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Your claim here is basically incorrect. "Parcel select" is a service for large mailers who deliver packages, in bulk, to multiple post facilities in the US, ne
by joe_the_user 7y ago
Your claim here is basically incorrect.
"Parcel select" is a service for large mailers who deliver packages, in bulk, to multiple post facilities in the US, near to the destination of the package and have the USPS do the "last mile delivery". Does China Post have a fleet of trucks, in the US which moves Chinese packages to a closer US postal delivery facility. I believe not.
Moreover, if China did have such a service, someone, China or the US is subsidizing it since individual shippers in China, not doing any aggregating themselves get a rate equivalent to large shippers in the US who aggregate and must pay the costs of this themselves.
"“Parcel Select” is the registered trademark name for the Postal Service’s economical ground delivery service for packages entered in bulk, including those entered at destination facilities. It is designed for and generally used by large- and medium-sized parcel shippers. Parcel Select mailers pay postage that reflects the degree of work-sharing they do in presorting their parcels and/or drop shipping their pieces at a destination facility located closer to the delivery point. Mailers are responsible for transporting their Parcel Select pieces to a destination bulk mail center (DBMC), destination sectional center facility (DSCF), or a destination delivery unit (DDU) for business and residential delivery."
https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2007/html/pb22219/kit2_002.html https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2007/html/pb22219/kit...
- ikeboy 7y agoI'm not claiming that China is using Parcel Select. I'm responding to the claim about local shipping in the NPR piece. They explicitly claim that the prices quoted are just for last mile delivery.
- joe_the_user 7y agoYou are claiming that China is charging a price equivalent to US delivery but it isn't. It's charging a price equivalent part of US delivery which clearly a false comparison. The cost for an individual shipper in the US versus the cost for an individual shipper in China is clearly the correct point of comparison and it seems NPR was in making that comparison. Edit: removed comment about other thread.
- ikeboy 7y agoWhere did I claim that? I'm claiming NPR is making/repeating a problematic comparison by using retail pricing for domestic shipping. International mail is aggregated by China post, and they pay the USPS for the last mile. To evaluate to what extent USPS is subsidizing them, you need to compare to what someone else who aggregates and pays for last mile delivery would pay. This is very different from what an individual shipper would pay.
- vilhelm_s 7y agoI guess it would be interesting to know how much the USPS is subsiding them, but I think what makes the NPR example striking is that they are comparing end-to-end prices: some business in China is paying less than $5.69 and the American business would pay $6.30 for the same service. But I suppose part of the difference is not due to the subsidy but because the China post has lower labor costs for the aggregation work?
- ikeboy 7y agoAmazon charges sellers $3.28 in fulfilment fees for packages between 10 and 16 oz, which includes two day shipping to prime members. That's end to end, although you do need to pay to ship it to Amazon's warehouse, but that can be done in bulk cheaply.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jessriedel 7y ago> International mail is aggregated by China post, and they pay the USPS for the last mile. This is the key point in your claim that was not clear in your top-level comment, which is the source of the confusion/dispute. (I have no idea who is right.) Consider editing your top-level comment to clarify this claim (with an edit flag) and, ideally, link to somewhere that backs it up. For instance, even if you're right it probably means that China is subsidizing the shipping to the distribution point, which would be an important thing to understand.