Postal Service suspends incoming parcels from China and Hong Kong

[JohnRoberts]

I barely remember the last time I saw any WSJ newspaper late or otherwise. Sometime last week.

I just came back from talking to my postmaster about my horrible experience with WSJ deliveries and she mentioned that after the Jackson TV station did a big story last week about how messed up the Jackson mail deliveries were, package flow has suddenly increased.

She said she received 400 packages all at once, like the Jackson sorting center is cleaning out a huge backlog (they had to call in extra carriers to handle all the packages). I don't know what this means for my newspapers. There's probably a pile of them sitting in Jackson right now waiting to get sorted. My postmaster is optimistic that she is seeing a real improvement. For now I will try to embrace that optimism.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

Today after seeing zero newspapers since last week, I received a WSJ (saturday, 4 days late) and my first USA Today ( monday, only 3 days late). I started the subscription to USA today several weeks ago after I cancelled my WSJ. When the USA today never showed up for a few weeks, I restarted the WSJ. So now I've got two newspapers at one time, both a few days late.

Last night on the Jackson TV station there was another news story about the Jackson USPS Sorting Center problems. US Rep Bennie Thompson was on TV talking about how he was on the case and going to fix it. He asked anybody who was still having delivery problems to contact him and tell him about the problems. I went to his website and when they determined that my physical address was not in his district they declined my input.

I went to his facebook page that didn't vet me as one of his voters and posted a brief report about flaky USPS delivery.
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I find it kind of interesting that Howard Lutnick (Commerce Dept secy) has shared some ideas for rationalizing the USPS if it gets moved under his Commerce dept. One thing the USPS can take over is the once every 10 years government census (next in 2030). Instead of hiring 625,000 new workers and spending $40B(?), to mount a one-off personal people counting operation, just have the existing postal workers do it. This is just one good idea. Another suggestion is having the post office serve as a local government contact for Social Security business. This is all just him spitballing ideas without a lot of thought, but I like the way he is thinking to better utilized the USPS' substantial assets and workforce to serve the public.

JR

 

[soulsonic]

I just ordered $40 worth of boards from JLCPCB. We'll see what happens... keeping my fingers crossed that DHL won't be lame.

 

[Gold]

About four months ago I ordered an LCR meter from the bay. I chose the seller because it said the meter was being shipped from Houston. Even though it was obviously a Chinese seller. After a few days I checked tracking and it said it was held up in customs. WTF? how does something from Houston get stopped by customs? I told the seller I didn't believe him that it was sent domestically USPS and I wanted a refund. The seller assured me it was sent domestically and asked if I could wait a week to see if it cleared. I agreed to that. I then agreed to wait another week. After that I asked for and got a refund.

Guess what showed up in the mail today. Over four months later. Uh huh. The meter. The return address says Houston. I have no idea how a package mailed USPS from Houston touches customs? Anyone have any guess as to what happened?

 

[JohnRoberts]

About four months ago I ordered an LCR meter from the bay. I chose the seller because it said the meter was being shipped from Houston. Even though it was obviously a Chinese seller. After a few days I checked tracking and it said it was held up in customs. WTF? how does something from Houston get stopped by customs? I told the seller I didn't believe him that it was sent domestically USPS and I wanted a refund. The seller assured me it was sent domestically and asked if I could wait a week to see if it cleared. I agreed to that. I then agreed to wait another week. After that I asked for and got a refund.

Guess what showed up in the mail today. Over four months later. Uh huh. The meter. The return address says Houston. I have no idea how a package mailed USPS from Houston touches customs? Anyone have any guess as to what happened?

That is very odd. Did the tracking search reveal anything unusual about shipment origination and delays/holds. When I was shipping drum tuners around the world I experienced customs holds when customers were slow or failed to pay duties. I even had one tuner returned back to me from Europe, when the customer did not comply with his local customs officials promptly. I had to pay to reship the tuner to Europe again. He paid the duty the second time. I made zero profit on that sale.
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I have experienced trying to avoid buying from China. Several years ago, I ordered a batch of PCBs from a vendor in Canada and had the order still arrive shipped directly from China.

JR

PS: I have actually visited contract manufacturing factories in China, in connection with my old day job. Trying to boycott all purchases from China is all but impossible. Our government needs to manage this as China does not have our best interest in mind. I expect them to operate in their own self interest, just like we do, but the deadly fentanyl ingredient sales (to Mexican cartels) does not reveal behavior of a good world citizen.

 

[Gold]

That is very odd. Did the tracking search reveal anything unusual about shipment origination and delays/holds.

It said it was in customs without any further explanation. The return address on the package says "Fulfillment Center" with a street address in Houston.

PS: I have actually visited contract manufacturing factories in China, in connection with my old day job. Trying to boycott all purchases from China is all but impossible. Our government needs to manage this as China does not have our best interest in mind. I expect them to operate in their own self interest, just like we do, but the deadly fentanyl ingredient sales (to Mexican cartels) does not reveal behavior of a good world citizen.

This is politics but I'll bite. It is hypocritical to blame others for the huge demand in the US. If we didn't want it it wouldn't be here.

 

[JohnRoberts]

It said it was in customs without any further explanation. The return address on the package says "Fulfillment Center" with a street address in Houston.

There are a number of commercial fulfillment centers in TX. The ASSumption when buying from an EBAY "seller" is that you are dealing with a private individual. Perhaps, but it appears that he could be selling cheap Chinese blow thru SKUs. Over the years I have bought lots of inexpensive Chinese stuff because I'm cheap. I even paid thousands of dollars to have a plastics injection molding tool machined in China.

