments[1]. There is no tax money involved, and all the subsidizing comes
from the increased revenue from raising domestic shipping costs.

The UPU has been around for decades, but it's only been since 2010 that the
USPS has formalized the process with the "ePacket" shipping.

[1]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/the-
postal-service-is-losing-millions-a-year-to-help-you-buy-cheap-stuff-from-
china/)

~~~
defertoreptar
> There is no tax money involved, and all the subsidizing comes from the
> increased revenue from raising domestic shipping costs.

If the USPS loses money, which it has been every year recently, who pays the
difference?

~~~
beowulfey
We do, the domestic customers of the USPS. But not via tax money; rather via
increased local rates.

------
decoyworker
Good. It should not be cheaper to ship across the Pacific ocean than ship
domestically.

~~~
zip1234
Bad for the environment as well for trans-pacific shipping to be cheaper

~~~
iNate2000
Aren't ocean vessels one of the most efficient forms of transportation in
existence?

~~~
LeifCarrotson
In terms of dollars per unit weight moved, yes. They are not only moving
massive amounts of cargo with low drag, they're also relatively lightweight
compared to the product being moved. Also, there's no maintenance cost to
keeping a flat path across the Pacific like there is in keeping roads free of
potholes.

In terms of environmental damage, not at all. Container ships burn some of the
nastiest, most sulphrous and damaging forms of crude oil in existence, with
little to no emissions controls.

I think rail transport is best, but I could be wrong.

~~~
wbl
Sulfur dioxide emissions at sea are not that damaging compared to in land.
They did make some zero emission cargo ships but it was pretty expensive due
to crew complement for the reactor.

~~~
coolspot
Interesting. There is only one operational cargo ship powered by a nuclear
reactor -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput)

------
mdturnerphys
". . . all USPS international GEPS contracts will be terminated September
31st."

Do courts just do the reasonable thing when contracts stipulate deadlines on
dates that don't exist?

~~~
justinjlynn
Generally, yeah. Of course, your mileage may vary.

------
elamje
For some context as to why this is significant, listen to this great Planet
Money podcast about international shipping rates.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/episode-857-the-
postal-illuminati)

------
jermaustin1
So is drop shipping from China now dead?

A major benefit of drop shipping from China was the pretty much $1 shipping
for almost any item via ePacket.

Obviously the products are still cheaper, but with a 25% tariff on most goods,
and what I can only assume will be a close to DHL price for shipping, a
t-shirt drop shipped from China will probably cost more than one made and
shipped domestically.

To continue to be competitive, drop shippers are going to have to think about
bulk imports and warehousing, thus no longer being drop shippers.

~~~
entropea
>So is drop shipping from China now dead?

Probably. This is going to drop a lot of sellers off of Amazon and eBay, and
likely have major effects on independent small business dollar/99c stores.

~~~
Accujack
Also businesses like Harbor Freight will benefit, because it will be much
harder/more expensive to buy direct. Same thing with the "cheap" brands at
places like Menards.

This will slow the pace of innovation in a lot of areas, especially among
electronics hobbyists. Cheap chinese circuit boards from Shenzen are a major
driver for electronics related businesses, robotics, drones, and lots of other
areas.

This is going to hurt a lot of people in the US, and put more money in the
hands of big business like most other initiatives coming out of the government
lately.

All this isn't talking about the elephant in the room, which is the fact that
this agreement is changing because our delusional President doesn't like non
whites.

~~~
Kadin
There are lots of companies that buy in bulk from China and have US
distribution. They will still be around for your Shenzen electronics needs.

I have very little sympathy for people who were depending on what was
essentially taxpayer-subsidized shipping from China. If you can't do what
you're trying to do without that subsidy, you probably shouldn't be doing it.
I'm certainly not interested in having the USPS lose money so someone can save
a few bucks on a servo or flight controller vs. buying it from a legitimate
retailer like Adafruit or Hobbyking (which has US warehouses in addition to
its HK ones; I expect they'll need to expand the domestic ones now).

The end-user cost of a good needs to encompass the price of manufacturing it
and transporting it, inclusive of as many externalities as we can. Too many
problems in the world are caused by artificially cheap goods that don't
capture their full cost.

Keeping stuff cheap for the purpose of having cheap stuff is not a noble goal.

