No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers

Re:No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers by ddeck on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @02:33PM (#20813000)

I recently returned a 13 inch laptop to Amazon from Hong Kong after they sent 2 and it was around $120 (reimbursed by Amazon - the original Amazon delivery charge was ~$18).

$370 did sound particularly egregious, but I just checked UPS' online quote site[1] and got a quote of $311-394 for a 5 pound, A1 sized package from California to Paris.

In my experience in Asia, Fedex, UPS, DHL etc. provide substantial discounts to customers with accounts, but one-off quotes to the US/Europe are typically very expensive.

[1] https://www.ups.com/mobile/quoteService

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Re:No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers by inferiorhuman on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @02:50PM (#20813180)

I recently returned a 13 inch laptop to Amazon from Hong Kong after they sent 2 and it was around USD120 (reimbursed by Amazon).

HK Post wants about H$350 to get a 3kg parcel from HK to France. That works out to about $45.

$370 did sound particularly egregious, but I just checked UPS' online quote site[1] and got a quote of $311-394 for a 5 pound, A1 sized package from California to Paris.

I'm not quite sure what A1 sized is (ISO A1 paper? Amazon A1?) but at 5 lbs USPS quotes between $60 and $130 to go from San Francisco to Paris. For international shipping from the US, the private companies will almost always be significantly more expensive and potentially leave you on the hook for expensive customs brokerage fees.

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Re:No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers by lancesells on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @04:38PM (#20814196)

Around 24.5 x 33 inches. It might be the size kicking it up. I work in fairly large art sizes and prices go up really fast based on dimensions.

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Re:No More Cheap Shipping for Chinese Sellers by inferiorhuman on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @05:09PM (#20814425)

So ISO A1 then. I plugged in something like 24x33x5 as well as the Amazon A1 size (which is smaller) and got the same price range but with additional options for the smaller (Amazon A1) sized package. At that size, the weight is the determining factor at USPS (at least based on the rates I've seen) even though 24x33 is still considered an oversized package.

OTOH if you want to ship it express (Global Express Guaranteed — GXG in USPS speak) that comes out to around $265 (less if you pay online) and not all post offices will take GXG packages. $60 to $265 is the difference between a 1-3 business day expected delivery time and 6-10 business days.

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