At 05:18 AM 29/01/2013, you wrote:

> > The cheapest air-freight rate that I  found was a new  pre-booked
> > baggage rate just introduced by Air NZ a few eeeks before I used it.
> > If you phone in hours to days before the flight you can book excess
> > baggage at a arate far far below normal excess baggage rate. I bought
> > back 46 kg of goods and stuff as  "pre-booked  baggage" . First 23 kg
> > was AFAIR about $NZ100  $US80 or about $US3.50/kg =3D about 6 to 7 time=
s
> > lower than courier rates. The second bag was about $NZ150 / $US120 or
> > ~=3D $US5.20 kg.
> > Average for the two was about $US200/46 kg =3D $4.35/kg or 5 to 6 times
> > lower than courier (or airmail).

That's very expensive compared to real air freight rates. I think
rates are currently around $3.x /kg to North America from Asia,
which is quite a bit further from Asia than NZ. You don't need to
be Apple to get this kind of rate, just to be spending maybe $10K a year
on shipping stuff.

> > Sea freight is cheap. I think something like $80/m^2 China-NZ. That's
> > approximately free for small items. If you want less than a container
> > full it may cost you slightly more.

In fact, there are a lot of mandatory little charges that add
to the cost on sea shipments (marine insurance, destination charges,
local delivery, penalties if you don't get it through customs and out
of the bonded area in a couple of days). Double cheap is still
probably cheap, but you also have to take into account that it
takes a couple weeks longer than the advertised sailing time to
schedule a vessel and get the stuff through the port and overland
to a bonded warehouse.  The importance of old-style documents
such as the Ocean Bill of Lading and the Marine insurance docs is
emphasized. The cost of a container is kind of the net-net-net price.
> >
> > EMS (China postal and courier service) are about the same cost as
> > Fedex / DHL / UPS for air freight small items and in fact were dearer
> > than eg UPS above a certain weight. (The two depots in SEG area in
> > Shenzhen were nearby(as you'd expect)) and I checked latest prices at
> > both. BUT EMS had a rate which I had to pry out of them as they seemed
> > t think that nobody would want to use it at far less than air freight
> > (10% or less?)  with about 6 weeks sea freight delivery. That pricing
> > is consistent with what one sees on parcels from Asia - BUT they are
> > sent by air. Finding the answer would be worthwhile.


You might find this interesting:-
http://www.sendfromchina.com/shipping

A lot of this is sort of market inefficiency. Digikey can ship stuff
to me overnight from the middle of the N. Am continent, ordered
at 8:59pm EST and delivered next-day before noon for $8
including customs brokerage and delivery with a smile to the door.
A one-off shipment would probably cost 5-10x that much, using one
of the same couriers (they have used Purolator, FedEx and UPS).

--sp



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