~~~
Accujack
Having worked at the USPS, I can say definitively it will lose money anyway,
and it is not taxpayer supported except by special request (USPS can ask
congress for funding for special needs, which they can deny)

So, despite all the people complaining here about "muh dollars subsidizing",
that isn't correct. See the USPS FAQ for more info.

The UPU situation was not great, but it has a limited impact on taxpayers.

------
jonknee
In addition to Amazon 3rd party sellers, this seems like bad news for Shopify.
They host a _lot_ of Chinese drop ship stores that work because of these
artificially low rates.

------
jrockway
The impression I get from that thread is that the dream here is now Americans
can do what they do best, sit in the middle of transactions and collect rent.
Previously, you could go to a Chinese website and have the Chinese factory
send you a widget directly to your door. Now that will be too expensive, but
hey we have a solution! An American will order a bunch of widgets in bulk,
ship them over in a cargo ship, come up with some fancy marketing, and then
sell the widgets to you at 200% markup. You know these folks will never hire
electrical engineers to certify safety and conformance, or work with the
factory to improve the product in response to customer feedback. They're there
to do one thing: sit in the middle of the transaction and charge Chinese
manufacturers for the privilege of selling to Americans.

But hey, look on the bright side... at least there is someone you can sue when
your widget blows up.

~~~
delfinom
Pretty much. I absolutely fucking hate Amazon now. It's full of white label
products. You can tell the seller does no real safety testing of any kind from
their broad array of random shit. You can't even trust the kitchen equipment
for chance they made the steel with lead or the silicone is mixed with
something toxic, etc. Completely unregulated market place of stupid. And this
is on top of Amazon's counterfeit problems they half ass enforcement. I'm
surprised nobody has died yet from counterfeit or substandard automotive goods
of all things.

~~~
burnte
> 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.

~~~
jrockway
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 it into some
recycled Tide bottles, and ship them off to Amazon's warehouse as "Tide brand
laundry detergent". Now you are selling them to customers seeking a genuine
product, but they're not getting the real thing.

White-labelling is a perfectly legitimate thing. Counterfeiting is a crime.

To be extra clear, your "I look at things on Amazon before I buy them"
technique is exactly the sort of procedure that won't protect you from
counterfeiting. The counterfeiters already fooled Amazon. Amazon thinks
they're selling you genuine merchandise. But they're not. That's what upsets
people.

~~~
SmartJerry
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.

------
axaxs
I don't know why USPS doesn't just raise its rates across the board. I
understand why, 50, 20, or even perhaps 15 years ago, it was important to keep
mail ultra cheap. But today, I'd argue >95% of mail comes from businesses, and
most of that are ads in some form or another. It's ridiculous to me that I can
send a piece of mail to the other side of the USA in 2 days for less than
$0.50. I don't want prices to go up, of course, but at the same time, I have
trouble listening to the woe-is-me attitude of the USPS, while their pricing
scheme makes no sense at all.

~~~
pawelk
> I'd argue >95% of mail comes from businesses, and most of that are ads in
> some form or another. It's ridiculous to me that I can send a piece of mail
> to the other side of the USA in 2 days for less than $0.50

Don't you think these two facts are somehow related? They have to go by your
house every day anyway, carrying paid junk mail, and the marginal cost of
delivering an actual letter is quite low. Maybe a bit analogous to
newspapers/magazines, where the price you pay may not even cover the printing
costs, but the difference is subsidized by the advertisers.

------
holoduke
I ordered more than 1000 parcels from AliExpress, banggoods, gearbest and
hobbyking. Never ever I had to pay import duty costs (Netherlands) and in most
cases shipment was either free or a redicilous low amount. If everyone would
be like me, no store would exist anymore here in Holland. Even though I am a
bit of a hypocrite, I do think it's fair to make the market a bit more fair.

~~~
euph0ria
Just curious, what type of stuff do you buy? I find that the quality often is
poor when buying from Aliexpress with artificial ratings boosted by the seller
doing anything to get a high review. Banggood has been better with more
accurate ratings.

~~~
tverbeure
Not OP, but I've used AliExpress to stock my home electronics lab with
resistors, LEDs, Blue Pill microcontroller boards, connectors, etc.

All dirt cheap, often in individual parcels, shipping cost close to zero.

