£480 postage on practically ANY Semiconductor from China? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Chris56000
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 10:42:49 pm
content: Hi!Virtually ANY semiconductor device eBay listing from China (I'm not sure they even deserve spelling with a capital "C" if they've all started this game!) has, in about the last two months or so, suddenly got appended "+£480.00 postage" after the price – is this nonsense something recently done by the Chinese Government, or every known seller trying to make a killing on the component shortage?Chris Williams

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 11:08:25 pm
content: Ebay sellers have been playing this game for YEARS! List an item cheaply but then charge an arm and a leg for shipping and hope that the greed fueled buyers buy it without looking at the shipping costs. Ebay finally made a policy against this at least 6 to 8 years ago and you can (or could?) use their reporting systems to report sellers that charged "excessive shipping". But I've noticed that E-bay will not kick any sellers in China off or even take down their auctions, even with MANY repeated complaints.My recommendation is to make a list of the sellers that use this practice and then use E-bay's Advanced Search and add all of those sellers to the "Do not show me items from this seller" list.

author: Chris56000
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 11:15:35 pm
content: I don't think I'd ever live long enough, because of the sheer number of them at it, and it does all seem to have started all at the same time right across the board! – but every listing I see with this "£480" appended I'll report the listing for "Price gouging!"Chris Williams.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 11:41:08 pm
content: I don't think it's a scam.It's a way of saying "we do not ship to the UK, it's too much hassle".The rest of the analysis is up to you.

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 11:41:15 pm
content: From what I can seemostof China's Ebay sellers appear to be the same person, or maybe a group of people working out of one sweat shop, in China. Nearly all of the listings for most items are exactly the same and only the seller's name and their asking price (and now the shipping price!) seems to change.

author: retiredfeline
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 11:47:53 pm
content: Quote from: Stray Electron on January 20, 2023, 11:41:15 pmOr it could be that the items they sell are commodity stuff made by a small number of factories and they use the same photos and mangled writeup. Whatever, they are interchangeable.

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 11:53:48 pm
content: Quote from: Benta on January 20, 2023, 11:41:08 pmI'm curious about why you think that shipping to England from China would be any more of hassle than shipping to the US or other country? I know that England has insane import fees and the like but those are paid for by the buyer and I don't think that they require any extra effort of the seller's part.And certainly not enough hassle to warrant a £480 charge. That's my analysis.FYI I've shipped a lot of stuff to England and to Europe and Japan and the only thing that I have to do is to fill out one simple standard US Customs form with my name and address, the buyer's name and address, the name of the item (it has to fit in an inch and a half space so it has to be SHORT!), the value of the item and if it is a gift or a purchased item. That's it.

author: johnboxall
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 11:56:24 pm
content: Quote from: Chris56000 on January 20, 2023, 10:42:49 pmCould you please reply with a couple of example item numbers?

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 01:32:49 am
content: I hadn't come across this before and the first random item I looked at had free shipping.But I found one fairly easily :https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185681434428However, I see that they also won't ship until 23rd JanThis is Chinese New Year, and it's likely they've put silly prices on to discourage purchase.Try again in a few day's time.

author: Chris56000
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 01:37:52 am
content: Hi!I thought these were all from the same seller but not so it seems!165805722208255890630193185680053864The third one listed (1856. . .) is a common SMD MCP1703T LDO regulator chip!It seems to be the same three sellers in cahoots, (or more likely one with three accounts!), either way he seems to have scalped the entire stocks of things everywhere or possibly has somehow listed all these things and can't supply!There are still plenty of Chinese Sellers offering free or fair postage prices, but certainly nothing chip–wise – I was looking for a Cyclone IV to build a 405–line TV Standards Converter and these clowns appear to have the only ones listed!Chris Williams

author: nigelwright7557
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 01:45:31 am
content: Its classic out of stock move.Saves removing the listing and relisting later.I do it on Ebay when I run out of power supplies.Just add £100 to price and no one buys them.Then when stock come in I drop the price.

