US withdrawl from IPU may mean a large shift in sales back to the US sellers

[darkeyedman]

The International Postal Union is a body comprised of representatives of every countries postal system. Back in the early '70s they gave extremely low terminal fees ( the amount owed to the receiving country on international mail) to developing countries such as china. Those fees have not changed in 40 years. This is how the chinese can mail a watch band for 0.99 with free shipping. China subsidizes the mailing on their end, and the USPS gets to deliver that parcel anywhere in the U.S. for maybe one penny. This applies to all parcels up the 2 kilos (4.4 lbs) although the penny might be 0.25 on more weight. The U.S. has announced it's intention to leave the IPU in october if they don't address and correct these inequities. I'm no Trump lover, but I think he is right on this. U.S. sellers have been losing business for years because of this. Now, if shipping of say $3 for a small parcel is added to the cost, customers will be less likely to wait 4-6 weeks for an item  they can get for very little more, quickly from a US seller.  By the way, even if we end up leaving the IPU we will negotiate our own agreements with other countries. 

[myjunqueyourtreasure]

It's actually the UPU - Universal Postal Union

[ersatz_sobriquet]

It will be interesting for sure. But I wouldn't get my hopes up. The Chinese are stocking warehouses in CA and DE as we speak so that the goods are stateside, and there is always the work around of FIRST bringing the goods through Canada or Mexico to avoid the problem of tariffs and postage. For every action, there is a reaction. If the Chinese can undercut you by a penny, they will do it. I sell vintage so it doesn't affect me, but I don't imagine too many USA sellers are able to compete very well with the Chinese selling the exact same goods. 

[ce-9809]

You an thank some concerned American citizens who brought this abuse to Trump's attention by simply using the White House contact form. Within months action was taken - Trump started the 1 year withdrawal process.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-made-the-right-call-to-withdraw-from-the-universal-pos... 

Your "facts" are a little off.

It was a 1969 amendment that set low fees, but no one was using this to ship items from Communist China. Communist China was still under the rule of the world's greatest mass murder - Mao.

The only significant amount items coming out of China were items manufactured in British Hong Kong and shipped out cargo ships and later container ships. Hong Kong was well known for making very cheap products such as many toys found in dime stores. The mail system was not used for any significant degree to ship huge volumes of merchandise from Hong Kong as its more cost effective to to ship in bulk. I collected stamps form 1976 to the early 1990s. The only merchandise covers I ever saw ere used to send samples to buyers in the U.S. and other countries.

USPS actually made money off incoming foreign packages until 2010. In 2010 eBay was the driving force behind a agreement between eBay, USPS and China Post to create co-branded shipping labels on eBay for Chinese

merchants. The 1969 amendment to the UPU did not create Chinese packages being sold on eBay. That was eBay's 2010 agreement which misused a program intended to help poor people. This program was only used for a portion of 2010 so USPS still made money off incoming foreign mail in 2010, but by 2011, the first full year of this program, USPS was already losing millions. USPS has lost money ever since with at the amount growing to at least $300 million each year according to the above article.

USPS is paid more than 1 cent, but certainly not enough to cover costs. The higher rates you pay for domestic services are set to cover their costs.

eBay could stop abusing this program at any second but they refuse! Other companies soon copied eBay, such as Amazon, and they refuse to stop. The other countries who abuse this program refuse to stop.

But eBay wants to keep the status quo - abusing a program intended to help poor people.

What else have they done?