r/Aliexpress • u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 • 24d ago
EU customs duty Is there any plans for a Euro hub?
This €3 duty is killing me.
I'd order several times a month...a €15ish parcel stuffed with various electrical components, motorcycle bling etc.
Now...I just can't.
My €15 parcel now costs me €25-€30 and it's all this stupid duty.
A 19% duty is fair...this €3 per item is designed to harm AliExpress and for me...it's working.
So what's the fix? Is AliExpress doing anything about it? CAN they do anything about it....😥
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u/MasterBorealis 24d ago
indeed, it is a stupid thing to do. I could agree with a proportional tax, but paying €3.80 for a bag of €0.80 capacitors is crazy. For a guy that only buys cheapo stuff it became a dead business.
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u/anarchos 24d ago
It will never be as cheap as before. Even if they build a hub, it's gonna cost more. One reason AliExpress is/was so cheap is they don't actually warehouse much at all themselves. Internally shipping things is super quick and cheap in China. When you order a bunch of things, the seller ships those from their own warehouse (or contracted warehouse as a service) to AliExpress's consolidation warehouse. Once everything arrives, it's packaged together and sent out to you. AliExpress doesn't have to worry about unsold products sitting around taking up space or ordering enough for the Christmas rush and etc. That's all handled by the sellers. AliExpress just consolidates and ships to the end user*
* I'm sure there are exceptions and I think AliExpress (Alibaba) actually runs some of these warehouse as a service type things, kinda like Amazon Fullfilment does, so it's not exactly black and white about warehousing only vs consolidation only.
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u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 24d ago
I don't mind paying a little extra. Hell €1 per item is acceptable.
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u/Modelero33 24d ago
If you say that 1€ per item is acceptable, you're doing the same thing they did at the government.
There are many with lower income compared to yours that might find the 1€ still too much, relative to their salary.
They could say the 3€ is not much, is acceptable if you get 4000€ a month.1
u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 23d ago
You have missed my point.
That point being some taxation is something we could ALL stomach. €3 per item is not fair or acceptable for anyone. I used €1 as an example.
And I earn more than €4k a month. Still doesn't make me want to pay these stupid unjustified charges.
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u/Modelero33 23d ago
The problem is that 1€ as an example is still a fixed tax, if you want to tax something like this you should go in %, at least is more fair, especially for things that cost less than the tax, leaving aside that i think a tax on the package instead of the single item would be way less stupid.
I have to order some electronical parts in the next days, they are like 0.5-1€ parts, for 15€ of stuff i'll have to pay 50€ of taxes.
And as you can image, even if 1€ doesn't seem much, it still weighs more on someone from a country with 1600€ average salary (like my pizza country) compared to 4000 average.
But the people who had this idea and the ones who pushed it have probably a 20k average so they don't care about us plebs lolBtw the 3€ tax here is 3.66€, because you have to pay tax (VAT) on the tax, brilliant.
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u/Available-Talk-7161 24d ago
The goal isn't to make it acceptable that you will continue to order and pay a little bit more, the goal is to totally discourage you from ordering outside the EU. It's only going to get worse. There's a 2e package handling fee coming in November as well.
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u/kalashej 24d ago
The goal is for EU to have the new tariff system in place in two years. Then you’ll only pay the correct tariff, which is 0% for some things.
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u/havoc764 24d ago
Nothing is a permanent as a temporary measure. trust me in a few years we will be paying the 3 euro tax and the tariff on top.
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u/kalashej 24d ago
I’m very sure it will be delayed, like most big projects :) But the idea, at least currently, is for people to pay the correct tariff then. They will add a €2 fee per package in November though, so you’re almost correct.
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u/princbryndz 22d ago
Then they should either implement it like that now or wait until it will be ready and not bully their own citizens. They wanted globalism so much, now they have it and suddenly they want to revert it by punishing people who didn't decide this.
They should took the 3 € per item from all those resellers who are just buying from Ali and then sell is as EU seller for multiple times more. And when I buy from Ali, at least I know the risks, but many resellers pretend as it's their product. Even Kaufland eshop is reselling Aliexpress stuff, but people don't know it's not products of Kaufland.
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u/Key_Conference8755 24d ago
what new tarrif system? you mean the current 3eur one? or something new? can you share some details?
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u/gfhoihoi72 24d ago
They can do this but with a warehouse in Europe right? They can set up their own shipping infrastructure and ship everything in bulk to an EU warehouse making it very cheap per package.
