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The fundamental annoyance I have is not only Amazon's (apparently) preferential pricing, but the e-Packet from China pricing. As a consumer I can see the advan

The fundamental annoyance I have is not only Amazon's (apparently) preferential pricing, but the e-Packet from China pricing. As a consumer I can see the advantage to me, but it seems wildly unfair to Mouser / Digikey and the 1000s of much smaller businesses in the USA to have to pay more to ship a small parcel from Denver CO to somewhere in CA, than an e-Packet from HongKong to e.g. Plattsburgh, NY. It has to be hurting the ability to compete of lots of US based businesses...

sytelus 8y ago
Exactly. I don't have the stats on packages getting shipped from China to US on dirt cheap forced upon prices but it is quite likely that they match Amazon. This is mainly because most things ship from China first and then to US domestic market.
rgbrenner 8y ago
IMO, as someone who runs a small business reliant on USPS, it's even worse than that. Other countries like the EU and Canada like to charge an inspection fee for small packages (+ VAT)... it's usually a flat ~$15 (even if the package is worth $5). What do they do during the inspection? Calculate the VAT charge of $0.50. They don't even open the envelope. VAT itself is bad enough... The US doesn't have VAT, and the WTO says it's illegal to put a tariff on imports to fund the US government.. but VAT, the WTO is ok with... which is an across the board tariff on every good shipping into the EU/Canada/etc. Then to tack on the "inspection fee" on top... So not only is there a difference in shipping cost, but when it arrives at the border, their country makes it even more expensive for the customer... discouraging them from ordering from the US in the future.
- mrighele 8y ago
  > So not only is there a difference in shipping cost, but > when it arrives at the border, their country makes it even > more expensive for the customer... discouraging them from > ordering from the US in the future. Note that a customer living (let's say) in Europe is supposed to pay VAT on everything regardless of the origin, so it's not like the US company is treated differently. In fact until recently it was the other way for online services (AWS for example) because some of them were not adding VAT, giving them an advantage to their European counterparts. (Edit: this of course applies to final customers, for business customers it is a completely different matter).

sytelus 8y ago

Exactly. I don't have the stats on packages getting shipped from China to US on dirt cheap forced upon prices but it is quite likely that they match Amazon. This is mainly because most things ship from China first and then to US domestic market.

rgbrenner 8y ago

IMO, as someone who runs a small business reliant on USPS, it's even worse than that. Other countries like the EU and Canada like to charge an inspection fee for small packages (+ VAT)... it's usually a flat ~$15 (even if the package is worth $5). What do they do during the inspection? Calculate the VAT charge of $0.50. They don't even open the envelope. VAT itself is bad enough... The US doesn't have VAT, and the WTO says it's illegal to put a tariff on imports to fund the US government.. but VAT, the WTO is ok with... which is an across the board tariff on every good shipping into the EU/Canada/etc. Then to tack on the "inspection fee" on top... So not only is there a difference in shipping cost, but when it arrives at the border, their country makes it even more expensive for the customer... discouraging them from ordering from the US in the future.

mrighele 8y ago
> So not only is there a difference in shipping cost, but > when it arrives at the border, their country makes it even > more expensive for the customer... discouraging them from > ordering from the US in the future. Note that a customer living (let's say) in Europe is supposed to pay VAT on everything regardless of the origin, so it's not like the US company is treated differently. In fact until recently it was the other way for online services (AWS for example) because some of them were not adding VAT, giving them an advantage to their European counterparts. (Edit: this of course applies to final customers, for business customers it is a completely different matter).