Strange detours in shipping from US to Europe

Very often I order materials and parts through ebay, since this is the only place I can often obtain certain hard-to-get items globally. Most often they come from EurAsian countries, HK, Thailand, Japan, China, Russia, Poland and rarely do they come from the US, or the UK. My address is in The Netherlands, mainland Wst Europe.

I have to say, when I track packages and how they get transported I'm amazed by how super in-efficient this seems to be moved inside the US. If an item needs to go overseas to the East, it is so weird to have to see it go from PA or NY to some Western state first, or at the very least to Chicago, and then back East again, and then finally on a shipment overseas. Something really needs to be looked at. This is such a waste of time and resources for many packages! The way they do this from Russia or China is incomparable to that. If you look at a map and see how your package travels, it is always in accordance to the direction they need to go to, so as efficient as possible really. Not back inland first, or away from where it is ordered from. I don't get it. Looks like the USPS or ebay international does not give a rat's a** about fuel efficiency within the US.

Last but not least this results in weird long delivery times. And as it stands, packages generally arrive here from HK or China in 5 to 10 days on average. From the US, which by air is way closer to us, they usually take a month or thereabouts. Not to mention the outrageous taxes and customs cost from the US into EU, which has been so discouraging for us. I highly doubt that this is what's intended. If so, it's working. Trade from Asia, Russia is working better, faster and more reliable for us in the NL these days.

baymeow

81 View listings

Posted 2 years ago·Last reply 2 years ago

2 comments

martin2001

·2 years ago

55983 View listings

@baymeow wrote:
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Last but not least this results in weird long delivery times. And as it stands, packages generally arrive here from HK or China in 5 to 10 days on average. From the US, which by air is way closer to us, they usually take a month or thereabouts. Not to mention the outrageous taxes and customs cost from the US into EU, which has been so discouraging for us. I highly doubt that this is what's intended. If so, it's working. Trade from Asia, Russia is working better, faster and more reliable for us in the NL these days.

Although it does happen, even when mailing just domestically, that packages travel what seem to be a less efficient way, most of the time the USPS works quite efficiently.

As far as the international orders, I sell lot to Europe. There are several carriers one can use to mail to Europe. For example if the seller the US Postal Service (USPS), the package would go pretty much directly to Holland. I use a service (ebay offer similar type of service) where your package would be mailed to a distribution center of the principal carrier. They are only in a few US cities, so they have to go there first. It may seem, that it is not efficient, but it is not possible to build distribution centers in every town.

Then the carrier uses their partners, e.g. Swiss Air, La Poste, Royal Mail for the international leg of the delivery. You need to examine what carrier your seller uses, if it takes a month to deliver a package from US to Holland. When I mail the packages, the average delivery time to Holland is 10-14. Don't forget that the packages are inspected at the customs, and are often held there for several days or even weeks (like Italy). If the seller did not fill out the customs declaration correctly, e.g. using an incorrect commodity code, the package will be delayed.

Lastly, the additional cost imposed on you when buying from US is the " fault" of, frankly, greedy EU. EU imposes VAT tax on every package of any value (it used to be that packages valued at $20-25 or less, were not taxed). Additionally, duties come into play ata certain threshold. This of course puts the US sellers at a disadvantage. For example, we don't have VAT and any package valued $800 or less is duty free. So this put an EU seller at an advantage because we are more likely to buy from EU (because of no taxes) vs. you are less likely to buy from USA, because you have to pay extremely high EU taxes, duties and fees (like UK the buyer often has to pay and admin feeof 10 GBP) to Royal Mail.

12345jamesstamps

·2 years ago

8707 View listings

I believe more buyers buy from the USA than I am guessing those countries you mentioned....so we need shipping hubs in a number of states. The size of the country makes a big deal also. It's also what you are buying that makes a big deal. Russia is a blocked country so I guess you are one of the few still buying from them still? Which is why your items arrive fast from Russia. UK shipping is rather expensive in my opinion for shipping compared to China of course. But China is using the cheap fast shipping to become a shipping country of many items like the USA. USPS runs very well as well as other shippers in the USA when it comes to fuel efficiency. Have to realize how big the USA is compared to maybe Hong Kong and Japan.