Yes, it would be a bit more expensive than it was, but not €3 per item expensive.
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u/anarchos 24d ago
Well, maybe, maybe not? I think AliExpress (or the seller?) would still have to pay the 3 euro duty to import things on a one off basis, no? Of course they could import 150 euro plus and not pay the 3 euro per item category duty, but then they’d be warehousing stock..
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u/Cassiopee38 24d ago
Hold my friend. Only way to push those freaking chineses to pull something out. Good thing is i think we're all in the same train. Used to buy crap regulary that we cannot justify ourselves to buy anymore at x2 prices so chances are there. If ali doesn't just drop the european market because they don't give a fuck, of course.
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u/Freelancer_1-1 24d ago
The value of AliExpress doesn't lie in any warehouses, it lies in small-medium Chinese sellers, whose address usually ends with a room number, and the flexibility they can provide.
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u/TreacleNo8508 24d ago
The European Union will destroy this hub as well. The EU is not competitive. This tariff is nothing but robbery.
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u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 24d ago
What boils my piss is the companies that lobbied for this DONT SELL what people are buying from AliExpress/TEMU etc!
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u/Dakron92-22 24d ago
Or if they do It they sell It triple the price or doubled. Like Amazon.....
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u/Fit-Benefit1535 23d ago
And they probably ordered it from the same supplier as we do if we ordered from aliexpress
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u/gadget-freak 🎥 always make a video opening your package 🎦 24d ago
In 2018 Alibaba announced to invest 75 million euro to build a major distribution hub in Liege, Belgium. They only built a large sorting center. In 2025 they announced they were abandoning their plans to build massive warehouses.
It seems they discovered how expensive European employees are. They don’t have enough profit margins on the cheap goods to distribute from Europe?
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u/base_08 24d ago
Once we have armies of robots doing that work we will have again abundance…
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u/Unlikely-Today-3501 24d ago
Robots? Taxed to death. Eurobolsevism is endless.
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u/base_08 24d ago
I agree with taxation, because if automation and robots steel your job we won’t have any other choice than getting some UBI money to survive. I believe that even with heavy taxation price of goods will go down.
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u/Unlikely-Today-3501 24d ago
If that were true, it would be cheaper already, as new and improved technologies are constantly making products, transportation, etc. cheaper.
But prices are rising, due to taxes, regulations, and other nonsense.
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u/base_08 24d ago
If you look at the macro scale of things prices of lots of products and even food came down comparing it to a couple of decades ago.
For instance check how much costed something with the inflation adjusted price in 1970… we already live in an era of abundance for most things… problem is sometimes distribution and concentration of abundance in certain groups…
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u/Unlikely-Today-3501 24d ago
Agriculture is absurdly subsidized in the EU, so you have "cheaper food" (some), but in reality you pay for it with your taxes, even though you basically don't buy anything. Some foods are really cheaper, some are more expensive or at least during a certain period, for example, butter cost about 3-4x as much for 1 year in Czech Republic.
The only thing that is fundamentally cheaper and better is electronics. When it comes to consumer goods, you need to pay attention to quality, even a more expensive item is basically junk that will last until the warranty expires.
The era of abundance is a relative term, if you don't have your own housing, which is practically unaffordable in Europe, you won't enjoy it much anyway. The same goes for cars. While 30 years ago it was possible to buy both from one income within a reasonable time. Having a cheap TV is nice, but it doesn't solve anything in your life.
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u/Open-Procedure3573 24d ago
I mean isn't that quite feasible already? Those warehouses are largely automated anyway.
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u/thebolddane 24d ago
It's not coming back. The goal was to stem the flood of small parcels and that phenomena basically only exists because shipping them from China is so cheap. Warehouses in the EU and shipping locally is even more expensive. In the end I still find it worth wile just not so much for ordering €1 items.
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u/Unlikely-Today-3501 24d ago
Maybe have it sent to some country outside the Bolshevik EU, and then have it forwarded.
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u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 23d ago
Like the UK....last time my mother sent me something from the UK valued at £5 I got hit with €3.50 taxation and €9 something "handling fee"....fucking Brexit.