~~~
holoduke
yes same here. Connectors, crimping tools, wire, electronic components, props,
electric motors, control boards, radio sender/receivers, antennas, batteries,
tools etc. You need to find your way. The stores have a lot of crap, but once
you get a grasp of everything you find out that there is actually quite decent
quality stuff out there.

------
mensetmanusman
Some of my friends in NYC were ordering single screws for various electronic
devices for < $.20 that were shipped from China with no shipping.

I always found that funny...

------
toddmorey
Here's a good article on this shipping quirk:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/the-
postal-service-is-losing-millions-a-year-to-help-you-buy-cheap-stuff-from-
china/)

I think it's good for the US economy as well as the environment. It makes no
sense for something to ship further to bring shipping costs down.

------
wnkrshm
So what does that mean for US companies sending packages into countries that
are part of the UPU (Edit: virtually all countries on Earth)? Can each country
now refuseand set their own rates for transporting US parcels the last mile?

~~~
ComputerGuru
Probably, since everything is bilateral in agreements and negotiations. The
point isn’t to minimize costs but to even out the playing field. US companies
drop-shipping overseas will likely pay more, but that’s a consequence deemed
overall worth it for the US local economy and market.

~~~
jopsen
Isn't the US already disadvantaged here...

Last I ordered in the US (to Denmark) I paid 30USD flat fee for custom
processing... On top of shipping and customs. (On an item worth 20 USD)

------
iNate2000
Anybody else notice that they said "September 31st"?

~~~
jessaustin
This is fine for an end date. Any duration should be specified as half-open,
_t₀ <= t < t₁_. This way it's clear that September, even its last day, is in
the period and October is not.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Yes, but try codifying that and you won’t get far enough to make that
comparison. E.g. mentally or on a computer, ‘Date.Parse(“2019-09-31”)’ is an
error ;)

~~~
freehunter
Any properly defined software should take a date that doesn't exist and move
it forward or backward to a date that does. Leap years would crash every
computer every February if that wasn't taken into account.

~~~
StyloW
Except that the whole February/leap year case is part of the Gregorian
calendar. Moving the date forward or backward to a date that does exist is not
a set rule and would only cause unnecessary confusion for a user or other
developer for that matter; even worse if you were to do it without notifying
the user. Wouldn't you agree that it'd just be better to catch the error and
tell the user they "done messed up"?

------
dubliner2077
I think it's fine for the environment to be honest. Sending 1$ sort of thing
free shipping overseas does not sound right.

------
epx
In Brazil, the local mail charges R$ 15 (~US$ 4) to deliver international
packages from "certain countries" i.e. China. The result is, ultra-cheap
freight has almost disappeared, most sites like AliExpress now charge around
US$ 4, but the class of this kind of package is not charged again here, so it
is still kind of cheap.

OTOH mail from USA is damn expensive. I don't buy more things from USA because
of this. And local customs tend to target USA packages more so the chance of
paying import tax is way higher, too. Even packages from Europe and Japan are
cheaper, and one can see they are more distant places.

------
mmsimanga
South African experience. I buy a fair number of items on Aliexpress. Stuff
you can never get in any store here. I use the Post Office to ship because
courier is just too expensive. It takes 40 to 60 days to arrive. The hold up
appears to be the SA Post Office. Since a few months ago the Post Office now
charges approximately US$2 processing fee for each package. Its a fair charge
I guess but there hasn't been any improvement in delivery times. Sometimes
stuff arrives after so long that I have forgotten why I ordered it.

------
nkurz
Here's a good background article, but I worried it was too political to submit
directly:

"On October 17, 2018, President Trump announced that the United States will
withdraw from the Universal Postal Union (UPU), an intergovernmental
organization that sets the rules and rates for international mail delivery.
The decision to withdraw has been widely seen as another salvo in the Trump
administration’s campaign against what it deems as unfair trade practices
benefitting China. This post explains what the UPU is, why the Trump
administration is withdrawing from it, the legality of withdrawal, how this
decision is related to the trade war with China, and what could happen next."

[https://www.lawfareblog.com/withdrawal-universal-postal-
unio...](https://www.lawfareblog.com/withdrawal-universal-postal-union-guide-
perplexed)

