On Monday, September 30, 2019 at 5:27:38 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/30/2019 7:04 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, September 30, 2019 at 3:58:24 PM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Monday, September 30, 2019 at 12:13:13 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/30/2019 1:50 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, September 30, 2019 at 9:44:54 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/30/2019 11:36 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
I sold my Pinarello Stelvio frameset. Frankly I was astonished at how long it took. I sold it for $400 which was less than the cost of buying it originally and then reconditioning the frame.

I added a $50 charge for shipping.

After selling it I had to mail it off. The box was $5 and the mailing of the bike frame box and frameset weighed 14.5 lbs and I paid for 15 lbs to make certain not to get caught in any scale problems.

$163.50 or almost $170 to ship a frameset now. You can bet that I don't sell anything on eBay anymore. If you set a price that would cover such ridiculous mailing costs no one is interested. Just a couple of years ago I was sending the same box off for $48.


A pet peeve here.

We pay drastically increased delivery charges while our
competitors in The Middle Kingdom pay a heavily subsidized
couple of yuan with the high cost of 'last mile' delivery
picked gratis up by USPS under the International Postal Treaty.

The rates are going up to 80% of domestic. https://www.freightwaves.com/news/us...tal-group-vote There were already adjustments negotiated in 2016 that were going into effect for letter-packages. The USPS also needs to police rates with Amazon, BTW..

The rates were favorable for shipments directly from China. I've never ordered anything direct from China because of the sketchiness factor. TK will be paying more for his Chinese wheels -- more shipping plus the increased tariff rates. For the rest of us, the price will be passed on by domestic re-sellers who purchase goods directly from China, assuming small lots and not container loads. It won't drop your shipping rates absent a miracle -- like the post office making a profit. Do you compete much with direct shipments from China?

-- Jay Beattie.


Define 'compete'. We're not competitive.

As Mr Kunich mentioned a pair of low rent chinese carbon
wheels is less than two USA made rims.

SRAM had a press release out Friday about chinese
counterfeit product of their several brand name lines.

We are virtually out of the not-wool clothing business now:
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/gro...14932006.html#!

Postage from Italy on team wear is more than china's
delivered retail price by quite a bit.

I could go on but it's not news nor isolated items.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

The Chinese have somehow circumvented the postal increases and tariffs by opening storage facilities in the US and shipping from there. It also makes for much more rapid and reliable delivery times.

Actually, maintaining US hubs would make them fully subject to domestic postal rates. Avoided costs involve shipping by container load rather than mailing small packages from China.

-- Jay Beattie.


An ocean can adds a 15~25 day crossing which isn't
acceptable for consumer goods in 2019. Air ULD cargo rates
are extremely expensive compared to subsidized Postal rates.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

I had a great Eddy Merckx Corsa OS frameset selling for $800. An Aussy wanted it and asked me to look into air shipping - that was $850.