This is politics but I'll bite. It is hypocritical to blame others for the huge demand in the US. If we didn't want it it wouldn't be here.

This exact same argument is made about drugs.... Not unlike drugs there are multiple factors involved.

I haven't been called a hypocrite lately. I originally went to work at Peavey (1985) hoping to make a dent in the Japanese takeover of US music audio consumer electronics business. During my 15 years in those trenches the target shifted from Japan to China (with other PacRim players Korea, Viet Nam, etc involved).

As I have shared right here multiple times the consumer's self interest has been driving this where made transition. In my experience merchandising gear to American consumers it is impossible to overcome around a 20% price advantage (typical late last century... ask Mackie who invested $M in advertising made in USA before they shifted their own manufacturing ). There were many American dealers and consumers very vocally claiming that they would never buy Chinese (and before that never buy Japanese) made gear. I recall during a visit last century inside a music store in Berlin, Germany, watching German customers happily buying the inexpensive Chinese made gear. German reps and dealers claimed that would never happen.

Historically back in the 1980s the Japanese were more advanced than US manufacturers at using automation to reduce costs and IIRC there was some funny business with the valuation of the Yen vs the USD. That advantage kind of went away in the early 1990s and the Chinese stepped up to be the world's low cost factory floor.

China does not deserve to get special treatment (like deminimus exemption) any more. Perhaps they did decades ago as a developing nation, but they are now a world economic power with expansive ambitions.

JR

PS: did I mention I am cheap... ?

 

[Gold]

There are a number of commercial fulfillment centers in TX. The ASSumption when buying from an EBAY "seller" is that you are dealing with a private individual. Perhaps, but it appears that he could be selling cheap Chinese blow thru SKUs.

I knew the seller was Chinese. I knew the meter was manufactured in China. The seller said it would be shipped from the US. It apparently was shipped from the US but somehow ended up in customs.

 

[JohnRoberts]

It appears that it was shipped from a fulfillment center "located in the US".

FWIW Amazon and perhaps other large importers bring in large volumes of cheap Chinese goods and then sells fulfillment services to small merchants using Amazon's warehouses and infrastructure to execute those transactions.

Customs wrt deminimus (<$800) orders is in flux. I can't predict the future. Collecting the new tariff is suspended until Commerce can get a workable program.

JR

 

[Matador]

What I have seen with most of my AliExpress orders, is that the order goes directly to a re-shipper in the US, who maintains a US address, and intercepts the package and takes care of the customs paperwork, then arranges for 'local' delivery. Someone has to go to customs and actually pick up the shipment and sign the paperwork, but it's hidden from the end-purchaser. I only knew the details because the guy forgot to remove all of the paperwork when he delivered my package. The original "To" address was some dude in LA, and it was signed for and picked up at the port of LA customs department, then shipped by truck up to someone closer to me who actually delivered it. My name or address didn't appear anywhere on any of the paperwork, it was only added last by the person who dropped it off.

I suspect it's something similar to that: the local importer is in Houston, and when you ordered, it was dispatched from the mainland to Houston, at which point it was held up in customs. Obviously they can put whatever on their EBay page, but saying it was "shipped from Houston" was only telling half of the story.

 

[Gold]

What I have seen with most of my AliExpress orders, is that the order goes directly to a re-shipper in the US, who maintains a US address, and intercepts the package and takes care of the customs paperwork, then arranges for 'local' delivery. Someone has to go to customs and actually pick up the shipment and sign the paperwork, but it's hidden from the end-purchaser. I only knew the details because the guy forgot to remove all of the paperwork when he delivered my package. The original "To" address was some dude in LA, and it was signed for and picked up at the port of LA customs department, then shipped by truck up to someone closer to me who actually delivered it. My name or address didn't appear anywhere on any of the paperwork, it was only added last by the person who dropped it off.

I suspect it's something similar to that: the local importer is in Houston, and when you ordered, it was dispatched from the mainland to Houston, at which point it was held up in customs. Obviously they can put whatever on their EBay page, but saying it was "shipped from Houston" was only telling half of the story.

That makes sense. I wish I still wanted the meter. It's a basic $25 LCR meter. When this purchase went south I used it as an excuse to get a DE5000 LCR meter. It's more like a bench LCR meter. It displays ESR, Q and phase angle. It also does 4 wire measurements. It also has a sort mode where you can input a value and a range and it will do go/no go. I've had it for a little while now and I don't think I'll ever need anything better.

 

[soulsonic]

It said it was in customs without any further explanation. The return address on the package says "Fulfillment Center" with a street address in Houston.

They probably use a shipping service in Houston where they first send it from China to Houston and then from Houston to you. I dealt with it going the opposite direction for a customer in Mexico. Anyway, not cool that they would be sleazy with you about that, trying to hide that it still has to be imported first instead of them actually keeping stock here. The place in Houston is probably just a mail forwarding service without a warehouse.

This is politics but I'll bite. It is hypocritical to blame others for the huge demand in the US. If we didn't want it it wouldn't be here.

Yeah, maybe if the government cared so much about fentanyl as they claim they do, they'd start by actually banning its supposedly legitmate use by the medical industry. You could cut off every blackmarket source of it and it would still be legally floating around every hospital and pharmacy here.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Today for a change I got 9 newspapers, 7 WSJ and 2 USA todays. If anything this is evidence of have tangled up my deliveries are. Let's see what happens next?

JR