Before 2018 changes to the Universal Postal Union rules, the U.S. Postal Service lost roughly 65 cents on every small package shipped in 2017 from China Post, China’s state-run postal service. Credit: Can Pac Swire, Creative Commons
A decade ago, American consumers could find clothes, toys, and appliances that had been manufactured in China stocked on the shelves of major retailers like Wal-Mart and Target. And even if they shopped for some of those goods online, the shipments typically came from stock that was held by warehouses in the United States.
But these days, with American consumers doing more of their shopping online, a growing share of what they buy is coming directly from factories and small businesses that have set up shop on e-commerce platforms like Amazon. These are often individuals shipping goods directly from China, aided partly by the extremely low prices charged by the U.S. Postal Service.
“You can be an entrepreneur in China sending 10 packages a day into the U.S. market on various platforms. And then all of a sudden, you’re doing 2,000 a day, and then 10,000 a day,” says Doug Caldwell, a postal consultant who for seven years worked as a logistics executive in China.
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