author: Chris56000
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 01:45:44 am
content: I did one come across a listing for a Tektronix Mains Transformer in the UK with "£995.00" shipping, but that one turned out to be a simple honest typing mistake on the part of the Seller, who'd simply entered "995" on his keyboard – it was corrected when another potential buyer queried it – the seller had only intended to put "£9.95"Chris Williams

author: Chris56000
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 01:51:07 am
content: QuoteNot a particularly ethical one tho' – it gives potential buyers a bad impression!If they don't want to ship to the UK (in my case) I would rather they said so!Chris Williams

author: DavidAlfa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 05:00:10 am
content: It's a way to keep the listing online when stock runs out, ensuring nobody will buy, instead of deleting it and having to make a new one later on.I mean, you have (Hopefully) two eyes, if you don't see "$480" when paying, then the fault is yours!

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 05:20:06 am
content: Quote from: DavidAlfa on January 21, 2023, 05:00:10 amYeah.It doesn't look right though to buyers (as the thread shows), and it's a long-standing issue with eBay. Wouldn't it be about time they implemented a way for sellers to keep listings but flag some as "out of stock" or temporarily unavailable, so sellers don't have to go through hoops? Jeesh. How hard is it. Or is annoying both buyers and sellers a sport? Maybe?

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 05:49:07 am
content: The other day an Amazon item was £15.99 flat. The next day it was £17 plus a 15% discount voucher check box. The next day it was £17 with a “£2 off” check box.Deceitful marketing lies and mind games. That’s all marketing is - LIES AND DECEPTIONS.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 05:54:26 am
content: Quote from: Chris56000 on January 20, 2023, 10:42:49 pmDo not think you worth that much ! Just use your brain better next time.

author: Chris56000
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 01:13:03 pm
content: I ain't silly enough not to check the postage/shipping before I click b.i.n., and in the case of U.S. sellers, make sure the item is available to the U.K. before buying!As regards the £480 Chinese items it now definitely seems to be one bloke trading under three different accounts! I shall see if the postage goes down after C.N.Y. but I suspect it won't do!Chris Williams

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 04:01:10 pm
content: Quote from: Benta on January 20, 2023, 11:41:08 pmThis. Chinese sellers have always had long lists of countries they do not ship to. For example, countries that are well known to have unreliable postal services, because lost packets then cause hassle to the sellers. Italy was traditionally in this list and since the collapse of Finnish post some years ago, Finland appeared, too, for many sellers.So clearly there is some Ebay-specific bureaucracy going on, maybe Ebay removed the possibility to exclude countries, or made it more expensive somehow, or maybe just more difficult to configure. The sellers are working around a limitation of some kind.

author: DavidAlfa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 04:04:25 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on January 21, 2023, 05:20:06 amYou can actually do that!My dad sells stuff there pretty often, we initially set the stock and as they get sold it eventually shows 0 left, but I think the item gets off the search results...Another damned trick they do, adding several articles, where the one you want costs $50, but also put a $0.10 plastic washer!Then: "Expensive board: $0.10!" It drives me nuts, makes searching so much harder!It feels like walking naked in the jungle (I mean, a f** dangerous jungle where everything wans to eat or hurt you), trying to avoid everything!

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 08:59:31 pm
content: Quote from: Stray Electron on January 20, 2023, 11:53:48 pmIt's quite easy. Both the US and the EU have bilateral trade arrangements with China. The UK does... not.The previous transitional EU arrangements have expired, and the UK has not completed new ones, except the loudly-trumpeted New Zealand deal. (Wow! 0.2%).https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47213842

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 10:02:02 pm
content: If it were a U.S. seller I'd assume their agreement with Altera won't let them charge more than MSRP and they make money off the shipping instead. But this being eBay and China... I'd be more concerned it's a fake.

author: m98
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2023, 12:17:58 am
content: Quote from: Chris56000 on January 21, 2023, 01:45:44 amYea, that also gets me regularly. In German, we use the comma as a decimal divider, but with software, all bets are off. Some use commas, some dots.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2023, 12:28:27 am
content: You can get a DHL/Fedex/UPS account and get china to charge your account number.That way you pay what it costs, end of story. They cant pad out the costs.Best to negotiate the final goods price before you tell them you have a shipping accountIt's pretty common thing to do on alibaba.