Hacker News Reader

Comment by ReptileMan | Hacker News Reader

BuyFromEU is the funniest subreddit there is right now. Unintentionally but still entertaining. EU has managed to paint itself into unenviable corner. I can't buy from EU even thought I want to because for physical goods - cross country shipping costs are prohibitive and for digital - they are either subpar, more expensive or both.

Try this as experiment - try to buy something like precision dowel pins from Poland or DOLD Mechatronik with shipping to Greece, Bulgaria or Romania vs the same thing from Aliexpress or Temu. Chinese costs are cheaper even if they have to fly here.

View on HN

QC / Cheap Shipping / TEMU or AliX Pricing

Pick 2.

Not to mention that from July 1, 2026, the EU is abolishing the €150 duty-free threshold for non-EU shipments. This is specifically targeted at the flood of packages from marketplaces like Temu and Shein.

From July there will be a flat customs duty of €3 for small consignments. This fee applies per category. If your package contains items from different product groups (e.g., a shirt and a cable), you might pay the fee multiple times.

The Goal: To create fair competition for European retailers who can't compete with subsidized shipping and tax loopholes from massive non-EU sellers.

This will obviously have a knock-on effect for larger shipped items which are presumably subsidised at the bottom line by these parcels of fast-fashion and eWaste.

As someone that frequently buys low-cost second hand electronics from Japan, I am a little frustrated about the €3 per-category customs duty. That means a €80 package of various old game cartridges, retro handhelds, digital watches and collectables will now have another €12 to €24 on top of the 21% VAT and €6 handling fee. For an €80 package I am now looking at €15 for shipping and €34 to €46 in import cost. That kills a fun hobby.

>Try this as experiment - try to buy something like precision dowel pins from Poland or DOLD Mechatronik with shipping to Greece, Bulgaria or Romania vs the same thing from Aliexpress or Temu. Chinese costs are cheaper even if they have to fly here.

This is an awful experiment. Only consumers care about delivery costs on deliveries like these, and what you're looking at are explicitly not goods aimed at consumers.

Okay. Then buy pizza oven from Italy and see how shipping costs are 60% of the price of the oven.

Anyway - you seems to misunderstand. If transporting something from Shenzhen to Franfurt is cheaper than transporting the same thing from Krakow to Thessaloniki - means that EU has fucked up royally in its main mission - to facilitate movement of goods. WE have ungodly patch of local carriers and courier companies and a lot of friction in every kind of intra eu goods movement.

> Then buy pizza oven from Italy and see how shipping costs are 60% of the price of the oven

Is it even physically possible to deliver at a significantly lower cost? Pizza ovens are both very large and very heavy, you can't fit many of them in a vehicle. They're also tricky to load and unload.

> If transporting something from Shenzhen to Franfurt is cheaper than transporting the same thing from Krakow to Thessaloniki - means that EU has fucked up

Ummmm. No.

It means the United Nations Universal Post Union international treaties which effectively provide China with subsidised postage TO THE WORLD (as China is a "developing country") needs urgently updating....... Some of the postage you pay to send parcels within the boarders of your own country is used to subsidise crap posted from China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union

UPU reforms were 6 years ago. EU/NA local posts hasn't been subsidizing PRC shipments for awhile. PRC volume vendors dispatching from local warehouses now, they simply sorted out their logistics from mainland to bulk/volume air freight to warehouse to private delivery for last mile to be more efficient than shipping within EU.

Except shipping from China really isn't cheaper than shipping within EU. You just do it from a reasonable hub, or get a third party to handle this for you.

Look at how The Hut Group handles logistics for MyProtein for example.

>You just do it from a reasonable hub

That's not reasonable condition, hence why EU is systemically more expensive.

THG logistics looks like warehouse->dispatch, i.e. it's for vendors of certain size that can prestock at regional warehouse. Private last mile always fast. But it doesn't address first mile to hub. Can a bumfuck workshop in a hamlet deliver in Greece deliver to warehouse in Poland across multiple jurisdictions for peanuts? My understanding is EU first mile is fragmented/slow if you rely on national post and expensive if you rely on private couriers.

PRC has unified mainland logistics, any sized vendor can get any standard sized item, in any quantity and PRC first mile logistics like Cainiao and JD will consolidate for cheap bulk (air)freight to regional hub where last mile is also fast.

PRC mainland->overseas complex is a system with low first mile + low last mile. EU has no integrated cheap first-mile, which raises price on SMEs, i.e. most of producers.

> But it doesn't address first mile to hub. Can a bumfuck workshop in a hamlet deliver in Greece deliver to warehouse in Poland across multiple jurisdictions for peanuts?

Yes, unless they're doing so at a ludicrously small scale. Sending a 20t lorry load from Thessaloniki to Warsaw will cost less than 6000 euros. I suspect it can be done for around 2400, but I don't know the route very well.

>My understanding is EU first mile is fragmented/slow if you rely on national post and expensive if you rely on private couriers.

Yes, it sucks at ultra-small scale. But that's really what that is. The private couriers have super attractive volume pricing, even 80% off public (consumer facing) rates isn't unusual.

So the answer is really no considering vast majorities of SMEs i.e. 99%+ of EU business operates at "ludicrously small" scale that can't fill a container, i.e. about half of EU internal trade. 80% discount off what base price, because if after 80% discount off high priced EU courier rates and final cost more than one euro, PRC still comes out ahead, i.e. PRC domestic first mile prices are like 20-80 cents per parcel. Unless private EU courier rates are 1-5 euros (they're probably not), they still lose to PRC first-mile. (TBF I'm just assuming EU courier prices, my knowledge more limited to PRC logistics). If that's the case, EU simply can't compete, as in EU systemically not capable of matching PRC price floor. Hence IIRC why EU plan to add flat custom duty per item on Chinese parcels to make them more expensive. Like I'm sure many established businesses factor/absorb higher shipping cost into opex, but ultimately shipping cost/friction affects things like startup formation in first place etc.

The reverse is true too. The shipping costs from US -> EU are prohibitively high, oftentimes making ordering stuff from the US a no go. I think only Amazon (for certain products at least) charges somewhat reasonable shipping costs.

China has an enormous leg wrt shipping.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com