It's worth noting that the issue of agreed postal rates with specific countries is one large retailers are starting to lobby more aggressively. For example USPS renegotiated rates with China post at the tail end of last year, with Amazon pressing congress for action. With a large part of Amazon's US business being low cost Chinese imported goods, you can see their motivation.
http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y15/m10/i09/s02
The real sticking point seems to be the existing Universal Postal Union agreed fees for compensation for domestic delivery of inbound foreign mail. From reading through the USPS Office of Inspector General 2014 report, specific agreements like epacket, which many Chinese sellers use as the lowest cost trackable service to the US, actually generate more revenue in the form of compensation USPS receives for domestic delivery versus lettermail, which would have been the alternative for many of these packages. In either cases, the delivery translated to a net loss during the period reviewed despite substantial volumes, epacket was judged a smaller loss based on the higher compensation received. Interestingly USPS did not track actual costing of epackets as a separate service so had no way to judge profitability other than blending it with lettermail.
While the example above is specific to the US, the interesting bit is how existing agreements under the Universal Postal Union impact on the costs of domestic delivery of foreign originating items. Agreements which may seem to be a sweetheart deal may actually increase profits or reduce losses for the postal operator since adding the tracking is minimal overhead. In the case of China where the country is willing to subsidize their end to boost exports, it raises the interesting debate on the impact it has on domestic business and balancing that with the benefit to consumers of lower priced goods.
The bit I am interested in is the accessibility of these services. Epacket for packages going out of the US is an accessible service, but it is only offered via postal wholesalers, who are mostly located around central air terminals in the US, and subject to minimums which put them out of reach of the individual or small business sellers. I'd be interested to know how accessible the rates are in China and Hong Kong to the individual or small business seller. In the case of Canada, we have access to tracked packet international, which is part of the prime express program like USPS e-delcon for first class international package. The downside is we pay a far higher rate for the same service.
w~~_7.JPG "pjcdn2005"){kind=avatar}