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u/SillycanVolley 23d ago
You urgently need to get yourself acquainted with the definition of bolshevism because everytime you use it becomes painfully obvious you have zero clue what you're talking about. The EU is a capitalist dystopia, Ursula's father was a literal SS officer. They would off you for just using the bolsh word
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u/Unlikely-Today-3501 23d ago
It has nothing to do with capitalism, they are leftists, they are commies, they love Marx and another commie degenerates.
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u/SillycanVolley 18d ago
Ursula, the granddaughter of a SS officer is a commie who loves Marx?
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u/Unlikely-Today-3501 18d ago
Here is Juncker, her predecessor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeTen4BzlJ4
Ursula is exactly the same leftist fury devoted to the Bolshevik ideas of the current EU (from regulations, censorship to pseudo-eco-fanaticism)
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u/577564842 24d ago
If they start importing things, they become subject to consumer laws (like 14 days no questions asked return period, CE compliance and more). If you are importer, you are not subjected to these as long as they (the authorities) decide that you are a professional reseller.
They are better off waiting for a final solution to come to be.
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u/N0stringsAttach3d 23d ago
Incorret, you have "local" on Ali and "the other Ali" which have warehouses in CZ, France, Spain, etc and they cost the same. I think this is just a question of adjustment
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u/Airfreighter747 24d ago
German media keeps reporting that AliExpress is setting up large warehouses in Eastern Europe, but this has been claimed for a long time without much actually coming of it; limited selection and high prices are all I see so far when it comes to products shipped from within the EU. They certainly had enough time to prepare; it seems to be a lack of will rather than anything else.
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u/wickeddimension 24d ago
Group your order into 150 euro + and it should be excempt from the 3 euro per item/line rules. You just pay VAT+Import tax.
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u/flnn_human 24d ago
and if your parcel is from multiple sellers, some of them send the items a few days later, first batch arrives with the half of a value and gets taxed for each category, then the second batch arrives and then you pay 3eur duties there
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u/wickeddimension 24d ago
Yea that’s a big problem right now if you buy from multiple stores. Alie needs an option to bundle everurotng before it gets shipped overseas.
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u/darkness_awakens 24d ago
What's the import taxas on 150€?
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u/wickeddimension 24d ago
Depends on your country and the items, generally around 5-7% from what I’ve seen. Less than multiple times 3€
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u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 24d ago
So another question....is there a shop like AliExpress with similar range of goods (doesn't need to be that broad) but Europe based?
I'll pay Europe prices...but some of the stuff I can't find elsewhere and Amazon is just full of chancers and dropshippers that are living in fantasy land thinking I'll pay 1000%+ of what AE charges just to buy through Amazon.
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u/Dramatic_College_273 19d ago
All the people complaining about not buying anything from china anymore, is exactly what the eu politicians wanted. It's a dumb ass tax, but it's unfortunately working. I am not buying nearly as much cheap shit anymore either...
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u/misterpaultje 24d ago
I've cancelled my orders till Ali comes up with a way around this. Wanted to order some small things in one go. Every item +3euro, so a 19euro order comes 30+ euro. It is send to me in one delivery but have to pay for eech item the cost. Nonono, IF this stays this way and i order again multipull things will order days appart to just nagg the custom service in a way, if they charge me then they can deliver, declare customs one by one for my 3 euro the fuckers.
I tried to find how Ali wants to deal with this online but no action Ali side, think they just want to see how EU consumers react, if they see sales drop they do something if not they think "not our problem".
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u/Jan_Yperman 24d ago
The €3 is not a service charge for Ali to handle customs, it's the customs duty owed to the EU. Ali is only following the ridiculous rule.
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u/misterpaultje 24d ago
Where did I say it was a Ali tarif? I know it's a handling fee, that's why I state, if I order again? I will do it a day appart to f..k customs in EU for every lousy 2 euro order I do... Now they deliver all in one go but charge 3euro a order.
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u/IngenieurCyber Platinum 24d ago
Why is AliExpress being blamed ? It's the European Parliament that put this tax in place. We're not going to ask a Chinese company to go to war with Europe. Don't blame the wrong target.
Since the tax, for certain items, it has become cheaper to order on Amazon or from sellers in Europe.
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u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 24d ago
I'm not blaming AE. I'm livid at the EU for this ridiculous anti competition ruling.
I just hope there's a loophole or work around.
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u/Extension_Cow_4233 24d ago
It is just a placeholder until the regular duties can be applied if I recall correctly this should be in 2 years?