~~~
towelrod
That post, like everything else I can find about this news, is a year old. Did
this really happen?

~~~
nkurz
I think the summary is that it hasn't happened yet, but it's proceeding on
schedule to happen at the end of September 2019.

------
DoctorOetker
>The administration has given the UPU an ultimatum, that they: either allow
the USPS to set rates _for China mail_ that arrives in the U.S., or the U.S.
will officially leave the UPU on October 17th.

(Emphasis mine)

why "for China mail" ?

why not "no exceptions: all over the planet everybody pays the same local
rates, or else we leave the UPU" ?

This smells like hidden import taxation, but I hope I am wrong. But then why
insist on phrasing the ultimatum with referene to "for China mail"
specifically ?

EDIT: adding another gem:

>Global Supply Chain News: After Three Years of Secrecy, Amazon Starting to
Ramp Up Global Logistics Services

>they are actively looking to compete in the shipping industry

...

>The project’s name: Dragon Boat.

>As part of that strategy, Bloomberg reported Amazon had plans to take on
freight forwarding and brokerage services directly, eliminating a set of
middlemen.

>...

>Among the most important ramifications from Amazon’s vision: small Chinese
manufacturer will be able sell to American consumers with no one else than
Amazon between them.

So if an American company (in this case Amazon), will perform transport within
China, does that mean that reciprocally, Chinese companies can also become a
mail service in the US? They could be paid a low wage, and eat cheap food that
is shipped internally. Is this really about balancing trade or about big
corporations doing to mail, what they did with manufacture: export jobs to
China for increased profit?

------
hnick
This is an issue in Australia too, and since we are usually followers and not
leaders for these kinds of issues it might mean a change is on the cards for
us too. Is there an easy way to find out? My hope is that the USPS leaving the
Union is enough of a threat to shake up the rules for all countries.

------
toomuchtodo
Great planet money episode on the topic:

[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/episode-857-the-
postal-illuminati)

~~~
ikeboy
>FOUNTAIN: Anna sent us a chart that estimates how much less. And it says, if
you or I wanted to send a three-quarter-pound package somewhere in the U.S.,
the U.S. Postal Service would charge around $4.76 for the last leg of the
journey.

>MALONE: Yeah, the so-called final mile. However, if that same package came in
from China, the USPS would only charge China Post $1.39. That means the USPS
charges you and me roughly 3 1/2 times more than what they charge China Post.

Comparisons like this are very misleading. 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.

It's true in general that UPU rates are cheaper than the comparable US rates
but by 10-20%, not a factor of 3.5.

~~~
ComputerGuru
UPU rates do include tracking. All ePacket deliveries from China include last
mile (port-to-door) tracking.

~~~
ikeboy
UPU and ePacket are two different programs. ePacket is more expensive,
includes tracking, and is profitable for USPS.

------
chromaton
I just got an email from eBay Main Street, which is eBay's mailing list for
political issues which affect their sellers.

This email is tells me to call congress to NOT withdraw from the Universal
Postal Union, under the logic that it will make it harder to ship stuff from
the US to other countries.

~~~
yumraj
Of course this is bad for eBay, and perhaps etsy, shopify and others. The
flood of direct-from-China sellers selling cheap products and shipping for
free (on USPS's dime) will stop.

~~~
busterarm
Definitely bad for eBay and etsy. They're absolutely dependent on the flood of
cheap goods.

Honestly this is disastrous for etsy, but maybe it'll help them get back to
their roots and be useful again.

~~~
rc_kas
This sounds like a win for America.

------
chiefalchemist
Two questions:

1) What are the possible unintended consequences? This is fairly drastic.
Certainly, something(s) unforeseen are going to happen.

2) What are the new opportunities? For example, importing in bulk and shipping
from here (as opposed to individual orders shipped from China).

------
williamDafoe
Warehousing won't solve the greed problem at USPS. The $5 poll tax on all
shipments is just insanity. Stamping "priority mail" on 1st class packages and
using red, white, and blue boxes doesn't justify their greed and incompetence,
no matter what the USPS execs think ....

I foresee that withing 6 months China will have 100M square feet of
dropshipping warehouse space in Vietnam. This is another in a line of Trump
"look busy, change nothing" initiatives, the only difference this time (vs the
border do nothing initiatives) is that this time the problem is real, unlike
the non crisis at the border where immigration is near a multi decade low!

