Is anyone having problems with deliveries from China? Is Corona Virus delaying deliveries

[gilliabake35]

Is anyone experiencing difficulties with deliveries from China? I ordered something which tracking says was despatched Feb 6 but still have not received it. Is Corona Virus preventing promt deliveries from China and elsewhere?

[tazzieterror]

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@zanadoo_56 wrote:

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@tazzieterror wrote:

The AUD has actually made a pretty quick recovery from its recent fall - I'd no longer regard it as "low", especially given the circumstances.

Please do Australia a favour and support a local business if you do need to order clothing - I'm actually struggling to feel any sympathy given you've complained about one delayed international order, then immediately lamented not being able to place another.

Maybe I'm just cold-hearted.

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I think you are just naive. 

Naive is thinking a high AUD is a good thing when our economy is very much dependent on exports.

What the Stock Exchange and other financial institutions think is a recovery, and the reality of how it translates to overseas purchases by less wealthy persons are like comparing luxury cars to a child's scooter.

Considering the AUD was almost at parity with the US dollar at one stage, we are woefully low in comparison at the moment.  It's not so great against the GBP either...but that has been an issue for much longer.

AUD was never going to maintain parity with the USD - that was an abberation.

If I could find equivalent items and affordable clothing in the right size and styles in Oz I'd be buying them like a shot, to at least get them at cheaper postage (I am housebound) BUT it is NOT POSSIBLE.  The 'local' sellers are not there (eBay and elsewhere) for a lot of what I need to purchase.  I do buy items from Oz sellers....but if you think you can get everything from local businesses you're crazy.

Maybe you can get all your clothing off the rack, but Oz sellers don't make or import what suits and fits me.  There used to be a shop or two that I could buy from but they closed down years ago, probably due to their highly inflated prices.I don't want your sympathy.  I couldn't care less.  What I would like is for people to grasp the concept that on many levels buying from overseas is a necessity.

It's only become a necessity on "many levels" because consumers have shortsightedly chased after the absolute lowest prices that cheap overseas manufacturing and supply can provide, but at the detriment of local production -- try to grasp that conecpt. Disposable fashion is just one of many such examples.

I likewise couldn't care less about the fit of your clothing -- it's not rocket science to get a dressmaker to modify garments in many cases, that what I have to do for most pairs of long pants.

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[lyndal1838]

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@tazzieterror wrote:

Please do Australia a favour and support a local business if you do need to order clothing - I'm actually struggling to feel any sympathy given you've complained about one delayed international order, then immediately lamented not being able to place another.

Maybe I'm just cold-hearted.

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No offense but you are cold-hearted.

Not everyone can afford to buy only from Australia, even if the items are available. 

I have been buying good quality items from China for reasonable prices.....in the $16-$20 range.  To buy the items here in Australia (same brand, same packaging....same everything) I have to pay between $35 and $50.

When I had many years of earning in front of me I might have thought of Australia first but now that I am in my 70s with limited earning capacity I'm afraid my pocket comes first.

[digital*ghost]

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@tazzieterror wrote:

It's only become a necessity on "many levels" because consumers have shortsightedly chased after the absolute lowest prices that cheap overseas manufacturing and supply can provide, but at the detriment of local production -- try to grasp that conecpt. Disposable fashion is just one of many such examples.

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This is really just one side of the dice, though. 

Consumers aren't responsible for manufacturers shifting production off-shore, and they aren't responsible for those businesses seeking to expand into the worldwide market, putting further pressure on manufacturers all over the world to continue to cut production costs. Those production costs invariably start with wages, one way or another, leaving workers who are supposed to be spending money to support their economies shrinking choices with regards to how much they can spend on what. (It also then extends to quality).

Your issue should be with capitalism, rather than the people who have no choice but to participate in it - we all have to participate, which encourages top-down decisions that are then blamed on the consumer to shift the responsibility of those decisions away from those who made them.

Spoiler

Do I sound like a commie? 

[tazzieterror]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

No offense but you are cold-hearted.

Not everyone can afford to buy only from Australia, even if the items are available. 

I have been buying good quality items from China for reasonable prices.....in the $16-$20 range.  To buy the items here in Australia (same brand, same packaging....same everything) I have to pay between $35 and $50.

When I had many years of earning in front of me I might have thought of Australia first but now that I am in my 70s with limited earning capacity I'm afraid my pocket comes first.

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How very sad that you've made that choice, Lyndal.  

[tazzieterror]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

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@tazzieterror wrote:

It's only become a necessity on "many levels" because consumers have shortsightedly chased after the absolute lowest prices that cheap overseas manufacturing and supply can provide, but at the detriment of local production -- try to grasp that conecpt. Disposable fashion is just one of many such examples.

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This is really just one side of the dice, though. 

Consumers aren't responsible...

I'll interject right here to say of course consumers are responsible - consumers choose where (or if) to spend their money...'consumers' is a simply massive demographic with huge influence.

