The level of skew that "free trade" has created is pretty insane here in Europe. Shipping to Berlin is cheaper from China than it is from Prague. But that's not all. If I make an electronic device in Prague, and sell it to someone in Berlin, I am legally required to mark it with my address and a CE label. Regulators can then write to me and demand documentation on the devices safety, and if I don't comply within 8 days, I can be forced to pay a large fine and destroy all European inventory. However, the Chinese manufacturer, can and does, put a fake address on the CE label, never has to go to the trouble to document safety, and has no European inventory that could be destroyed in the case that the EU decides the device is unsafe. Its just plain cheaper, and less risky, to develop and produce a device in China and then ship in in small quantities as demand arises.
> As Amazon’s Vice President of Global Policy Paul Misener pointed out:<p>> “The cost to ship a one-pound package from South Carolina to New York City would run nearly $6; from Beijing to NYC: $3.66.”<p>> While sending that same one-pound package from New York City back to Beijing via USPS International Mail would cost in the ballpark of $50.<p>Someone should really do something about this!
This is well-known to anyone who ever looked into AliExpress and other Chinese online stores. Most of the stuff you can buy there has free shipping to pretty much everywhere. The reason why is known too (international postal agreements).<p>What surprises me today is that nothing seems to have changed yet. Last year it was rumoured that the free ride would gradually end starting this year, but so far the Chinese retailers don't seem to be impacted much — shipping costs are effectively zero for customers in Europe and North America.<p>If you are unfamiliar with this weird side-effect of the global economy, it helps explain why brick-and-mortar shops selling cheap Chinese stuff for mere cents can exist with a meaningful profit margin.
Ordinary citizens can't affect this kind of policy. But US and European megacorporations can surely put pressure on governments to reform this rate imbalance, can't they?<p>Can't Amazon, Wal-Mart and Macys counter the influence of Alibaba on the US government? If not, what the heck. Time to emigrate.<p>There's a way to solve this problem.<p>How about adding an inspection at ports of entry for these packages? The inspections would verify sender addresses, consumer safety, and other compliance with receiving-country regulations.<p>It should be possible to get packages through the inspection process reasonably efficiently. If shippers had the expectation that these ePacket items would clear inspection in something like 120 days, that should work.<p>It would serve the needs of customers who really need the cheapest stuff, preserve safety regulation compliance, and give customers an incentive to buy from merchants closer to home.<p>This is slightly tongue-in-cheek, but not really.
While the article is focused on shipping from China to the U.S. via e-packet, it seems China has similar agreements with other countries' postal systems. I live in Thailand and get free shipping from most Chinese merchants selling on Aliexpress. Some of those items can be purchased locally and shipping is not usually free. I've seen comments from people in Australia getting the same thing. Seems like merchants around the world are taking the same beating on shipping costs when competing with China.
This is also a huge problem for the Swiss postal service which has to sort all mail from China by hand. In the next few years the Swiss postal service will start to charge additional fees to the recipients of such packages to cover their losses.<p>I think a very large problem is that the packages are non standardised which prevents them from being sorted by machine easily.
So package from China to USA costs much much less than other way around because of an International treaty. More details on treaty is in this article but I still don't get it why this treaty was made in first place: <a href="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" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/...</a>
"Cross-border e-commerce is currently one of the fastest growing economic sectors on the planet, but it is one that U.S.-based entrepreneurs cannot hope to compete in due to the extreme disparity of shipping rates."<p>But there are other entrepreneurs who are profiting from this disparity too and never mentioned in the article - the dropshippers. People are able to sell stuff easily without having to worry about warehousing, shipping etc
The article mentions E-packet rates apply to packages less than 36" in length and less than 2 kg (4.4 lbs). What are the rates like for packages that exceed these dimensions? Are US-based e-commerce sellers any safer if they sell larger items?
Article quotes a USPS guy saying the total losses on cross-border parcels is $71 million.<p>Compared with the service’s losses of $5 _billion_ this doesn’t strike me as an actual outrage.