eBay Packing Tape is getting incredibly expensive

[likelikinrocks]

As I write this 11 bidders have bid $61 for two rolls of eBay branded tape located in Australia. The cheapest seems to be $10.22 per roll plus $28.95 from the USA. They seem to be about $30 a roll so I'm going back to the cheap brown stuff until the price gets back to normal.

[11dustyattic]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

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I'll respond to your comment, not directing my reply specifically to you, more a general response to all who have pointed out most of it comes from China anyway.

I'm well aware of that but my point, which seems to have been missed in translation, is that we should be supporting people who live and work in Australia, paying tax, supporting our economy. THAT was my point, not whether it's made in China sheesh. What do  Chinese sellers do for our economy? I mean the ones who don't live here.

in China and yes I agree we all depend on it in one way or another. No denying that

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I should point out that I am not a seller so am not using packaging tape as much as many sellers would.....but we do use it in our business.

I often buy 2 different qualities of tape......a better (hence more expensive) tape for personal use and a cheap as chips tape to repair parcels so they hold together for a few hours between the pickup point and the customer's delivery address.

These days I look for the cheapest tape fit for my purposes.....if it is in Australia I buy it....if it is overseas I buy it.  In the first instance I am supporting an Australian seller as you advocate even if the item was made in China.....in the second case I am supporting my Australian wallet even though the item was still made in China.

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I was being challenged based on my comment, I merely clarified what I meant

[tazzieterror]

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@11dustyattic wrote:

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I was being challenged based on my comment, I merely clarified what I meant

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Just to throw my 2c in, dusty, I thought your intended meaning was clear in your original comment.

Even if a product is manufactured overseas, it's better to source it through a supply chain that allows more money to find its way back into Australian wallets (and goverment revenue) than less, i.e. choose the right retailer.

To the topic in general, I recently purchased 36x rolls of decent quality tape from a seller on that River-Named-Retailer for a tad over $28 inc. delivery (I have a prime membership).

It's marketed as '45 micron Heavy Duty'. I'm on my second roll, haven't experienced any tearing/splitting, the advesive is strong, and it doesn't stink.

[digital*ghost]

@dusty

They have an ABN and are registered for GST (and were before it ever applied to overseas sellers). Everything ships to me from within Australia so it is functionally an Australian business - couldn't say if an overseas company ultimately own it, though.

I have no complaints about the quality of any of their items, but like I mentioned, I wouldn't call this particular tape heavy duty.

[11dustyattic]

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@digital*ghost wrote:
@dusty

They have an ABN and are registered for GST (and were before it ever applied to overseas sellers). Everything ships to me from within Australia so it is functionally an Australian business - couldn't say if an overseas company ultimately own it, though.

I have no complaints about the quality of any of their items, but like I mentioned, I wouldn't call this particular tape heavy duty.

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Okay, that's great. If I needed tons of it, I guess I might search out a seller like that, but I only use a few hundred metre rolls each month or whatever. Depending on how lazy I've been doing listings 😂

[imastawka]

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@tazzieterror wrote:

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@danieh_6 wrote:

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I disagree, If you were a theif and you had to pick between a plain parcel or a parcel with a Am**on Prime logo, which would you pick.

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If I were a stupid thief, I'd definitely pick the Amazonian one. Might get me some toilet paper, or hand sanitzer, or even some packs of spaghetti!

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Aw, come off it you guys!

A real dinky-di thief would take 'em both, no question.

Spoiler

 

[countessalmirena]

digital*ghost,

Do you know anything about Husky Tape? From what I have seen, they apparently have a factory in Sydney.

I would definitely like to see Australia manufacturing more items. Perhaps a focus on genuinely biodegradable packaging materials, including tape, would be worth being focused upon. (All too often, companies offering supposedly biodegradable or compostable materials are playing with words. The product might be compostable in a commercial composter, but not in a home composter, and that would certainly defeat the purpose for me if I were looking at sustainable packaging solutions... I know that's not staying strictly on point, though! However, it could be a point of difference for an Australian manufacturer providing attractive packaging materials to Australian businesses prepared to make biodegradable or compostable packaging part of their overall "green" approach.)

Going Green have a Japanese-made paper packaging tape which is apparently biodegradable. It is not economically priced.

That issue of economy may well make it completely unviable to consider manufacturing packaging tape in Australia. (Hence my thought that value-adding - make it completely biodegradable or compostable - could be a solution.)

[digital*ghost]

I saw them when I decided to have a bit of a google session for Aus Made tape, but that was the first I've heard of them. I must admit I was interested when I saw the biodegradable tape, but am not sure it's a truly biodegradable tape (plus I would need one without a print so I can seal the sides of flat boxes, where the tape usually covers the address). 

I have reasearched biodegradable packaging materials before, though, and there's a couple of Aus companies that supply satchels, bubble wrap and zip-lock bags, the latter of which I use in high volume (also just got in some small recycled paper envelopes to use in place of the bags for some items). You have to be careful, though, as some will list these products as biodegradable when they aren't, the material just breaks down into smaller and smaller fragments, until it's just micro bits of plastic instead of a larger bit of plastic, but there are a few genuinely biodegradable options out there from Aus suppliers (not saying the Husky tape isn't, but they have listed it as photodegradable which isn't a good sign, and just putting a general alert out there to anyone insterested in enviro-friendly packaging to research the options carefully).