...for manufacturers shifting production off-shore, and they aren't responsible for those businesses seeking to expand into the worldwide market, putting further pressure on manufacturers all over the world to continue to cut production costs. Those production costs invariably start with wages, one way or another, leaving workers who are supposed to be spending money to support their economies shrinking choices with regards to how much they can spend on what. (It also then extends to quality).

Your issue should be with capitalism, rather than the people who have no choice but to participate in it...

It's just lazy thinking to believe prople have no choice!

...- we all have to participate, which encourages top-down decisions that are then blamed on the consumer to shift the responsibility of those decisions away from those who made them.

My issue is with those who expect the most despite paying the least.  Short-term savings are simply deferring the true cost to later years and future generations.

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[south.coffee]

Getting back on track everyone...

Almost all of our airfreight space is under the feet of passengers. No passenger planes equals no freight space.  So with 8 out of 10 passenger planes not flying it's easy to see where the problem lies.  Capacity.  There is too much freight and not enough planes.

Take a look on FlightRadar24 and you will see plenty of cargo planes around working flat out.

Last week it got so deperate a Dreamliner was pressed into service with boxes of medical supplies stuffed in the overhead bins and not a single passenger onboard ?

Your parcel is probably sitting in a crate at an overseas terminal awaiting a plane...

[tazzieterror]

I'm not waiting on any overseas parcels.

[zanadoo_56]

Disposable fashion is just one of many such examples.very difficult

LOL.  I have never cared about fashion.  I wear the same clothes for years...until they can no longer be repaired.  I used to make all my clothes but arthritis in my fingers (and shoulders, knees etc) and trouble with one eye means it has become hard to focus and hard to make my fingers co-operate for fine sewing.

And as for the clothes I now buy - there are two styles of dresses and two of tops and as long as they are available I just buy new ones in those styles but in different colours as the old ones wear out.  Simple.  My income does not stretch to having my clothes made by a dressmaker.  Fashion....pfffft.

You seem to think (from reading your reply to Lyndal) that watching the budget is an optional choice.  I wish....and I'm sure I am not alone.

I can only conclude that you may be very wealthy but feeling the pinch in the current business situation.  But perhaps you sell or make something I won't ever want - from you, China, the US or anywhere.  As I explained, I'll buy Aussie when it is available.  Sometimes it isn't.  I don't know how I or anyone else can make you understand....you are to totally blinkered.

[digital*ghost]

I'll interject right here to say of course consumers are responsible - consumers choose where (or if) to spend their money...'consumers' is a simply massive demographic with huge influence.

Yeah... They really don't. Not in the way you're trying to suggest. Besides which, influence and power are two very different things. If consumers had that great of an influence on poor business choices, and / or bad business practices, Nestle wouldn't exist, plastic rice wouldn't exist. etc

They are presented choices, and they are patted on the back or scolded based on the choices they make, but who is presenting the choices, and why? Supply / demand isn't all there is to it. There's plenty of times supply was created first, then demand was manufactured (De Beers and diamonds is probably the most well known instance of this. Look up what floor cleaner and mouthwash have in common for another good one). 

If workers get less and less compensation for their time (when accounting for inflation), and businesses constantly push a disposable lifestyle (through availability and accessibility) and put scores of people in perpetual need of essential goods, scolding people for doing what they need to just to get through that day, week (or even your year.....) Is missing the bigger picture, IMHO (Besides which, for the truly breadpilled - there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, or in other words, you'd be hard pressed to find products to purchase anywhere that didn't exploit people, animals or the environment in order to be produced, it's kind of arbitrary to care about where the exploitation occurs, especially if in half a breath later you have to care about Australia being reliant on exports for its own economy). 

Corporations / businesses et al are always - always - looking for ways to increase profits and extract more value from their products, their workers, and their consumers. The shareholders of any business don't sit around going "hey, let's pay less for our production costs, so that consumers can pay less:'. No, they sit around going "how can we make more money, how can we reduce costs so that we can profit more". 

[frankwhitecrow]

I have had a problem with an item comming from Taiwan, that they have been given a better rating than China with Covid, have communicated with the seller.. and they don't even know where the item went, looked at one tracking site that gave a wierd status of "recieved pre alert" from it being tracked through a Chines tracking service, that was given that alert way before the item was even sent as the oddest of things.. as shows different date from being sent as an alert a month prior than the items date.

Makes me think that there might be a possibility that the Chinese might be stopping shipping from Taiwan if their free post system is being used.. Im in Australia, and that there might be as well a quarantine, for a period if that Covid worries are still being upheld as for transmitting the virus through items from China or close affiliated countries.. some things are understandable to that of any Virus's transmission, but that tracking should at least say that something is showing as still in transit.. or of the dates shown alignment with that transit.. tracking is important to me, as that it shows me when I can expect something in my mail box.. as to not get stolen.

A lot of things before the virus.. had **bleep**ty tracking.. can we expect things to get worse.

I have now been trying to ebay order based on availability in my own country for a sense of assurance.