~~~
mistermann
> "look busy, change nothing" initiatives

Why would China create more warehouse space in Vietnam, or so many people
spend time writing about this topic, if nothing is changing?

Have I taken your comment literally when it was intended to be metaphorical?
If so, could you more clearly clarify the specific idea you are intending to
transmit?

------
Bendingo
And yet another international agreement unilaterally exited by the US.

These agreements (eg INF ABM) are extremely difficult to create, but easily
trashed by a single recalcitrant.

It seems like the whole international order is breaking down.

------
Scoundreller
Would any other Americans prefer to have just 3x/week delivery and still have
cheap shipping internationally?

This seems to be more about propping up the USPS’ inefficiencies at the cost
of higher prices for consumers.

~~~
sudosteph
Not me.

I had a neighbor for while who worked full-time for USPS. Postal workers
provide reliable service, and are able to earn a livable wage without driving
themselves into the ground like the contractor delivery services. I like that
USPS is a piece of the American infrastructure fabric, and I like that it
employs local people in a sustainable way.

I do not consume nearly enough things that require international shipping to
value cheap shipping more. And even if I did, the ethical implications
involved with destroying decent jobs for Americans and losing a piece of our
national delivery network would stil not make it worthwhile sacrifice in my
book.

~~~
Scoundreller
It’s great that the USPS employs people that way.

The real question is why are others allowed to do any differently.

Buyers voting with their feet will only go so far.

------
genghisjahn
If it goes into effect September 31st then it’s never going into effect.

------
figgyc
Really what needs to happen is that the UPU in general needs to be redefined.
The Chinese sellers can still access Europe, Canada, and basically anywhere
else, which isn't going to stop especially since most countries are not as
aggressive as the US when it comes to China trade. Hopefully the reduction in
sales due to the US leaving the UPU kills off a bunch of the Chinese
businesses but it is definitely still going to be a problem elsewhere.

~~~
rossdavidh
While I would be happy to see a more equitable and sustainable distribution of
jobs and industries between the U.S. and China, the phrase "Hopefully...kills
off a bunch of the Chinese businesses" uses language which is a bit off-
putting. If those businesses changed their business model to sell more to
Chinese consumers, or utilized U.S. distributors more, that would be good.

I realize that you were not actually suggesting that anybody should get
killed, just pointing out how it sounded from my perspective, a little off-
putting.

------
entropea
Will this even matter when Chinese Alibaba/Aliexpress sellers recently started
sending their items to Singapore to avoid tariffs and shipping restrictions?

~~~
ComputerGuru
It’s neither a tariff nor a shipping restriction. The UPU affects all
international shipping, so Singapore or China is all the same.

------
Zigurd
Having bought a couple drop-shipped goods from China, I, for one, won't miss
it. The most noticeable effect I have seen is scammy listings on eBay and
Amazon, unresponsive sellers, and unreliable delivery time.

I have not seen any arguments of the form "but the price of X will go way up."

~~~
entropea
>Having bought a couple drop-shipped goods from China, I, for one, won't miss
it.

I will, China makes good stuff depending on if you do your research to what's
quality and is just a cheap piece of crap.

~~~
ryandrake
I’ve had great success getting all sorts of stuff delivered straight from
China (usually sold through eBay). As long as you don’t need it next week (or
sometimes next month), you can save a ton. Compared to domestic sellers who
want to gouge me $7.99 to ship a 5 square inch bag of diodes 50 miles.

------
Excel_Wizard
I am still able to go on ebay and buy small items (usb cables, camera lens
caps, plastic pry tools, etc) shipped from china for $0.80. Is this going to
change?

What about the same situation for items shipped from Thialand or Vietnam?
There's quite a few of those available as well.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Yes and yes. I don’t see any other outcomes.

------
mielecmichal
The problem here is an organization which has a right of regulating the market
by setting artificial rates. The shipping price should depend only on private
companies their pricing policies.

Bad thing is that people blame China instead of the United Nation bureaucracy.
:(

------
dcchambers
Will be interesting to see the effects of this. Especially Shopify drop-
shipping stores and Etsy stores full of cheap garbage. Hopefully it helps
clean up some of the noise...I don't think those stores were adding much value
anyway.

