It costs $20.40 to send a 5 pound Priority Mail package 2,800 miles from Los Angeles to New York City, and $53.96 to send it 140 miles to Tijuana. Why?
Why is international mail in general so much more expensive than domestic mail?
I get that moving anything across a border involves more agreements, more inspections, and more of everything else that costs money, but I have trouble believing that it makes that much difference. It's not like sending a package to another country is some esoteric thing that has to be figured out from scratch because no one has ever done it before. There is plenty of time and opportunity to streamline the process.
Looking at this from another angle: several companies sell inexpensive rice cookers. Typically they weigh 4 or 5 pounds. I can't find out where they are made but it's a safe bet that most of them come from China, Korea, or somewhere in the same neighborhood. Somehow the manufacturers manage to bring them to the U.S. cheaply enough that even after paying manufacturing and marketing costs as well as shipping they can sell them at retail prices of $15 to $40. In contrast, just mailing a 4 pound package from the US to China would cost me $61.85.
Again, I get that the situation is not the same. The manufacturer ships thousands of gadgets at once, and it doesn't care if they move at surface speeds. But again, it's hard to believe that those factors account for the entire difference.
Does anyone have knowledge or fact-based opinions about this? Could the Universal Postal Union be keeping international package rates artificially high for its own reasons, or for certain member states' reasons?
penguins_dont_fly is a Volunteer Community Mentor
