Cheap Stuff on Temu Opens a New Generational Divide | Hacker News Reader

Cheap Stuff on Temu Opens a New Generational Divide

wsj.com

12 pointslxm13 comments

…and it’s almost all avoiding any duty on import. Their whole business model is predicated on the huge $800 exemption from import duties that the US has.

But closing that loophole will have some very unpleasant knock-on effects to the course of all the other "import" activities going on at borders.

It's unfortunate but seems like this time, consumers are acting rationally and going for the lowest price possible on the commodities TEMU sells.

NZ had a similar loophole for our 15% GST (GST === our VAT/Salestax) however the loophole was closed by forcing the major overseas online retailers to collect the GST for the NZ government.

I didn't notice any bad effects - although it likely reduced online sales since prices went up by 15% for goods < $600.

In the US, sales tax is imposed by states and local governments. AFAIK, Temu does collect and remit sales tax.

Import duties are levied by the Federal government. Temu's customers are exempt because their orders are under the de minimis limit.

When that "de minimis" limit was introduced, importing singular <$800 orders were probably a lot rarer and/or more difficult. When the average shipment being imported was an order of magnitude or more larger, it wouldn't be worth the paperwork (or the crazy inefficiency in the system from any retailers attempting it).

Technological progress has allowed massive amounts of what are essential non-existent packages to just blast through the system. We are in new territories, and it is maybe time that the rules became updated.

They rely on the vendors to report on the supply chain, so those who are using Uyghurs as forced labor just say they are not, so temu says they don’t.

Lots of money to be made in genocide and slavery.

Most the items exported are not related to uyghurs. There are tons of educated population on the east coast willing to work at lower wages.

From the investigative reports i read temu makes that really hard to tell and offers little to no transparency into the supply chain for their vendors.

The point no one knows what products are made by forced labors, so you don’t know if your money is going to support those operations or not.

https://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=783540530624&w=2NDQ7nPABTi...

Chinese goods have always been cheap? It's just cutting out the middle man

That's something that always struck me as odd when moving from Europe to the US:

The same chinese-imported goods (i.e. those presumably sold relatively directly from the manufacturer under various autogenerated-sounding "brand names" that often disappear as quickly as they show up) on Amazon in the US are just much more expensive here, while quality control, support etc. seem to be the same.

Are Amazon's handling fees just higher in the US or is this a market inefficiency? And if so, who's making the extra profit?

and as mentioned above, all import duties.

That's certainly true, but can't account for the entire effect.

How high can import duties really be, compared to the markups of various middle men?

Even at an extreme rate of 50%, that would only account for a 33% lower price to the consumer – nothing compared to cutting out 2-3 intermediaries adding 20-30% each.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com