Modifying the Chinese Shoes Approach to Lower Prices wrote:
The Red Hare 8 Pro is in my shopping cart and it's $70 total before coupons.
My understanding of tariffs is that the tariff is technically paid by the retailer because they are importing the good, but indirectly passed onto the consumer, and cost of the tariff is shared by both parties. Aliexpress would lose a lot of sales if they increased prices because they would no longer be competitive with western brands, so it makes more financial sense for them to keep prices the same and absorb the tariffs. If prices were much higher no westerners would buy from them. The general economic principle is that whoever's supply/demand is more inelastic shares the greatest burden. Demand is very elastic because if they increased prices $20 almost no Americans would buy them, and supply is pretty inelastic because the Americans market for Chinese shoes is pretty negligible compared to the domestic market, and producing the, maybe 1000 or so shoes that Americans would buy doesn't cost that much. Not sure about Taobao. Also not sure why you think tarrifs would be different between Amazon and Aliexpress. They both ship from China.
Amazon has shoes from Li Ning and Anta on offer in the US, for sale by Amazon and shipping from US warehouses, with delivery in several days. Not shipping from China and not then subject to any additional tariffs/duties for the end customer. However, as I noted in my post prices are much more appealing when buying directly from aliexpress, and they offer free shipping so that the price for, say, the Hare 8 Pro is half of the price from Amazon. Sounds great EXCEPT if the postman shows up at my door asking for another $50 to cover tariffs. Hence, my questions.
In poking around this afternoon it appears that if you use aliexpress standard shipping there is no additional unexpected payment for the buyer. I'm going to try to order the Hare 8 Pro from aliexpress and see how it goes. It would make all of this easier if aliexpress would very clearly note this repeatedly for US buyers. There are many, many US buyers who used aliexpress before and would continue to do so now if it were crystal clear that no additional duties/tariffs would become payable after the order is placed.