4 ms·

Rates are very low, but the example given of Rotterdam to Shanghai is a bit misleading. There is much less demand in that direction than the other way, but the

Rates are very low, but the example given of Rotterdam to Shanghai is a bit misleading. There is much less demand in that direction than the other way, but the ships still need to get to Shanghai to pick up all those toys for the children of Europe. I'd expect the price the other direction to be more than double that.

msandford 11y ago
A friend of mine, back when I was in logistics, actually managed to get PAID $200 per container to move 1000 containers worth of stuff from the US to China. Quoting a cheap rate from the "west" to the "east" is totally bogus. That's not the real price.
kyllo 11y ago
Exactly. The carriers are happy to get any money at all on the Europe to Asia route, because most of their containers are moving back to Shanghai empty.
- ascorbic 11y ago
  One common cargo from Europe to China is waste cardboard. Think how cheap shipping would have to be for that to be worth shipping. Many of these will be the boxes from goods shipped to Europe from China, and will be recycled into more boxes for more goods to send back to Europe. It's like the circle of life, but with cardboard.
  - burger_moon 11y ago
    Scape metal has also become common to ship to China to be smelted back down shipped back to the U.S.
    - kyllo 11y ago
      Chinese Customs has started banning a lot of these commodities because of the pollution that recycling them creates. Used tires for example. But apparently it is still somehow profitable to ship them to Vietnam and smuggle them across the border into China for recycling.
  - kyllo 11y ago
    Yes, and ocean carriers' managerial accounting systems may actually assign credit to shipments that help reposition containers from surplus ports to shortage ports. So the actual cost of moving a container from Rotterdam to Shanghai might be $1,000 and the customer is only paying $500 but the office that sold the business can at least "break even" because they may also get a $500 credit for getting an empty box back to Shanghai where there's always a shortage, because of the opportunity cost of not having equipment available for the customer shipping from Shanghai to Rotterdam who will pay $3,000.

msandford 11y ago

A friend of mine, back when I was in logistics, actually managed to get PAID $200 per container to move 1000 containers worth of stuff from the US to China. Quoting a cheap rate from the "west" to the "east" is totally bogus. That's not the real price.

kyllo 11y ago

Exactly. The carriers are happy to get any money at all on the Europe to Asia route, because most of their containers are moving back to Shanghai empty.

ascorbic 11y ago
One common cargo from Europe to China is waste cardboard. Think how cheap shipping would have to be for that to be worth shipping. Many of these will be the boxes from goods shipped to Europe from China, and will be recycled into more boxes for more goods to send back to Europe. It's like the circle of life, but with cardboard.
- burger_moon 11y ago
  Scape metal has also become common to ship to China to be smelted back down shipped back to the U.S.
  - kyllo 11y ago
    Chinese Customs has started banning a lot of these commodities because of the pollution that recycling them creates. Used tires for example. But apparently it is still somehow profitable to ship them to Vietnam and smuggle them across the border into China for recycling.
- kyllo 11y ago
  Yes, and ocean carriers' managerial accounting systems may actually assign credit to shipments that help reposition containers from surplus ports to shortage ports. So the actual cost of moving a container from Rotterdam to Shanghai might be $1,000 and the customer is only paying $500 but the office that sold the business can at least "break even" because they may also get a $500 credit for getting an empty box back to Shanghai where there's always a shortage, because of the opportunity cost of not having equipment available for the customer shipping from Shanghai to Rotterdam who will pay $3,000.