Chinese imports

I suspect Dave Halford realises that by now.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 12/04/2023 23:19:58

you either like Chinese imports or you don't.

China has the advantage in that postal costs are cheap, bearing in mind postal costs are also subject to vat.

all the big vendors like Ebay, Aliexpress, Banggood, Hobbyking etc will apply and collect vat from you on your purchase, including postage.

An example, I recently purchased some electronic items on Aliexpress for an amount that would not even pay for postage in the UK let alone the items themselves.

Another anomoly in Chinese trading is the problem of returning faulty goods.

To post a small item costing £5 would cost between £10 and £20 depending on whether it is tracked etc so not worth returning - the Chinese suppliers know this so you have to be on the alert with who you are dealing with.

Personally, I only order expensive goods if the item is supplied from a warehouse in the UK or EU, Banggood springs to mind. Anything else I am prepared to accept the 'possible' loss as down to experience.

To date I have not been let down by any Chinese supplier and continue to benefit from low prices and cheap postage,

Choose right and the item(s) will arrive quite quickly, If I am desperate for an item I will pay the premium if necessary to get it from the UK.

Do not be fooled by some ebay vendors who advertise as being in the UK so delivery will be quick, some just pass on the order to China and give you a raft of excuses when the item is not delivered during the timeframe they have given you. I have been stung a couple of times with this - caveat emptor

Nobody had mentioned PROC until my post.

But did the context actually require anyone to mention it explicitly?

Dave Halford said: "That is because the ROC government pays for most of the shipping of Chinese products, so defrauding the ROC might lead to unpleasant consequences."

And I replied "Dave, do you really mean the government of the ROC, i.e. Taiwan?"

Was that not an explicit enough approach? Should I have said "Dave, I think you will find you mean the PRC not the ROC"?

I wasn't 100% sure that he didn't mean the ROC, and I was trying to prompt him to have another think if what he really meant, as seemed probable, was the PRC.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned in believing that the best way to teach people things is often to point them in the right direction rather than to hand them the whole answer on a plate.

Not to worry, Bill, I know perfectly well that it was the communist lot that was refered to all the time. I have never bought anything directly from Taiwan knowingly although their products are better quality. I would like a Vertex 160 four jaw chuck, but they are a little too expensive. I do have one of those electronic mill edge finders made in Taiwan by Vertex and the clones sold today are available for 1/4 what I paid, made by the other Chinese. Most postage must be highly subsidised, the poor old Royal Mail must hate it.

Sadly, it's becoming less easy to identify products made in Taiwan or by Taiwanese firms with factories in mainland China because the PRC government has introduced draconian measures to stop "made in Taiwan" or "Taiwan" et al. from appearing on finished goods.

A recent example is this tap wrench. The older versions of it say "Taiwan" on the top: the newer versions are identical except for being minus the word "Taiwan". Both versions are pictured in that seller's listing.

My version is minus the word Taiwan but is very nicely made nonetheless, and certainly streets ahead of the smaller Facom ratcheting tap wrench I bought a couple of years ago, which struggles even to hold taps squarely in its jaws. I don't know where the Facom wrench was made.

The only time I've bought something from PRC direct rather than via e bay I finished up having to pay the courier a £18 handling charge for them to collect the much lower VAT. There used to be a lower limit below which HMRC didn't bother about the VAT, no longer it seems. I don't mind paying the Vat someone has to pay for the hospitals, but the handling charge is daylight robbery.

Edited By duncan webster on 15/04/2023 21:34:52

It's also difficult to buy, eg laptops, that aren't made in China. For example, a couple of years ago, I bought two new laptops. I specifically didn't want Chinese, so as I went looking, if I found that there was a Chinese connection, that ruled it out. Eventually I bought a pair of Dynabook Satellite Pro laptops thinking that they were Japanese. (Originally, Satellite & Satellite Pro were Toshiba's but Toshiba opted out and sold the brands to Sharp who as far as I can tell have renaned themselves, or this division perhaps, to Dynabook.) Anyway, when they arrived, various stickers pronounced Dynabook Toshiba, Dynabook Europe GMBH and much to my disgust, "Made in China". So much for my efforts to avoid Chinese!

Humph!

Peter G. Shaw

If it's anything like this part of the world - and I'm certain it is - the courier service will charge taxes regardless of whether the tax authorities would have done so ... along with "handling charges", "disbursements" - anything they can think of really. And there are so many couriers these days - many don't seem to do any actual couriering - they contract others to do that - they just collect fees and charges.

Here (Canada) I can "get away with" about $150/200 value without getting charged taxes/duty if the goods come in by post only. Trouble is, many foreign vendors these days won't ship by regular mail (UK is one of the worst these days) and even Canada Post may use a courier across the border sometimes - with consequential tax collection and other charges.

No fun any more.

..caveat emptor..

Gov.uk - Tax & Customs for goods sent from abroad

Edited By DiogenesII on 16/04/2023 07:00:02