------
rc_kas
Yeah this is the one (and only) thing Trump did right. I can't believe we let
China get cheap shipping for so long on our dime.

------
standardcitizen
Do we have a link besides a random post from some dude we all don’t know?

------
cr0sh
I'm wondering how this is going to effect the hobbyist and small business
electronics markets here in the United States?

Know how cheap and easy it is to get a small number PCBs made in China and
shipped to the US? That's over.

So is any number of small electronic parts that would've been shipped free or
cheaply from China. Cheap ESP8266 boards? Nope. Cheap automotive relays? Nope.
Basically any and every kind of piece of electronics components, modules, etc
you can think of will jump in price drastically.

Even if it doesn't need to - it will (like I've seen on the tariffs, prices
jumped for small amounts of electronic components just because, even if they
were being shipped directly to the end-user consumer - when that's not a part
of the tariffs - direct to consumer sales shouldn't be affected, but because
the vendors could do it, they did it anyhow - just to make some extra cash).

So where are hobbyists and others supposed to get these parts now?

Digikey and Mouser for some of it. Surplus for others. But for boards and
modules and such - well, there's just Sparkfun and Adafruit - maybe a couple
of others (not sure?).

But they are likely to raise their prices too, because they depend on the
components (resistors, diodes, mosfets, chips, aka the "raw materials") to
make their boards (Sparkfun makes them in-house - or at least some of them -
but I don't know what Adafruit does).

Or we'll have to pay the extra shipping fees and other costs (because the
chinese sellers will just add on some extra cost - just to grab it - it's
inevitable).

This will have a ripple effect; small entrepreneurs and startups - kickstarter
startups especially - won't be able to compete, unless they base themselves in
Shenzhen - because where are they going to get the components cheaper than a
competitor who is already there? They aren't made in America any longer (and
they never will be again - get that fantasy out of your head if you think
that's going to happen).

Radio Row is gone. The original "silicon valley" is gone. Heck, there used to
be a ton of computer (mini) manufacturers and businesses here in Phoenix -
they are virtually gone, too.

And now with this change - however you feel about it - is going to hobble the
next up-and-comers, and current suppliers. At least, that's how I am seeing
it.

Now I'll admit - it wasn't fair for competition here - but it wasn't as if
China was doing something wrong, as far as I understand it. They were playing
by the rules set forth by an international body. Maybe it wasn't fair to us.
But instead of letting this kind of thing go on for 1-2 decades, it should
have been fixed back then. Now it is likely to destroy or severely change at
least one or more areas of enthusiast and hobbyist things (think also RC,
drones, etc), as well as probably a ton of other non-electronic things. Do we
really think there are that many suppliers here in the US that will charge low
prices (competitive with Chinese suppliers) and have fair shipping rates to
boot?

The fact is, it will likely still be cheaper to ship it from China, even with
the extra cost on shipping - since you're going to be paying that anyhow. For
instance - my goto - 12V DC gearmotors. I can buy one kind from a supplier of
Ametek (maybe Mouser or Digikey); I will pay whatever the high cost of
shipping such an item to my door in addition to the price. Have you ever
priced those motors in small quantities?

When you can get them...I've seen prices 10-20x over the equivalent motor from
a supplier in China. What would cost $15.00 in China for a single motor, can
be up to $100.00 or more from a US manufacturer for the same specs. Let's say
it cost $10.00 to ship to my door, whether from China or the US, and let's say
the Chinese supplier adds on an extra $5.00 "just because fee" \- well, which
is cheaper? $110.00 dollars for the US motor, or $30.00 for the Chinese motor?

It's all a farce in my opinion - this administration essentially raising
prices, which is going to be passed on to the consumer ultimately, trying to
gain support from US small businesses (that's the political angle), at the
expense of the rest of consumers, and is selling it with some kind of idea or
expectation that this is somehow going to lead to the United States becoming a
large scale manufacturer of "everything" that we get from China now. Of course
what isn't said is that, even if that fantasy somehow did become true - those
items manufactured here would still cost a hell of a lot more to make, and
they would be virtually unsaleable on the international market because of that
(let's ignore the fact that we'll be lucky if other countries ever buy from us
again).

