I recently received a couple of shipments from China which used the new China/Canada Co UBI Smart Parcel, previously these have typically taken several weeks/months to arrive using Hong Kong post etc.
They arrived in about 10days.
The shipment is handed over to Canada Post and they arrived with a Canada post label on the parcel, you can also trace the shipment all the way.
It may be worth asking other suppliers to ship this way, in the above purchases, they were quoted with the customary no charge shipping.
They cover most countries now.
Max.

 

I buy lots of stuff off ebay – much of which comes from China/Hong Kong.

My understanding is that the sellers do not pay postage – it being to promote their economy.
Some items I buy would cost more than I pay (in total) in postage alone, from within the UK.

Within the UK, providing that the total cost of the goods (including any postage costs) is less than £18 then they are exempt from import duty/tax.

However a number of these ebay sellers actually hold stock in the UK and ship locally – I’ve received goods supposedly shipped from the Far East within a few days of order.

It might be that the Chinese sellers are now holding stock in Canada.

They can then undercut local suppliers, paying no tax (VAT) – but quite how they get the shipments of bulk goods in the country without alerting customs is another matter.

 

My understanding is that the sellers do not pay postage – it being to promote their economy.

Yes I realize that, but if they have warehousing in Canada that they could ship from they would ship Canada post direct with no need for International UBI Smart Parcel?
http://www.ubismartparcel.com/en/china-–-canada-service
Max.

 

I buy lots of stuff off ebay – much of which comes from China/Hong Kong.

My understanding is that the sellers do not pay postage – it being to promote their economy.
Some items I buy would cost more than I pay (in total) in postage alone, from within the UK.

Within the UK, providing that the total cost of the goods (including any postage costs) is less than £18 then they are exempt from import duty/tax.

However a number of these ebay sellers actually hold stock in the UK and ship locally – I’ve received goods supposedly shipped from the Far East within a few days of order.

It might be that the Chinese sellers are now holding stock in Canada.

They can then undercut local suppliers, paying no tax (VAT) – but quite how they get the shipments of bulk goods in the country without alerting customs is another matter.

It is completely wrong. There is no free shipping provided by chinese gov, and their postal prices retail are similar to ours.

What they do is the following

A management company will recruit poor office ladies, and use stock photos to spawn an online avenue.
The OL only receives order numbers and often they dont see or handle or know the goods.
They cant answer off the script questions.
If they are paid and how much is uncertain.
They typically are connected to several online avenues.

Then they subvention small orders, means they pay on top of it.

The plan is to control the market, and prevent sales by others.

There is also products, disregard shipping, they are sold at or below costs.
The idea is buyers see them, and place more things in the basket.

They only make some money on the large orders, on the small orders, they pay on top of it.

We also have bulk shipping here in our countries, it is different than retail postage of course.

The cheapest international flat letter costs about a pound GBP at low weight.

But imagine they sell for $1 free shipping, paypal takes a base charge, then the fees.
It leaves a little more than 50 cent.

Pretty clear the OL is not paid at all for this, or it is subventioned.

Imagine you hire someone to deal with an order for only 5 minutes and how much it costs.

Then the item and shipping cost.

It doesnt add up at all.

The plan is others would not make much sales or none.

Once they control the market, have foreign warehouses, know all the products well,
prices will increase.

I suspect they use unpaid labour, people with debts, prisoners and children, of course to cut down their costs.

There might be several avenues where OL just step through for some months, no payment, to learn online selling, then do something else,
and several of them are controlled by a management company.

Theres some larger chinese sellers who are well known, but countless small ones, some after a while disappear again.
Some of these are not independent, not a one person small business, but a frontend of a management company who are not seen or identified.

That the chinese gov provide any free shipping as an available service you could book, is a complete fabrication

 

/--/
That the chinese gov provide any free shipping as an available service you could book, is a complete fabrication

Interesting post @takao21203. A bit dark, but interesting nonetheless. I have often wondered about the "impossible" pricing with free shipping. In fact, I brought this up just a few days ago (see https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/my-ds1307-module-drift-too-much.151410/#post-1299621).

Without the darker possibilities, a big hunk of what you are saying boils down to an extension of a "loss-leader". Supermarkets have done so for as long as I can remember.

I wonder if you would read and comment on this article ? It does say the shipping in some of these circumstance is subsidized, but not by the Chinese government.

There are also other claims about the "evils" of the UPU
https://www.ecomcrew.com/why-china-post-and-usps-are-killing-your-private-labeling-business/
https://www.quora.com/How-do-Chines...oportionately-expensive-in-one-direction-only

...and of course the ebay community has threads on the subject (including several claims of Chinese government subsidizing the shipping - but with no evidence or explanation).

Not sure if this is straying from the TS's original intent, but there could be a UPU agreement behind that as well, I suppose.

 

Postage costs out of US are total insanity .... 20 pounds for the smallest item ....This must be part of the undercounter deals made by previous US presidents , coupled with zero postage from china it puts the US out of the game in the ever expanding global on line buying sector , all part of the plan to destroy the US economy which trump is hopefully addressing.

But there really is no need for international postage to take so long , planes leave every minute to all parts of the world , 5 days door to door from china to UK is still too long! It's about milking the customers for all they can , those who need 'quick' delivery are forces to pay through the nose.

 

That is true. It is about money, like everyone, it is important to say "It is slow, if you want it faster, pay". There is less and less free shipping left on AliExpress for the items I buy, it might be 5 cents, but there always is. That is how they begin, it is only 5 cents and than it becomes a lot. The other problem is that they put the new Yanwen shipping which is the worst and that is why it is free or for cents. If you want standard then pay more. All standard methods for shaving the sheep.

On top of that their prices have become so high, that sometimes it is cheaper to get it from the local shop and do not wait.

All of these problems come from China and their greed.

 

I recently was trying to make sense of why things could be shipped from China for so cheap while it costs so much to ship domestically. Planet Money did an episode on it recently: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/episode-857-the-postal-illuminati

The TLDR: there is a postal organization that coordinates compensation to the countries that finish "the last mile" of deliveries. The USA used to be the one owing other countries for shipping surplus but now it's reversed with China in the lead. A bit of a mess for sure. So not only do they owe the countries they send to for the "last mile" of delivery but I bet that most of the postage is subsidized to help boost the folks selling on eBay etc.

 

That is true. It is about money, like everyone, it is important to say "It is slow, if you want it faster, pay". There is less and less free shipping left on AliExpress for the items I buy, it might be 5 cents, but there always is. That is how they begin, it is only 5 cents and than it becomes a lot. The other problem is that they put the new Yanwen shipping which is the worst and that is why it is free or for cents. If you want standard then pay more. All standard methods for shaving the sheep.

On top of that their prices have become so high, that sometimes it is cheaper to get it from the local shop and do not wait.

All of these problems come from China and their greed.

careful with your comments. why do you buy products from China?

 

I did a little sleuthing and found that the company I dealt with, Xinshenshang Tech Co, Xgody products. has a warehouse in the freight forwarding section of Toronto.
So I am not sure how China-Canada UBI fits into this scenario?
I received a CanPost tracking No. from day one.
Max.

 

careful with your comments. why do you buy products from China?

What do you mean?