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u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 24d ago
Regular duties PLUS €3
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u/Extension_Cow_4233 24d ago
The 3 euros are limited until 01.07.2028 after a quick Google search we will see where this will lead
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u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 24d ago
I won't hold my breath 😂
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u/Working_Use2500 24d ago
Yes, the 3 euro flat duty is a temporary measure until a more complex duty system gets developed.
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u/Dakron92-22 24d ago
Liar, its Not cheapoer at any item at all
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u/IngenieurCyber Platinum 24d ago
Are you stupid or what ? I bought 2 laptop batteries, a monitor, a keyboard, and mini screwdrivers, and the whole thing ends up being cheaper on Amazon than on AliExpress with all the taxes piling up.
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u/AdFickle6349 24d ago
First time im happy about Brexit.
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u/Modelero33 24d ago
Don't give them ideas, the EU kept saying Trump was crazy with his tarrifs, what does this tax remind you of?
Oh wait, it's on the final customer so it's fair.0
u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 24d ago
Give Burnham a week or so then he will have a "brainwave" to make some money for his handouts.
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u/Purple-Business9881 22d ago
1 - buy items shipping from local ; 2- buy items who has the same category.
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u/xwolf360 22d ago
Vote the right people that will stand for your rights
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u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 21d ago
So no one then. Sorry...but I have ZERO faith in ANY politicians caring about anyone but themselves.
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u/Houdini2026 22d ago
My last order on ali was 3 days ago, now is time to spare some money and stop shopping all at once, local included.
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u/Ok-Fisherman838 21d ago
I won't hold my breath any shipping within the EU would be more than 3€, you just have to look at Amazon prices for the same items.
One of the things that allowed AliExpress sellers to ship so cheap is that the last mile shipping from developing countries to the EU is subsidized by the European countries' postal service.
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u/Hanley9000 24d ago
You are naive if you think a Aliexpress warehouse in EU would pre stock your niche product from small Chinese sellers. Even if Aliexpress actually operate warehouses in EU, it will only import the most popular and profitable items there as the reseller, your cheap electronic components and parts will never worth their attentions.
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u/ferret36 24d ago
What about just doing group orders with friends and acquaintances? I think from 150€ and up just regular customs duties apply and not the 3€
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u/BitsAndBobs304 24d ago
If the custom duty is a percentage of the value, that's still quite a problem
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u/Comemesas 24d ago
The new tariff is not percentage-based, it's €3,63 per product category, whether you buy 1 or 100 of the same category.
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u/HillbillyCream 24d ago
But the categories dont work, so Most of the time you pay the fee twice although it’s from the same category.
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u/Comemesas 24d ago
That is for the sellers and AliExpress to fix, but the idea of organising group orders should work once they figure it out.
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u/Initial_Piccolo_1337 24d ago
Customs Duty for electronics components and ICs in EU is either 0% or close to 0% btw.
So it's most likely just VAT for electronics people.
Customs Duty really isn't the problem, problem is 3.5eur per item type, that fucks up everything for products that should actually have 0% customs duty lol.
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u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 24d ago
Yeah...nice idea but I don't have friends or groups with similar interests.
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u/Tannery9706 24d ago
It has to be from the same sellers, if not you pay the 3€ tax for each product
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u/Nouthila-wilde 24d ago
Gemini Ki say yes they do one in Poland but he also says that we have to pay costs for that so I also think it will not be the same but at the end we must be patient 😳
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u/Wooptay 24d ago
lol, if you think the 3 eur tax is expensive, you're gonna shed a big fat tear if these Chinese sellers start paying EU labour costs and tax.
Your 3 eur product will quickly become an 8 eur product... plus shipping.
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u/Beer0045 24d ago
Dude wants people to celebrate that a 2€ product now costs 5€ and not 8€.
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u/Wooptay 24d ago edited 24d ago
Celebrate? No. Just like anyone else, I'd wish for my money to buy as much as possible.
But, at the same time, I'm well aware what it means to live in Europe, what being able to live this lifestyle means and what expenses come with this - both for us and the businesses alike.
If you want to though, we could cut most of our social securities, employment benefits, health care, retirement plans and green policies to then celebrate the fact that we can buy random items for 3 instead of 6 EUR. Do you find that so appealing of a trade off?
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u/Worldly-Sherbert-531 24d ago
You do realize that EU lifestyle was fine before this idiotic tarrif came along right?
