China / Hong Kong and eBay
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The last couple of times I have looked for things on eBay I have noticed loads of really cheap options with free delivery from Hong Kong or China. Like under a pound. How does that work then? It cannot be a con, hundreds sold and excellent feedback. Even if complete tat surely you cannot manufacture / buy anything and ship it around the world for under a pound. What am I missing?
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
I'm too wondering - I bought a wireless mouse for $1.5 including shipping some two years ago...To replace battery cost me more... Also bought new batter (9 cells) and new keyboard (she drinks coffee while working) and 8 GB memory for my wife's laptop (HP) for only $70 - the same would cost me at the local dealer some $450! And no shipping... That's what makes China a world leader...
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I understand that it would cost almost nothing to produce, and when they have a container load to send over very little to get to the UK per item. But then to get it to my door from wherever it comes ashore would cost more than the cost of the thing.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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The last couple of times I have looked for things on eBay I have noticed loads of really cheap options with free delivery from Hong Kong or China. Like under a pound. How does that work then? It cannot be a con, hundreds sold and excellent feedback. Even if complete tat surely you cannot manufacture / buy anything and ship it around the world for under a pound. What am I missing?
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
If you recall[^], you won the right to set it today! :laugh:
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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If you recall[^], you won the right to set it today! :laugh:
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Yep - Herself works in an old folks home, so they aren't allowed jewellery or wristwatches. So I buy Chinese "nurse" watches (the ones that hang down from a clasp) for her for about 70p including delivery, and when the battery fails I often chuck it and get another as it's cheaper than buying a battery...sad state of affairs, but it explains why there is so little manufacturing done in Europe these days.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
OriginalGriff wrote:
when the battery fails I often chuck it and get another as it's cheaper than buying a battery
As I read that, I had a "great quote" leap to mind: It's all garbage, we just wait a bit to throw it away. :D
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The last couple of times I have looked for things on eBay I have noticed loads of really cheap options with free delivery from Hong Kong or China. Like under a pound. How does that work then? It cannot be a con, hundreds sold and excellent feedback. Even if complete tat surely you cannot manufacture / buy anything and ship it around the world for under a pound. What am I missing?
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
I always check the "US only" box on eBay. I see from the comments some people have had success but other comments online indicate they have terrible service when buying from China. I have no desire to deal with buying something from China.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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The last couple of times I have looked for things on eBay I have noticed loads of really cheap options with free delivery from Hong Kong or China. Like under a pound. How does that work then? It cannot be a con, hundreds sold and excellent feedback. Even if complete tat surely you cannot manufacture / buy anything and ship it around the world for under a pound. What am I missing?
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
It is not just eBay. Over the past two years I bought from Amazon some cheap (< $3) items with free delivery, on three occasions. (I have a prime account). When the goods arrived, I was surprised to see it was shipped from Hong Kong. I live on the East Coast of the USA. That's free shipping halfway around the world! I don't know how they do it. Maybe exporters from China/Hong Kong have subsidized shipping?
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I always check the "US only" box on eBay. I see from the comments some people have had success but other comments online indicate they have terrible service when buying from China. I have no desire to deal with buying something from China.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
That's why I usually check the "EU only" box on eBay :D terrible service from China and exoteric prices from US (6000 km from the East Coast are quite a lot...).
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The last couple of times I have looked for things on eBay I have noticed loads of really cheap options with free delivery from Hong Kong or China. Like under a pound. How does that work then? It cannot be a con, hundreds sold and excellent feedback. Even if complete tat surely you cannot manufacture / buy anything and ship it around the world for under a pound. What am I missing?
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
You got to be willing to wait for it though, I've had it take as long as 5 weeks to arrive.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0 When you are dead you don't know it, it's only difficult for others. It's the same when you're stupid.
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The last couple of times I have looked for things on eBay I have noticed loads of really cheap options with free delivery from Hong Kong or China. Like under a pound. How does that work then? It cannot be a con, hundreds sold and excellent feedback. Even if complete tat surely you cannot manufacture / buy anything and ship it around the world for under a pound. What am I missing?
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
I sometimes buy parts for my model helicopters from Ebay, like five pairs of rotor blades for the price of one pair (of the same sort) here locally. The whole stuff is manufactured there and then exported anyway. I guess the sellers there buy that stuff for mere cents and still make a few cents despite having to calculate shipment into their price.
