I think that is because of the Universal Postal Union which gives China rates that these days cover about a quarter of the costs of delivery In Europe and the USA.
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Distributing Humax Output by UHF
- Thread starter peterpi
- Start date
Owen Smith
Well-Known Member
It is one of the few things Trump is correct about. When international postage costs were set decades ago, China was broke so they got to send stuff to the rest of the world almost for free. We literally subsidise them sending stuff to the west. It should be changed, but renegotiating these big international treaties is a damn nigh impossible task. And also it doesn't actually cost the west that much, something like half a million dollars a year for the US which in the grand scheme of things is almost a rounding error these days.
Black Hole
May contain traces of nut
This explains a lot, and I had no idea. It costs practically nothing (per item, amortised over millions of individual items) to stuff a shipping container and float it here, but I could never account for the cost of the final link in the journey - post to my letterbox. (On principle, I avoid this kind of thing when there is a reasonable alternative.)
There's a surplus of large vessels and a lot of vessels with space for an extra container, or containers with space for an extra crate, as I understand.
Not how I would have put it in expert witness testimony, but I think ironic overstatement is fair game in an internet forum. However if you don't mind waiting you can have two devices similar to the one shown in @peterpi's post above for just over your £5, which is roughly the difference between the sellers' prices on Amazon and eBay for the LemonBest-type gadget.