Bottom lime, it’s complicated. It would be a bummer if China stuck taxes on US exports, since it would make it less appealing to buy stuff from there. Folks who have to pay VAT could say something about that as well maybe. I try to buy local (from within the US) as much as I can, but when I can get something that costs $20 stateside from China for like $8, and have cheap shipping (I seldom to never got the AE free shipping amd paid extra for tracking, etc), then I’d do it. But when it gets within like $5 difference with shipping, I’ll buy stateside. Like the Sofirn light from axon, shipped from the US. Total cost was $18, vs $16 buying from their AE store. However, their more expensive lights, like the Q8 or SP36 are considerably more expensive vs buying from China, like $20 or $30 more, amd there are other examples as well of other prpducts.
If only it didn’t bury moon mode so deeply it would be almost ideal.
I just got this in email:
No, I think I’ll wait for the mail carrier to bring it to my house. WTF?
Deliveries to your door aren’t the standard everywhere.
Just received a light from Banggood that I ordered 25 days ago from a CN warehouse.
Remarkable: I did not arrive in a dark-grey bag but in an orange bag with “Banggood” on it…
And there were no Chinese tags or labels, just Dutch ones.
I placed a bunch of Banggood orders for all sorts of products on May 7. All of them have arrived over the past few days (May 29-June 2). So, 20-25 days, which is normal as far as I’m concerned. However, the same can’t be said for Sofirn, where I have orders placed but haven’t even been handed off to a shipper in 8 days. Once a package is handed off to a shipper, there isn’t much a seller can do. However, what happens within their facilities is entirely under their control. Somewhat similarly, sellers DO have choices in who they use for shippers and class of service used. In the USA, I think most people would be willing to say that FedEx Express beats USPS any day of the week.
I’m posting the stats on my orders as a spin-off of threads I’ve seen on other forums, where members were posting how long certain applications were taking to be processed, so we all could get a feel for what’s normal vs. when it was time to be concerned and reach out to resolve it.
I’m getting a lot of mixed messages from AE. My Convoy orders arrived yesterday, after going to San Fransisco, then Portland, OR, then Phoenix, AZ, then back to Portland amd finally to my mailbox yesterday. I have 3 other orders, one from Shockli, two from random stores on AE that are all over the place! Says in customs in Portland this morning then delivered today. We’ll see though. I opened a dispute for the other order that AE denied saying the item is still in transit…
Movement. Order delivered to Pitney Bowes Newgistics today in SoCal. Tracking says delivery on Monday. Once I have it in my hands I’ll breathe a sign of relief and be happy to take a break from China shipping. I guess I’m just not patient enough for it.
Yeh, I held off on a few goodies, too, ’til things shake out.
From Sofirnlight I’m waiting for:
1x Sofirn Q8
1x Sofirn Q8 host
1x C8F 21700 host
2x SP32A V2 host
3x Q8 anduril drivers
1x Q8 diffuser
$40 for a Q8, $11.99 for the host, $5.49 for an SP32 host …
I just got one of my long-delayed orders. The one from March, I think.
No changes.
Parts from Intl-Outdoor:
2020-04-29 12:24USJFK / Despatched to overseas
2020-04-20 23:30HK / Hand over to airline.
2020-04-20 18:01Information Received
2020-04-20 17:15Shenzhen,China / Depart from facility to service provider.
2020-04-16 14:40Hongqiao,Shanghai,China / Shipment arrived at facility and measured.
Flashing kit from Intl-Outdoor:
2020-05-16 00:35Information Received
2020-05-15 23:59Shenzhen,China / Depart from facility to service provider.
2020-05-15 23:30HK / Hand over to airline.
2020-05-12 17:49Hongqiao,Shanghai,China / Shipment arrived at facility and measured.
2020-05-12 17:49Hongqiao,Shanghai,China / 4PX picked up shipment
LT1- no batteries (Sofirn Amazon):
2020-04-09 09:37Nanning City, delivered to air transport
2020-04-09 08:20Nanning City, arriving at Nanning International Exchange Station
2020-04-08 16:18Nanning City, leaving Nanning International Parcel Processing Center, the next stop , Nanning International Exchange Station
2020-04-08 14:17Nanning City, Nanning International Parcel Processing Center has been exported directly sealed
2020-04-08 14:15Nanning City, Export Customs/Security Release
2020-04-07 18:14Nanning City, Export Customs/Security Retention Pending Inspection
2020-04-06 19:22Nanning City, leaving the East China Collection and Investment Department, the next stop , Nanning International Parcel Processing Center
2020-04-06 16:20Nanning City, “East China Solicitors” has received, agent: Wu Shiyi, Tel: 1777777777777777
Buying from China is very problematic at present. I think I will stop & wait for things to improve, it just too hard.
Actually I have lost a parcel ordered from the USA to me in Australia so its not just China.
If there is anything I need I will buy locally, it will be more expensive but I will get order in a few days rather that a few months - maybe.
Shutdown has killed postage everywhere. Locally it took a customer of mine 6 weeks to receive their order.
Mail within the USA has been quite rapid during all of this, faster than normal. My local carrier said he only had 300 pieces of mail to deliver for our area on a day last week. That’s 10% of what he’s used to delivering.
That’s what happened here in NZ. Just wait until it goes back to normal and there’ll be a flood of packages clogging up the system. In NZ, one courier company received 3.5 million packages over 2 weeks once level 4 lifted.
Sofirn has always been good to me.
Recently put in an order from their website and was just checking in to verify the tracking info.
Lan Lee explained 2 1/2 months by “steamer”.
It’s going to be a bit of a different mind set with the hobby for a while.
Two recent orders to country Victoria. One from China (Sofirn) took 18 days, one from Sydney took 8 days. Impressed with China, Auspost not so much. You’re right about delays everywhere.
Well, it’s hard for a clam to drag a fairly big package like that across the seabed…
I had a winning bid for a Twosun knife on ebay two weeks ago. Ebay auctions is how they sell their products. As far as I can tell, Twosun is also shipping from China. I got the knife today in Western New York. I ordered a light from Sofirn nearly 10 weeks ago and have not received the order. Two weeks to get a knife and over 10 weeks and still no flashlight.