BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - A rip in the space-time continuum

L G[_47_]

wrote:
On Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:12:32 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:20:45 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 22:51:24 -0400, I am Tosk
wrote:

On 8/11/2011 4:41 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:17:02 -0700, wrote:

On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:53:15 -0400, wrote:

FACT: I bought a disk enclosure on Ebay that ended up coming from
China. Total cost including shipping was $2.30 and came air mail USPS.
I suspect they are building the cost of shipping into the price that
is paid for the item. I pay about $14 (depending) to ship a skirt to
Australia. I pay less than $5 to ship the skirt anywhere in the US.
Where are they hiding the cost. I only paid $2.30 total.

My postal carrier said it is because the USPS does not get anything
near the regular postage on imported goods. The US part of the trip is
getting a special rate. There are a lot of people ****ed about this at
USPS.
So with the USPS running another loss this quarter, we are paying the
Chinese to ship their **** here??
It sure looks that way
Except that's not how it works, despite how it "looks."

Actually it is worse. I looked around a little and the best I can tell
we are still working under a Universal Postal Union treaty from 1991
where we collect postage for international shipments going out of the
country and people shipping into the country collect the postage on
that end. The receiving country carries the package internally for
free. The assumption is it will all come out in the wash.

We know the USPS has a significant charge for outgoing international
mail but it is unclear the chinese pay anything to ship things here.

Most Chinese merchandise is shipped by shipping containers. The USPS
would cost too much.