Why it's so much cheaper to ship stuff from China than within Canada
CBC
When Neil Pitman was trying to buy a new piece for his pressure cooker, he couldn't believe the price difference between getting it shipped from the United States to his home in Sherbrooke, Que., compared to the cost of it coming from China.
The part would have cost him less than $1 to ship from China. But if he had ordered it from the U.S., it would have cost $22.99 to ship.
"I buy stuff off of eBay reasonably often, and I'm always surprised how much it costs to ship things from the U.S. as compared to from China," said Pitman.
"It costs almost nothing to ship from China. And I'd like to buy American or Canadian. But even from the next province, it costs way more."
Serasu Duran, a University of Calgary assistant professor of operations and supply chain management in the Haskayne School of Business, says it can cost about $5 or $6 per kilogram to ship a package from China to Canada.
"Which is quite cheap," said Duran.
According to Canada Post's shipping rate calculator, it can cost about $24 to send a one-kilogram package between provinces. And it would cost $28.50 to send a one-kilogram package from Canada to China, depending on its size.
The reason for that dates all the way back to 1874 and an international agency called the Universal Postal Union.
It used to be quite difficult to send a letter from one country to another, according to Paulus Schoorl, program manager and policy and regulatory adviser for the Universal Postal Union in Bern, Switzerland.
If you sent a letter through multiple countries, you'd have to pay big bucks, he said. Each time mail crossed a border, it would incur an additional cost for the sender.
"It was awfully complex and difficult to send a letter from one country to another country, actually, sometimes across different jurisdictions or administrative areas," said Schoorl.
That led to representatives meeting in Bern, Switzerland, in 1874 and signing the Treaty of Bern, leading to the creation of the Universal Postal Union. It was an agreement that countries would carry other countries' letters and small parcels for free.
"At that point, it was decided that all the [postal] services are universal service," said Schoorl.
The idea was it would all balance out, with each country helping the other.
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This First Person column is written by Melinda Maldonado, who lives in Toronto. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
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