One day you decide you need a very short USB cable, 12" to be exact. You go on Amazon and they will gladly send it to you in the next couple of days for around $7. But then you start thinking you do too much of your shopping with Amazon and besides it's not an emergency, perhaps you can save a few dollars? You go onto eBay and find that most people want $10 for the same thing, but they'll get it to you slower.
And then you find it.
$1.88, free shipping, from China? What? You think about it for a while. You start to have visions of an old grandfather in Shanghai yelling out to his grandson in the next room to get "the cable" because it's sold The grandfather neatly applies the label to the plastic envelope, kisses the cable and closes the envelope. A 44-year-oldboy grabs it and runs out of the house down the street to two guys standing next to a motor cycle. They do the handoff and the two guys book it through busy downtown streets to the marina where they briefly argue with the guy who is about to close the last container. Then it takes a couple of months to make it's way to the Port of Los Angeles where it sits in customs for a few more weeks. By the time it finally gets to you it takes you a moment to recall ever ordering it.
The reality is in most cases it will show up in a couple of weeks, if not sooner. Depending on what you order the quality may actually be very good. How does this happen?
ePacket Mail
Usually these are larger companies you are dealing with who are trying to make a name for themselves online. The package has only one carrier, the United States Postal Service. There are insane rates from China which are fantastic, for about the first few ounces. Then as the package gets larger and heavier, well unless you're interested in buying a container load of the product you may as well forget about it. The shipping rates and customs issues make it far too expensive to purchase. ePacket Mail is the same thing as First Class mail which means that anything over a pound needs another shipping method. Thus, if you are buying something that is small and light and can wait to get it you can save a bundle buying from China?
How's the quality, really?
Big picture, China has some of the most state-of-the-art remanufacturing facilities in the world. They can deliver unsurpassed quality or pure junk. It really depends. I find that the more complex something is, more moving parts, or a combination of electronics and mechanical form, and the lower the cost, the worse it is. But, simple little things that usually are cheap and don't weigh much such as a USB cord are fine.
HobbyKing, Turnigy and Durafly
HobbyKing own the Turnigy and Durafly brands, all these brands including HobbyKing fall under the Hex Tronic Ltd. label of brands. Hex Tronic is based in Hong Kong. Tower Hobbies on the other hand is an American owned company that sells in this ever-increasingly competative market. Check out how much out-runner motors cost at Tower Hobbies versus Hobby King.
HobbyKing, China warehouse
Since this is an RC planes devoted website I will talk about a large RC vendor known as HobbyKing. They have warehouses in Europe, China and Portland, OR. If you look on their website you'll see something selling for $49 and you think "That's not bad. I can afford that." After close inspection, you find out that $49 is the price at the China Warehouse. If you buy it from the US location it's $79 and then there's shipping. I made the mistake of trying to buy something all from the China warehouse. I felt that I was saving so much money that I could afford to spend $50 on shipping. And then the shipping was calculated. $250. Shipping would have tripled the cost of the order! On another order I was monitoring the cost of shipping from China, it was only $6. When I put on a simple $4 t-shirt onto the order the cost went from $6 to $35. Ah, I didn't need the shirt.
BangGood.com
Bang-Good sells planes, drones, FPV, and all the parts you need. They also sell fashion accessories, HBA, home and garden, automotive, and a ton of other things. They somehow can ship merchandise that weighs more than a pound for free. How? I have no idea. My gut feeling is that they are willing to lose money, lots and lots of it, just to build a client base in the United States. They do have some warehousing in the United States on various things such as lighting.
Things always seem to be on sale so a good deal can be an even better deal depending on when you buy. There are people who review the items they buy on their site and they don't seem to filter out the bad reviews. Thus, you can get a pretty good idea of what is going on from the reviews. Shipping seems to be fairly reliable.
What does the future look like for China selling directly to American consumers?
We all know the POTUS isn't a fan of China. Unless Tump can cut a good deal with China where he comes out looking like a superstar you can pretty much assume things from China will get tarrifs and higher prices. I can't see things ever getting cheaper than they are now. You may want to stock up all your cheap Chinese goods now.
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