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The last couple of times I have looked for things on eBay I have noticed loads of really cheap options with free delivery from Hong Kong or China. Like under a pound. How does that work then? It cannot be a con, hundreds sold and excellent feedback. Even if complete tat surely you cannot manufacture / buy anything and ship it around the world for under a pound. What am I missing?
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
I just received a couple of 6' HDMI cables that I bought on EBay from China. The price was great and they work fine. The only down side was it took 2 weeks to receive them. Not that I'm complaining. /ravi
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I bought a watch from China for something resembling 7 or 8 pounds. Got it, everything in perfect order. The clock itself might not be quite as good a quality as the ones you buy here in Europe, but it was ok. And I figured "Well, what the fluck - At that price, it can hold as long as it holds, and then I can buy a new one." It's just about a year ago, and the clock is still ok. Bought a necklace pendant for the missus on ebay as well for 25 Canadian dollars. Said it shipped from Canada. In reality, when it arrived, it came from China. It was supposed to be silver. I don't know if it really is, but it looks good...
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Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the timeJohnny J. wrote:
I don't know if it really is, but it looks good...
I tend to avoid buying anything coming from China that gets in contact with your skin, and that I do not know what it is made of...
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Yep. Two days after I ordered it. Which beats the heck out of the UK postal service, most of the time - which is even weirder since it was delivered by the UK postal service...
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
Clearly they've mastered instant matter transportation AND time travel.
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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The last couple of times I have looked for things on eBay I have noticed loads of really cheap options with free delivery from Hong Kong or China. Like under a pound. How does that work then? It cannot be a con, hundreds sold and excellent feedback. Even if complete tat surely you cannot manufacture / buy anything and ship it around the world for under a pound. What am I missing?
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
Concepts to Consider:
- A shipping broker is sending out out, from mixed vendors, on a continuous basis. Huge amounts of little things can fit in a shipping container or air parcel or whatever.
- Predatory trade practices: selling at a loss to drive competitors out of business. You'd imagine the state has to be in collusion with such a scheme - but that could never happen in China.
- The Original Amazon.com business plan: they lose money on every order but make up for it in volume.
Suggestion: take advantage of the situation by ordering everything in dozens - since you'll need to replace the junk so often.
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Johnny J. wrote:
I don't know if it really is, but it looks good...
I tend to avoid buying anything coming from China that gets in contact with your skin, and that I do not know what it is made of...
So you don't buy any Apple products?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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So you don't buy any Apple products?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Not a single one (True!). I see no point in buying technologies that others do better, especially when they are more expensive.
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The last couple of times I have looked for things on eBay I have noticed loads of really cheap options with free delivery from Hong Kong or China. Like under a pound. How does that work then? It cannot be a con, hundreds sold and excellent feedback. Even if complete tat surely you cannot manufacture / buy anything and ship it around the world for under a pound. What am I missing?
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
I've bought no end of stuff from aliExpress and dx.com, a lot of it where the (free) postage obviously came to much more than the price of the item. Don't ask me how they do it, but it works. You also get stuff a lot earlier, if you buy it directly from China, rather than wait for western companies to import stockpiles of it and have all their price-fixing discussions with other companies -- e.g. I had a kree lamp on my bike at least a year before I saw any available here (for more than double the price). It still works, BTW, but it's not on my bike, any more, because the missus likes using it to hunt snails in the garden (on full, it's brighter than daylight). I can't think of an item I've bought where I was unhappy with the quality -- unlike when I buy from e-bay, where a good quarter of what I receive is disappointing.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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The last couple of times I have looked for things on eBay I have noticed loads of really cheap options with free delivery from Hong Kong or China. Like under a pound. How does that work then? It cannot be a con, hundreds sold and excellent feedback. Even if complete tat surely you cannot manufacture / buy anything and ship it around the world for under a pound. What am I missing?
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
My son bought a hard case for PSP on eBay for £0.99. It arrived from China in about 2 days. It was clearly a knock-off; the logo was not as it had appeared in the photo but just subtly different (different enough, I suppose, to avoid copyright problems). Otherwise the quality was excellent and he was delighted with it but he emailed to complain about the logo. They quickly replied that they were sorry he was not fully satisfied and said they would reduce the price by £1 to compensate. They credited the £1 to his eBay account.
Phil
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