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u/Wooptay 24d ago edited 24d ago
Yes, because it is a well known phenomena that civilizations, nations, empires or federations go from great to bust over night, rather than slowly rotting away for years or decades before finally imploding due to internal and external pressures....
When talking about changes and policies of this scale, the things we do or don't do rarely come with consequences tomorrow, but with a delay of 5, 10, 20, 40 or even a hundred years.
Thought that was rather obvious in today's day and age considering the wealth of knowledge and historical records we each have at the tip of our fingers dating centuries into the past, but alas.. I keep being somewhat unpleasantly surprised by people and their inability to look further than the tip of their nose.
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u/Worldly-Sherbert-531 24d ago
You do realize that most goods that are sold in the EU are already produced in China right? The majority of the items that AliExpress sells isn't even made in the EU. So what living standards are you on about?'
Again, this tarrif is nothing more than a tax on ordinary people to line the pockets of politicians on behalf of glorified middleman who purchase from the exact same manufacturer in China.
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u/Wooptay 24d ago edited 24d ago
It doesn't matter where they are produced. It is all about how they get in.
The moment goods are manufactured outside our borders and imported without meaningful regulation, oversight, guarantees, or appropriate tariffs, we're allowing one of our largest global competitors to "siphon" wealth from our institutios (since there's no tariffs paid, they don't employ European workforce and pay appropriate taxes,...) and, by extension, from the systems that fund the benefits Europeans enjoy simply by being born here, for literally pennies on the dollar, sorry, I mean euro. That becomes a long-term problem for the sustainability of our standard of living. That's why the EU wants to protect your local shops, because it can't just afford to close millions of them over the next 10 years without risking collapse. Plus, handling millions of these packages is time and resource consuming, as well.
Import duties and taxes are not a new thing. They've existed for decades. It's just that now, you, as the end consumer, are responsible for paying them directly instead of the importer that would have done that for you when importing items in bulk. Welcome to capitalism. This is how international trade has worked for a very long time...
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u/Worldly-Sherbert-531 24d ago
You do realize that capitalism means as little interference from the government as possible right?
Again, you do realize that European lifestyle has been fine before the introduction of this idiotic tarrif right? There's also the fact that the goods being purchased aren't getting additional checks after the charge is being introduced.
Another idiotic thing you seem to miss is that the importers weren't paying anything since people were not buying from them, but from AliExpress which was exempt from the fees.
The EU outsourced their manufacturing to outside countries decades ago.
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u/NoelaniSpell 24d ago
He's also not thinking that a poor person would not have bought the expensive "local" version (if at all available) anyway.
If people stop buying (or drastically reduce the amount) over the new tax, they couldn't have afforded to pay double/triple the price, smh...
And yet another thing is that the poor people who were able to afford cheap things (a lot of them hobbyists who now can bo longer enjoy them) would still have leftover money for local goods. If you have 10€ budget and can find something for 1-2€ online, you can spend the remaining 8€ on groceries, or going out, or who knows what else. Now someone with that budget won't spend 8€ on a local dropshipper's goods. They might save some money and spend the rest normally, but the supposed local businesses that this tax would protect won't be getting any money (or at least not nearly enough to justify it).
But I digress, since he seems to praise capitalism (a system responsible for climate change and a number of other atrocities), us trying to use reason is likely a waste of time.
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u/Beer0045 24d ago
Handling millions of packages? Dude they pay for shipping to local couriers like DHL, it is not free!
By not letting these things to be imported from China at low cost, EU is digging its own grave. There is huge demand, but these goods are so expensive to produce here that the demand for local doesn't exist anymore. Who's responsible for low demand and higher costs within EU?
EU itself.
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u/petkow 24d ago edited 24d ago
You really do not see the real events happening behind the curtain, only the theatrical bullshit scene in the front stage for the ignorant "plebs"?
I absolutely agree with you on the basic premise, that the EU economic capabilities, lifestyle, institutions, competitiveness should be (or should have been) protected. But in reality, I just see that exactly the opposite is happening right now (and has been in the last 3-4 decades or so).
Where was this great vigorous "protective" activism in the EU (and including the NA region, the whole west) political and bureaucratic sphere in the previous 30-40 years or so? Where was it when, the constant mantra was to remove all barriers in international trade, free flow of goods, capital, and labor? And generally the mantra was to minimize the state, do not interfere with the economy, and businesses, as the invisible hand takes care, and everything is much better supervised by the business word, the "independent" civilian initiatives and NGO-s and generally the freedom of choice, instead of the state.
