While poking around the Internet I discovered a statement that the US is withdrawing from the Universal Postal Union this October. The withdrawal comes because of the high subsidies the US is forced to give countries like China. You may have noticed there are so many shippers on eBay that ship free to the US. It costs the Chinese the same to send parcels to the US as it costs US shippers to send parcels domestically. This will change in October if the US follows through on withdrawal and foreign shipping rates will increase as the US self declares the rates it will charge foreign shippers. The Chinese may decide to keep rates low by subsidizing the new payments by shippers.
I never knew the rates paid by international shippers to delivery companies in countries of destination were determined by the Universal Postal Union. That is why shipments of coins can be cheap from some countries to other countries and why shipments from the US are so high to everywhere. Will be interesting to see how rates are affected after withdrawal from the Universal Postal Union.
Of course, this refers only to parcels sent by postal carriers, not private shippers. I think the original idea was it would be fairer if high volume shippers like the US paid more to destinations with low volume shippers. But ecommerce has changed all that. So now China gets the same US subsidy as Gabon does.
I tried to simplify the explanation as much as possible so we can have some idea why shipping can be so high in some countries but rather low in others.
Will
International shipping rates
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Quote: "blue-m"
Quote: "oggy"Any idea where Thailand fits into this. For me its relatively cheap to send stuff out of Thailand. I hope that doesn't change.
Quote: "Myeackle"That is very interesting I had no idea about any of that. I wonder what things will be like in the future for us if they do go forward with the withdrawal.
Matt
It will cost you more to send post. The UPU rates are low (like $1.20 for every package handled) eg. China sends a package to the US and USPS gets $1.20 for domestic handling. Same thing with Royal Mail, you send me a package and USPS pays $1.20 to RM for domestic handling.
Not the reason our mail is expensive compared to say China. [Who of course are also a member, almost every real country is.]
Thailand is also a member. Every member of the UN is
If the US do actually pull out, they'll be free to charge whatever domestic processing costs they want to foreign countries.
I'd say they won't, but the Trump white house economic policy is so strategically wayward, who knows what they might do.... He may see it as another way to slap tariffs on china and the EU (pull out, then charge $5 processing fees per package... boom +$5 import tax.) Yes it all seems nonsensical, but in these times, anything is possible...
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