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Capitalism: US owners do not want cheap cameras and other goods anymore
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    President Trump plans to withdraw from a 144-year-old postal treaty that has allowed Chinese companies to ship small packages to the United States at a steeply discounted rate, undercutting American competitors and flooding the market with cheap consumer goods.

    May be he want to talk about absolutely nuts USPS international rates that they hiked almost each year.
    Actually logic they used is that "bad international buyers" get all the good stuff.

    The U.S. Postal Service says that it now costs less to ship small packages (4.4 pounds or less) from China to the United States than it would cost to ship them between many domestic destinations.

    And who constantly increased domestic rates? Btw - to kill small competing business in favor to Amazon who does not pay even any taxes and lives on investors money for almost 20 years.

    The withdrawal, announced by the White House on Wednesday, is part of a concerted push by Mr. Trump to counter China’s dominance and punish it for what the administration says is a pattern of unfair trade practices. The White House, in a statement, said “sufficient progress has not been made on reforming terms” of the postal treaty and that it would begin the withdrawal process while seeking to “negotiate bilateral and multilateral agreements that resolve the problems.”

    Only result will be big inflation on consumer goods followed by big hikes of prices by large business who won't have competition anymore.

    Thing we see unwinding now is part of second stage of such "cheap" monopolies as Amazon. Investors want their money back, fast and with good margin.

    While the lower rates were intended to foster development in Asia and Africa, Chinese companies now make up about 60 percent of packages shipped into the country, taking advantage of the lower rates to ship clothing, household gadgets and consumer electronics. Many websites now offer free shipping from China, in part because of the cheap postal rates, administration officials say.

    So, actually it is horrible measure made to close the hole that forms after 25% fees.

    Note that it'll also impact non Chinese rates and goods. This guys won't stop, they have you by the balls.

  • 8 Replies sorted by
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

  • pureaxispureaxis

    i always wondered how all these chinese sellers can make money with free shipping

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @pureaxis

    I'll tell you small secret - parcels shipping is very profitable thing, if you do it proper without lot of horrible management and such.

    Chinese shipping is cheap also for a reason - as their factories mostly are close to sea (less so now, but still), and biggest US cities are close to sea.

    I also do not believe in any "fair trade", as in capitalism is always opposite.

  • jleojleo

    The US Postal Service and eBay also wanted cheap express shipping from China to increase business so they made an agreement with China Post.

    http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y11/m08/i31/s02

    If you are getting free shipping, regular packages from China recently, you will notice they are sent via a third country postal service like Turkey, Laos or Netherlands etc. Looks like they are bulk shipped by rail to these countries and sent out from Turkey etc. to further reduce cost.

    China E-commerce, cutting out the middleman = lower prices

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  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    If you are getting free shipping, regular packages from China recently, you will notice they are sent via a third country postal service like Turkey, Laos or Netherlands etc. Looks like they are bulk shipped by rail to these countries and send out from Turkey etc. to further reduce cost.

    Yet actually it make little sense to move it further back, seems to be related to quotes or such.

    It can be that they try to avoid special aircraft and use countries with good traffic to US to use passenger ones.

  • jleojleo

    Probably the rail cars go back to China with goods from Turkey, Laos and Netherlands. An item I ordered from Shanghai camera accessories store a few months ago came via Vienna, Austria!

  • jleojleo

    Free shipping to US until Jan 2020?

    Washington said that on its departure from the UPU it would introduce its own rates for the handling of international shipments by “no later than January 1, 2020”. The withdrawal process is expected to take a year, it said.

    Zhang Baohui, a professor of political science at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, said that America’s departure from the UPU was part of US President Donald Trump’s strategy for the “all-out containment” of China but its significance, in comparison to the damage caused by US tariffs on Chinese imports, would be limited.

    “This won’t affect China’s e-commerce companies a lot because their principal business is domestic,” he said. “I don’t think it’s that important at all, but it shows that Trump is obsessed with China’s power and will do anything to limit it.”

    https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2169214/china-regrets-americas-departure-universal-postal-union

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @jleo

    It'll affect big amount of individuals and firms. Especially small and medium firms, little manufacturers who rely on direct sales to customers.

    Thing that we see repeat in human history regularly. Free trade and such is just a tool, and as new rival start to rise suddenly it is declared bad thing.

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