Important bit of information: China gets subsidised parcel fee under an agreement of the World Post Association. They pay less for postage than European businesses shipping within the continent.
Why is this not changed? Why all these additional taxes and hoops when they could simply cancels these subsidies?
It’s managed by the Universal Postal Union, which is part of the UN, and the organisation has been in effect in one form or another since 1874 with 192 members currently. International treaties between so many countries are extremely difficult to reform. It’s much easier to make a new treaty than reform an existing one because there are so many vested interests in the current system.
In this case, the subsidy is designed to help developing countries have fair access to the global post system. But when it was created, it was likely not envisioned that a developing country might become a rich country, nor that the postal system would become such an important part of e-commerce.
Good question. I guess you have to ask those responsible.
They’re implicit subsidies.
So here it goes: there’s an international treaty saying basically “if a letter from your country is delivered in my contry, I’ll deliver it for free and vice versa”. So, you pay your national post some “international handling” so they e.g. deliver it to China, but in China the national post is now responsible for distribution and last mile for free, they don’t see a part of your postage.
So it’s subsidized now by the Chinese post basically: they only charge cents for “international shipping” to their citizens and businesses, last mile is handled for free from the local national post offices.
That system obviously was designed to work frictionless and easy in a time, where there was no globalized market to speak of.
It’s not so easy to reform and just cancel it might be a disadvantage as well: then all your other mailing stuff needs renegotiating as well. Just imagine the horror in canceling the treaty, and then you need to sit down with dealmaker Trump who sees an opportunity in order to get the US Post to handle your mail 😱
I’ve wondered for years how they manage free shipping for all the small shit.
I’m guessing it just goes on flights that would be going anyway, probably filling in gaps where larger packages don’t fit which would just be empty anyway.
No clue what agreements they have with the carriers to let them do that for dirt cheap, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.
Kinda seems like a tax on the poor for being unable to afford better products.
You don’t get better products. You get products without safety testing, warranty or support. Clothes from some eastern brands have high amounts of chemicals that are forbidden in Europe because they cause cancer or infertility. Some type of escooter was banned in the UK some years ago because the dodgy electronics where responsible for multiple house fires. Iot devices or computers from some no name brand won’t get updates if a hacker finds exploits to mine Bitcoins on it, or spy on you and capture your logins from your cheap temu wifi router.
Look at who funded and lobbied for this, this isn’t about protecting EU manufacturing, most of these companies manufacture their goods outside the EU and charge exorbitant prices for them.
This is once again taking the power out of the proles hands.
Parent Corporate Member Key Retail Brands & Subsidiaries Annual Revenue Schwarz Group Lidl, Kaufland, PreZero €185.6 Billion REWE Group BILLA, REWE, Penny, Toom Baumarkt, BIPA €100.4 Billion Ahold Delhaize Albert Heijn, Delhaize, Alfa Beta, Mega Image, Maxi, Albert €92.35 Billion Carrefour Group Carrefour, Carrefour Market, Express, Atacadão, Cora, Match €91.48 Billion Tesco PLC Tesco, Tesco Express, One Stop €82 Billion Inditex Zara, Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius €36 Billion H&M Group H&M, COS, Monki, Weekday, & Other Stories, ARKET €21 Billion Colruyt Group Colruyt, Okay, Spar €11.19 Billion Credit to https://www.reddit.com/user/Interesting_Pie_319/ for the data.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Aliexpress/comments/1ugpyoe/i_dug_around_a_bit_and_found_exactly_who_is/
The difference is that these companies have to adhere to EU regulations, e.g. on harmful chemicals. Cheap Chinese products famously do not, often times to an absurd degree, exceeding limits by thousands of times.
Then regulate the products and impose fines?
and not forget sites like temu burn money to sell this stuff cheap while these have to actually run a profitable business. But 100 Billion Alibaba and 50 Billion Temu are the good guys in this, i guess
All companies selling in the EU market have to adhere to the General Product Safety Regulation even if the product and vendor is Chinese. The problem here is not the law, but enforcing the law.
In the meantime Chinese companies built warehouses in Europe, which are importing the cheap goods en grosse. You’re buying from a Chinese supplier, but the parcel is sent out from Europe.
Much more easy to regulate those. That’s kind of the point.
In the meantime Chinese companies built warehouses in Europe, which are importing the cheap goods en grosse.
They probably weren’t, at least for the things being described here, as the article is talking about de minimis.
The de minimis exception basically let low-value packages through without paying import tariffs.
There’s some reason to do that — it’d be more expensive to process the (many) low-value packages.
However, this also meant that if someone imported something in small, low-value amounts, they didn’t have to pay import tariffs, whereas people doing bulk imports did.
This was a major reason for the explosion of Chinese online retailers in the West, like Temu. They’d sell something that was shipped directly from China, which meant that they didn’t need to pay import tariffs on it. Traditional importers would import a large batch and would need to pay import tariffs, and then distribute the large batch from within the country in question, which penalized traditional retail.
on the principle that’s fine, but it also means that DHL will add
6.50€7.50€ fees on top of that here in germany, which you can only pay in cash upon delivery, and they don’t even carry change.edit: it’s 7.50
Not true. Parcels can be delievered to DHL shop where you can pay with several methods (I already did so). Yet the fee is indeed annoying when comparing with the 3 € cause
how is what i said not true? i am telling what happens when it’s delivered to my door. i work from home and i’m always there, delivering to a shop is even worse
I’m not in Germany but DHL has a website where I can pay any fees. They usually text me a link when I have a package on the way.
It’s kinda bullshit that I had to pay a $17 service fee when the import fees were only $3, but at least they accepted digital payment…
Germany is its own beast. For the longest time i couldn’t pay electronically at the post office because they only accepted EC, and no Visa/Mastercard/Apple Pay. with my french bank i don’t have that, so i had to bring cash always.
this is the kind of e-mail i get when i have a delivery with customs fee:
edit: and the most funny thing was that the amount in the e-mail wasn’t even correct, so now i have my vat of coins i collect in a drawer to adjust to the final surprise amount that needs to be paid :>
Your DHL shipment will be delivered to you today by your mail and package carrier.
The import duties in the amount of €25.67 (including a €7.50 handling fee and the VAT included therein) are to be paid in cash upon delivery, with exact change if possible.
They recently added the ability to pay with an EC card upon delivery.
That’s so annoying. Is this the peak of German efficiency and bureaucracy?
no no they can do much worse xD
It not just per parcel, but per product category. Multiple categories in one parcel multiple times €3 customs.
Can they put an exclusion for electronic components? 90% of the shit isn’t manufactured in the EU and local companies buy it from China and charge you 10x the price.
Mouser isn’t a bad option
Wonderful!
This can easily be bypassed by making group orders, don’t know if the Chinese sites will bother.
I import tea from China and Japan, wish there was good tea in Europe but that’s not the case and the nice stuff is absurdly overpriced or impossible to find, so I will not stop but I will do my best to avoid this stupid tax.
€3 sounds to me too low to matter.
This is where the DIY electronics hobbyist scene in the EU dies.
Good going corpos, you win. I’ll just consume your media and goon at home.