I see a very, very bleak future ahead for this country - no matter what
happens with this current administration or the next. Maybe that was always
going to be the case. The problem is, prior to this admin, that date was
likely out a few decades - now those decades have been erased, and that future
is happening now (and it is worse than it would have been had it happened
"naturally" I think).

I say if you are an American and are under 30 years of age, and you have any
marketable skills at all, you might want to think long and hard about
emigrating. Dead serious on this.

~~~
jacob019
Buy an ESP8266 board from me for $1.85 shipped domestically via First Class
mail:
[https://www.ebay.com/itm/113772095761](https://www.ebay.com/itm/113772095761)

~~~
noonespecial
Not to pry, but how can you do that?

The cheapest way I can find to send _any_ package to an address even across
the street is $2.66.

Do you just stick a stamp on it and mail it like a letter?

Will you still be able to get your ESP's cheap enough after the shipping
change?

~~~
jacob019
Non-machinable letters with the automation discount cost $0.65. Protective
mailers add $0.30. No tracking though. I import by FedEx and ocean freight.
This change won't affect me directly but the tariffs are killing me.

------
dmix
I almost never order stuff from China here in Canada because its very
expensive to ship anything and inconsistently takes forever or semi-forever.

I was wondering how Wish.com made money...

~~~
notatoad
This is not a us-specific situation, e-packet deliveries ship to Canada too. I
get plenty of stuff from AliExpress with free shipping

~~~
kennywinker
living in canada, I genuinely hope we follow suit and increase the cost of
shipping from china to canada. It's encouraging incredibly wasteful buying
patterns, and sets up a system canadian companies can NEVER compete with.

------
Marazan
It has always struck me as mad that I can order an individual widget from
China for less than it would cost for the postage of that widget in my own
country.

------
ourmandave
Aw, now I have to buy everything off AliExpress.com for a fraction of the
price and free shipping.

Just hope I can remember ordering it when it arrives 30+ days from now.

------
blairanderson
This genuinely won't change anything on Amazon because top sellers are already
using FBA.

This is bad news for Ebay/Wish/some-shopify-dropshippers.

~~~
heymijo
I thought/wondered the same regarding wish.com. Although this 2019 Forbes
article makes it sound like it's not a death knell.

> _Shipping is cheap thanks in part to an agreement between China Post and the
> U.S. Postal Service that allows goods that weigh 4.4 pounds or less to be
> shipped at low rates. About 15% of Wish’s shipments qualify._

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2019/03/13/meet-
the-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2019/03/13/meet-the-
billionaire-who-defied-amazon-and-built-wish-the-worlds-most-downloaded-e-
commerce-app/#6095147170f5)

------
zxcvbn4038
It is still going to be cheaper to order directly from China then to pay
someone in the US to order it, repackage it, and mail it to me. (Or even to be
lazy and order it on my behalf from China, but US companies will repack it so
you don't find out their sources). The US just doesn't have the manufacturing
capabilities anymore, and even if the US wanted to have its own manufacturing
capability people are not going to work China wages, they are going to demand
US wages. So again China will end up being cheaper.

------
killface
I guess this is good, but all it means for us is higher prices. Shipping
wasn't the thing killing these "small businesses".

------
firecall
Not sure how it works in Australia - but I see Chinese and HK sellers doing
super cheap shipping. less than domestic seems to be able to.

------
sorryitstrue
Now canada can become the shipping hub for epackets and it can be forwarded to
US addresses from there. Good opportunity for someone.

~~~
kennywinker
shipping from canada to the usa is fairly expensive and slow (customs delays
are fairly common). better to ship to a depo in the usa and mail out from
there to individual buyers.

------
Animats
Oh, Universal Postal Union "terminal dues." Those were scheduled to go up in
2021 anyway. China is still getting the "underdeveloped country" rate, because
the last 10 year rate setting was in 2011.[1]

[1] [http://www.upu.int/en/activities/terminal-dues-and-
transit-c...](http://www.upu.int/en/activities/terminal-dues-and-transit-
charges/about-terminal-dues-and-transit-charges.html)

------
micimize
I get how this subsidy came to be in the first place, but am surprised that I
hadn't heard anything about it prior to this

------
homerhomer
Always amazed me when buying something of Amazon and it's shipped from China
cheaper that if shipped domestically.

------
rurban
Only in the US. In Europe Aliexpress still rules. No shipping costs from China
at all, and much cheaper product costs.

------
p1mrx
I buy $1-$5 items from China somewhat regularly. What are they likely to cost
next year?

------
bertjk
Related to the website if not the article, but I wish this website did not
hijack ctrl-f.

------
buboard
This is good for the environment

------
scarejunba
So what we should expect is internal shipping costs to go down as a result of
this?

------
mikestew
If the Trump administration had just opened with this, I think we might have
saved ourselves a lot of stock market turbulence with tariff pissing contests.
U. S. sellers start in the hole by the fact that they can't even compete on
shipping prices with Chinese companies. It reminds me of the Shell gas station
owner I worked for many decades ago who complained that the local drugstore
could _sell_ quarts of oil cheaper than Shell sold it to him, a Shell station
owner. Now how are you supposed to succeed with a rigged system like that?

Let's see how it goes when the price of shipping actually reflects the fact
that the $1.50 piece of molded plastic had to take a boat ride half way around
the world.

