Ever wonder how they can ship packages for free from China?
Don M
Posts: 1,647
I was listening to NPR this morning and they were talking about the UPU. Universal Postal Union. Interesting discussion. I tried to find the archive so I could post a link here but maybe it's too early yet.
Comments
AFAIK the agreement was based on the idea that on average the amount of mail between any two countries was roughly equal, so it made sense for each postal service to reciprocate by delivering incoming mail from the other countries. Good idea when the volumes are roughly equal, not so good when the volumes are orders of magnitude apart. What it means now is that our postal systems are subsidizing shipping from China and a few others.
There's no longer anything "reciprocal" about this deal. It just sucks for Americans!
Ken Gracey
Ken, have you actually seen impacts of the tariffs? I haven't yet. The reason I ask is that there is a lot of talk about the impacts, but some of the supporting data is hard to find. The issues we are facing are due to the global shortages of many SMT parts that are now abundantly used in many more industries, one main one being automotive. I used to have to fight computer and phone manufacturers for parts. Now we are fighting makers of autos, trucks, tractors, refrigerators, etc for things like SRAM, MLCCs, etc. In all honesty, there is good in the tariff/trade wars. Some companies that have been planning to move manufacturing away from China due to rising labor costs have finally stepped up their planning. Several companies have recently announced plans to break ground in countries in Europe and South America to combat the disaster that is known to most as "China".
But I also have to say that my Chinese supplier is excellent. They're attentive to my needs, communicate well, ship on time, and provide good quality product. Even though I have to pay in advance with a bank transfer, I have no reservations buying from them. (My only disagreement with them is their choice of Harmonized Code for export.)
I don't get free shipping, BTW. And FedEx isn't cheap coming from China.
-Phil
The USPS makes up for the loss in other ways, with the current deficit coming from the cost of paying into a pension fund. They actually run more years in deficit than in surplus, and this has been going on for decades, well before Alibaba, eBay, or Erco.
That's absolutely true, I've only returned something to China once, because it was a small, expensive item. Very expensive shipping that way. Funny how that works.
But TTYTT I have been blown away (pleasantly surprised) that the stuff I get from China mostly works as advertised (~99%). The few times something is defective, the sellers happily and quickly offer a refund or replacement. Their service is second only to Team Parallax.
Related, I am moving into an office/studio space and am THRILLED to have a clean start. Things are tidy (for now) and I'm unpacking and organizing all my electronic parts & treasures, which heretofore have been squirreled away in random boxes in closets and the garage. Now I can FIND that part I need, and I can actually see most of the Corvair. No telling what can happen now!
Yeah, I'm digging my new inventor freedom. Had a wild meeting yesterday at the office with a bay area AI startup, talking robots & aggressively targeting CES. Big money. Very exciting stuff.
Good and bad, that's why I'm a bit less active here than previously, too much cool (and proprietary) stuff going on.
Jim
I'm thinking of an add-on consisting of an acetylene torch gauntlet that the cars have to pass through on the way to the finish line.
What do you think? Does it sound like it might have sales potential? I mean, I'm asking the toy maker that went on NATIONAL TV to demonstrate a saw blade shooter!!
(Of course I jest. Everyone here wants the job Erco has.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/us/politics/trump-china-shipping.html
Erco, you better get busy and order a container-load of stuff before it does!
-Phil
OMG, this hoarder better click & order before law & order costs me more-der!
~US$ 12 admin fee + 25% tax on (order + shipping fee). I don't mind the tax (that much), but that admin fee on each package
At least the same rules now apply for every country outside of the EU.
Subsidies this way or that in postal rates is one thing. But a $12 "admin" fee for nothing is disgusting.
Nothing about postal rates yet.
I think it all nuts.
The Raspberry Pi shows that one can manufacture in quality and quantity high tech products in Europe and match the cost of manufacturing in China. If the likes of Apple and such put their minds to it they could do the same in the USA.
Hitting everyone with increased postal costs, tariffs, admin fees, import taxes, etc, etc, only hurts us little citizens.
Grief, it probably costs more to pay the customs guys to administer the fees than the fees they collect. Busy, non-productive work for nothing.
-Phil
WalMart wants their products shipped to America from China at the taxpayers' expense.
Parallax wants the taxpayers to not pay a big corporation's operating expenses, because that "sucks."
How many millions of dollars has Parallax invested in campaign contributions to the congressmen? None!
How many millions of dollars have Parallax lobbyists invested in bribes to the congressmen? None!
Seems pretty obvious who the congressman is going to listen to! You wasted your stamp on that letter (and postage stamps are expensive, at least by my standards).
I remember one congressman (I don't recall his name) infamously stated that big corporations matter, but any company with fewer than 50 employees is a "bottom-feeder" (that was his term, really!).
Parallax has fewer than 50 employees, so this puts Parallax at the low-end of the bottom-feeder category.
On a positive note though, Parallax is infinitely more important than the average taxpayer (me) who works for a wage --- this luckless devil is known as a "customer" --- this is what the bottom-feeders eat.
Forum Rules Reminder:
Let us move on to more interesting things in a different thread. I invite the discussions of programming things that beep and run faster then cats and small children. (The implication is that the cat is smarter then the small child!)