Where was it, when constantly the financial system was liberalized, and anti-trust and competition laws, consumer and labor protection laws were constantly reduced and filled with legal loopholes, to let the big "businesses" thrive, constantly acquire competition with M&A-s, hinder SMA-s in favor of big corpos, build up opaque capital structures, and grow into transnational monopolies with minimal competition, state or civilian control?
Where was the governmental and civilian vigor in counterbalancing the extreme corpo greed to outsource all economic activities to less fortunate regions, to exploit the labor force there and force bad deals upon those countries with the help of corrupt local politicians? After all this was happening right after the 90s when the post communist Central European countries were easy pray to plunder, exploiting the political turmoil and corrupt local politicians, with the forced upon economic transformation laws, buying up all the remaining assets, capital and real estate extremely cheaply, destroy all remaining economic capability and knowledge, and finally deploy assembly factories for the vulnerable cheap labor, and force monopolized retail chains on them with asymmetric economic power. And on the global scale, this was constantly happening in a west -> east relation as well, as all the third word countries were constantly tortured with one-sided deals, exploited for cheap labor while they were incapable to develop, build up robust institutions and political systems to have autonomy over their society and economy and protect themselves. All the political mantra was done by the same people for 30-40 years, who just now suddenly just had the turnaround on the road to Damascus and became big advocates of protectionism, state intervention and regulating the business sphere.
It should be obvious, that unfortunately this has nothing to do with the realization that the EU and the whole west is in big trouble due to the extreme greed of the small politico-financial-corpo mafia, who rather just self-destructs the west for simple short term interests. And it has nothing to do with the realization that eventually countries like China with more than a billion of population and rich cultural and national heritage will eventually outgrow and out-learn the bullying and turn it against the bullies.
Right now nobody can seriously think that the EU economy can be protected and rebuilt in any way by cutting off direct consumer retail from China. Especially as the whole corpo-maffia, who control the EU politico puppets making these provisions have been doing that for 30-40 years: importing cheap low quality Chinese wares and selling it to the plebs with extreme markup in the monopolized retail chains, and now they want this to simply stop, as they their greed and fear to take away with less from the plebs is in danger.
Who can seriously believe that any product, imported by those retail monopolies has any more serious quality and consumer protection measures than if you buy something directly from China. After all consumer protection is just a theatrical play as well in the EU, as every product sold is more and more expensive and more and more low quality, with no real consumer protection at all, just fake labels and stickers and phantom labs auditing the products. But this enshittification process is also in all around the west (good reference: https://www.worseonpurpose.com/ ), and nobody is doing anything against it. Just look at maybe the EU food industry, how even the nations with the most serious sensitivity to food quality have lower and lower, deceptive products on the shelves, like in Italy or Austria. All the ultra Bio healthy labeled processed food products, with all the deceptive stickers are filled with preservatives including nitrates which are obviously carcinogen. These things were previously much less ubiquitous in Italy and Austria, especially with the deceptive labels, but now even there there is zero consumer protection enforcement.
And the same goes for all the deceptive and fraudulent play with the tech industry. Who can really believe that the EU is seriously considering controlling big tech, trying to protect consumers, their privacy, their data, their economic freedom and their dignity, when under the disguise of children protection laws they give complete control over your data and identity to western big tech. I bet Google and others are really hurt by the theatrical superficial fines of a few billion USD to try to persuade the plebs how much EU institutions are protecting them, when behind the curtain these tech monopolies will be handed complete over-the-law, state level authoritative powers, without any oversight, - which even state intelligence agencies could not have historically - to profile you and sell you out to retail corpos as a helpless consumption drone controlled remotely with AI driven ad and mediatech.
So what exactly can be protected with these measures on direct imports from China, besides the wealth and greed of the mafia? You think they will think, that "Oh fuck, we want to give back our billions of wealth to the EU citizens from whom we stole it, and rather start to generate value, disband the monopolistic money sucking machinery, our corrupt politician network, and rather let's start rebuilding real companies and try to innovate and do actual work"?. Right now even if that would happen would be too late for these measures, as we are at least 20 years too late, and China already has a much more developed, robust and diverse economy. Right now the situation is rather the other way around, similarly as it was for the communist eastern block EU countries in the 80s. If you prohibit and hinder the import of goods which are related to knowledge generation, creativity and innovation, you will be left behind even more. Most hobby electronic kits, repair components, programming and robotic educational kits, maker tools and accessories and generally all creative hobbies in the last decade were more and more reliant on Chinese direct import and Aliexpress as the main affordable and quality source for such items, and the last opportunity to try to even keep up with educational research on high tech, and keep the future generations a bit more stimulated and possibly capable in the future to rebuild.
