Postal prices embed many costs, and are not often broken down, but my
understanding is that inbound customs is very complex.  This
complexity raises the price.

The customs barrier is like a diode with a high resistance in
parallel.  When moving product out of China, it passes the barrier
quickly and cheaply, and then sits waiting to get onto the plane or
ship.  If it has to be moved back through the barrier for rework or
inspection, it is very very expensive.

Other components in the postal prices are the exchange rates, and the
labour costs, although this last one is changing as capacity is
reached.

Australia to US is terribly expensive.

--=20
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/
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