Amazon put most of their domestic sellers distributing imports out of business when they opened their market for direct shipping to their customers from China. Not only did US sellers have to pay to import the goods through customs but they were subject to inspections and testing to make sure they were safe. China got Epackets delivered by the PO for around 80 cents on light psckahes while US sellers had to pay regular postage costing from $4 to $6 to delever as close as down the block. E packets from Chins had no import duties or inspectinns in most cases on packages valued under $800.
it's even worse than this. look up the brokerage scandal. they use a huge series of brokerages to claim multiple shipping containers of stuff was a bunch of small shipments under the limit. the bills of lading presented to customs would show the separate brokerages addresses, but the brokerages would just have forwarding in place all to amazon warehouses. so the containers/pallets would get unloaded, and shipped straight to amazon. it's why the de minimis exemption was eliminated entirely... because they were abusing the shit out of it.
Amazon put most of their domestic sellers distributing imports out of business when they opened their market for direct shipping to their customers from China. Not only did US sellers have to pay to import the goods through customs but they were subject to inspections and testing to make sure they were safe. China got Epackets delivered by the PO for around 80 cents on light psckahes while US sellers had to pay regular postage costing from $4 to $6 to delever as close as down the block. E packets from Chins had no import duties or inspectinns in most cases on packages valued under $800.
it's even worse than this. look up the brokerage scandal. they use a huge series of brokerages to claim multiple shipping containers of stuff was a bunch of small shipments under the limit. the bills of lading presented to customs would show the separate brokerages addresses, but the brokerages would just have forwarding in place all to amazon warehouses. so the containers/pallets would get unloaded, and shipped straight to amazon. it's why the de minimis exemption was eliminated entirely... because they were abusing the shit out of it.