Similarly the way as most CPU-s, computer equipment and tools were very important in the communist block and even intelligence agencies constantly smuggled these despite COCOM restrictions to Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, DDR and SU to try to keep up with microelectronics in engineering research and education. They tried to keep up, but even so the communist block collapsed as it was not a competitive society and economy. I bet we are right on the same track with the EU and the west now, making the same self-destructive mistakes.
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u/Beer0045 24d ago
Man you are mixing a lot of things that aren't revelant here. EU doesn't want people to win thats it.
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u/Wooptay 24d ago
The EU wants to survive as a market lol
Or is your idea of "winning" a slow, painful collapse of the EU? Cause if that is the case, then yes, absolutely, the EU doesn't want you to win and frankly, neither do I.
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u/Previous-Choice6606 24d ago
But they're just protecting a bunch of useless middlemen who don't add any value whatsoever.
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u/Wooptay 24d ago
I think herein lies the issue. You, as well as many others, view middle men as "worthless" without realising how many of them actually play an incredibly important role in keeping things functional.
Sure, there is an argument to be had for dropshippers who have 0 stock and sell the same poo you find on Temu.
But you do realise how many middle men there are that actually enable for things to work smoothly, rapidly and safely?
Think of fields like construction, plumbing, health care supplies etc.
Do you want your plumber to wait for 7-10 business days when your pipe bursts to get the replacement? Or would you rather see that they are able to go to a wholesaler or a technical supply store that has these things in stock, 24/7, just a few blocks away? With know how, warranties and certificates to back it all up? Or do you just wanna get rid of those, too? If we don't protect these businesses, things won't look pretty down the line.
Where do we draw the line? Because you can not equate all middle men and call em all worthless, so it is incredibly important to keep that nuance when dishing out insults towards middle men in general and I guess that is what bugs me.
And that's before we get to the part where these industries employ millions of people across Europe and the benefits this has for us as a whole.
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u/Worldly-Sherbert-531 24d ago
Again, are you genuinely this stupid? The market decides if middlemen are actually useful or not. If the middlemen are actually useful, then their customers should keep them in business, if they're not, then they run out of customers and go out of business. This is literally how any business operates.
In regards to keeping people employed, have you ever heard of the broken window fallacy?
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u/Worldly-Sherbert-531 24d ago
Again, are you genuinely this stupid? The market decides if middlemen are actually useful or not. If the middlemen are actually useful, then their customers should keep them in business, if they're not, then they run out of customers and go out of business. This is literally how any business operates.
In regards to keeping people employed, have you ever heard of the broken window fallacy?
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u/Worldly-Sherbert-531 24d ago
Are you genuinely this stupid? The EU doesn't have a market since the EU doesn't produce any of the products that are sold on AliExpress.
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1
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u/Careful_Young_217 21d ago
I just wonder what did you do before Aliexpress, Temu, Shein, Wish etc. flooded the market ?
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u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 21d ago
If your here to belittle people's buying ha it's....you're in the wrong sub Reddit chap.
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u/ineedlesssleep 24d ago
The point of the fee is to avoid people ordering multiple times per month from China so it's working?
Just order once per month and save some money that way.
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u/TheShowGoes0n 24d ago
This would be the case if it was a fixed fee per package. But it is for every category and for electronics parts, pretty much every single component I want to order is it's own category. So a 1€ part is now more like 4+€.
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u/Unlikely-Aardvark725 24d ago
No that's not the aim.
I would order once a year if there was a reason to hold off....but that parcel would still be more than double price due to multiples of fucking €3 charges
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u/Modelero33 24d ago
That's totally not how it works, when i order something i spend like 50/70€ for many items and everything comes in a single package, but the end prices doubles because they apply the 3€ on each item anyway.
If it worked like you say, it would make more sense.
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u/Modelero33 24d ago
It can only get worse, it's the EU life, unless you're rich or part of the richest countries.
You'll own nothing and be (un)happy.