Comment by Semaphor
5 days ago
I enjoy the cheap shipping (from Aliexpress China warehouses to Germany), but I really wish this would be improved. It just seems nonsensical. There should be a closer relation to actual cost, but paying 4-5€ for a national shipment, versus essentially nothing for Chinese shipments, is mad.
It gets even weirder when you consider the prices of shipping even within the EU. Within Germany? €3,50 if the seller has a good deal with DHL, within the Netherlands? €4,50 with PostNL. As a normal consumer shipping something the price goes up, and when you want to ship from the Netherlands to Germany or vice versa? €9,50 at least. Vinted seems to be the exception because of their deal with Mondial Relay, so I can order something from Italy for just €5 (but they currently exclude Germany for that feature for some reason).
…meanwhile a couple of I²C light sensors, some brass book screws, a router bit or two? Free shipping because of the (whatever) deal or Ali Choice shipping, and just as fast too.
Of course with Shein and Temu this isn't about cheap electronics, parts, and tools any more, but wholesale environmental destruction by fast-fashion. It wouldn't get much worse if the Chinese fashion manufacturers just shipped their wares directly to the Atacama desert.
Enjoy this while it lasts Nachbar, no tariffs there for us just yet.
I remember paying 25 euro to ship a bottle of wine to somebody in Belgium while living 30 minutes away from the border (just for weight and destination, wine itself had no extra taxes).
And then stuff from China appears at my doorstep almost for free?
I would love to buy more from European sellers, but unless you're a serious company with deals shipping is just too expensive.
Our invisible borders are quite real when it comes to shipping. It's only the really big ones like Amazon which seem to be able to negotiate lower prices across the block, and that's just depressing.
It's the same for us in the US honestly, the shipping companies are ridiculous with this. Someone in my company sent me a hoodie, in a soft package, cost on it said $14.50.
Ridiculous! And they don't even discount you for bringing the package to their dropbox or to a store, it's the same price for home pickup. There's just no way to economically ship things as an individual.
Yeah, this gets even worse within EU, I luckily am probably less affected by that than you (thanks to country size differences), but when it hits me, it surely is bad.
The EU was supposed to be working on improving this, to facilitate trade.
It looks like they are hoping the market will improve by itself.
https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/postal-se...
Fast fashion is what consumers want. It's just that China has a state of the art supply chain that can do it and they blew everyone else out of the water.
I don't think the price of those small shipments from China is necessarily crazy.
Looking at flights for people: you can get a return flight to China from the UK for less than £350, which means less than £175 one way.
Let's say that's about 100kg (person plus luggage) then this means that flying 100g from China to the UK costs less than 17.5p or 20c in euros.
I expect that cargo will be cheaper than passenger plane, so shipping small stuff from China to Europe can indeed be very cheap. It's about volume and efficiency.
Air freight rates vary wildly by demand/bulk discounts/route/etc but $2-8/kg is typical, with a median around $4/kg. Commercial flights are often cheaper, and especially when you consider the weight of seats/water/food/crew/etc.
The plane itself isn’t the only cost of shipping. Even sending a letter is more expensive, and there’s no plane involved. You have to pick it up, bring it to the airport, and deliver it to the door from the destination airport.
Obviously. This is just to illustrate that what the "real cost" is is not as obvious as what some comments suggest and that it is likely much lower.