i thought the ‘’post office subsidizes chinese shipping’’ thing was going to expire or be terminated this year
i have not really seen evidence though
all i know is, aliexpress still has lots of cheap stuff still with free shipping from china
wle
That american thing with China should not affect the rest of the world and still the ‘free’ shipping stops for all of us. I doubt that it has much to do with it.
I think these Asian platforms have created new pricing algorithms. They have capable, educated staff who calculate what they can get away with.
If we take Gearbest as an example (not blaming them, just an example):
- you can no longer use points, coupons or discounts with flash sales, clearance or discounted items (and there are suddenly a lot of flash sales. Even a price reduction of 1% can be a flash sale)
- free shipping is gone, but the cheapest shipping option is probably low enough to still make the purchase (if shipping is under a dollar most people would still consider buying the product)
- the 0.10 $ flash sales or similar are gone?
- the identical item can be sourced/bought from different merchants that have “stores” on the GB platform. I am assuming they list, sell, fulfill/ship and get rated. GB handles payments acceptance and fund repatriation to Asia, minus their cut. They are a large dropshipper now and I am not sure which/how many items are actually in their own warehouses.
All of this happened over the last 2 years and all the changes came slowly.
Just tested items in my basket on BG and all are with free shipping. Maybe Canada is still ok for free shipping from BG.
EVERY order I get from Liionwholsale there is FREE shipping. Does NOT matter if I buy One battery/charger or Twelve.
There is a catch! 
I live 0.9miles away and go pick up my items! 
There is a 0.06% TAX because I live in Pennsylvania,I believe that is a law throughout the USA,Buy something online[or walk in like me] in your State and you have to pay the sales tax. PA sales is 6%,much cheaper than shipping costs!
I’m finding that at BG & GB sometimes Free Shipping is offered & sometimes not. Many times when it is not offered I can close the page & do it again and Free Shipping is offered??
I can make no rhyme or reason to it…… :person_facepalming: . …
Maybe I will try that trick next time.
/\ It’s random caramba, sometime it works… sometimes it doesn’t. I discovered it by accident & have no explanation. 
They might be tracking the fact that you opened the screen on the item and then went away. Perhaps impulse buyers get hooked for shipping but someone who seems to be on the fence about purchasing something does not.
I used to buy a lot of stuff from Banggood when I was converting my home to all LED but part way through the process realized that the very same item is often available from Chinese vendors on eBay at a lower cost and always with free shipping. What really surprises me is that more than half of what I buy on eBay now ships from somewhere else other than China. I’ve gotten packages from Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines even though it said China for the seller’s location. Sometimes the carrier pigeons they use are pretty slow.
/\… Hmmmm, best explanation I’ve heard so far.
One of my packages came from Solomon Islands. Of course I had to look up that place.
Good thing you didn’t order a baby. You’d end up with a split shipment…
LOL. good one :sunglasses:
I guess their new slogan should be No payin no shippin
So I paid for shipping, and after 10 days I found my first package in the mailbox 
It was supposed to come from a CN warehouse but the envelope was sent with USPS. maybe it came from a US warehouse? or dropshipped by some other 3rd party?
Still waiting for other packages.