~~~
ehnto
Tangentially related, but I was surprised at how blatant a lot of supplier
price fixing is. Either you sell at the supplier agreed price or they don't
supply you. This keeps prices up for the sellers, which presumably is good for
the supplier as well. That's in the more open market of independent
businesses.

In your example, the drugstore may be selling at cost or at a loss to bring
people in the door, or he may actually have a cheaper supplier. But for the
Shell Station franchisee, he likely has a contract to buy Shell products from
a particular distributor, so even if he could find a lower priced distributor
he is unable to use it. That's all part of the franchise business model, where
the franchiser double dips by taking licence fees and contractually obliges
you to use their services as well. Subway charges high margins for their
mandatory dishwashing soap supply for one example.

------
tyingq
Ouch for AliExpress.

~~~
jayess
This will probably drive Wish out of business.

------
utf985
Does this affect me somehow as a consumer in the EU?

------
yumraj
Excellent!!

This may have a highly desirable side effect of cleaning a lot of junk/fake
products on Amazon.

This will also impact Etsy, and perhaps Shopify and eBay.

------
hart_russell
Glad we're finally waking up to the realization we were siphoning off GDP to a
nation that doesn't align with our values.

------
oferzelig
But only for US customers.

------
kinnth
"All US and Canadian shipping is crazy expensive" \- A Typical Brit

------
einpoklum
This change seems to only affect the US, apparently.

------
aantix
What would be the concession from the Chinese?

Or do they up the ante and impose more tariffs on incoming U.S. goods?

Is this something that the Hacker News community actually supports Trump on?
More curious than anything - you just don't see a lot of support for any of
his initiatives here.

? Why all the downvotes?

~~~
orthecreedence
I support this, and I'm a rabid leftist. Things should cost what they cost.
The only time government should interfere with pricing is to force companies
to price in externalities.

~~~
daveslash
_" I'm a rabid leftist"_. I appreciate your candor, but if you think _" things
should cost what they cost"_, then you're not nearly as rabid as many of the
rabid leftists that I've encountered.

~~~
scoobyyabbadoo
I think what is left and right have been evolving since the 60s. Leftism is
being fought over now between anarcho-capitalists vs labor while the right is
being fought over between big business vs nationalists.

~~~
kazinator
What is left and right has been misunderstood in evolving ways since the 60's
anti-intellectualism set in.

------
boyadjian
I am a very good client of Amazon. Love this company, what a terrific
invention.

------
resters
Not sure why everyone thinks this is a good thing. If the Chinese government
wants to subsidize shipping so that US consumers can buy products for less
money, what is the harm?

The reason postage is expensive in the US is because there is a legal monopoly
on first class mail, and very little competition for premium services (which
is why Amazon decided that launching its own shipping carrier would be highly
profitable).

So the blame for high US shipping prices rests with the US government,
certainly not with anything China is doing!

~~~
beowulfey
The Chinese government was not the one subsidizing it. The original UPU treaty
[1] stated that countries would pay a flat rate when shipping to another
country. This was original passed several decades ago. The USPS only was
getting paid $1.50 per package to forward on any parcel that arrived for a USA
destination from China. Since no USA tax money was involved, the "subsidizing"
gets passed onto domestic shipping in the form of increased fares to help
cover the loss in revenue.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union)

