[savoche]

Why should we assume that risk? Without insurance if item is lost or damaged which party would you expect to absorb the loss?

I do understand that, and especially for more expensive items. But I find Europeans and Asians quite often send uninsured (but usually with tracking) and have done so without any input from me. Might be people have more trust in the postal systems here or something, I don't know.

Mind you, I don't say anyone is right or wrong, it's more of a philosophical observation.

[ChrisPlatt]

China's "high quality" goods are a terrific value due to their extremely low labor cost, aka slave wages.
Shipping is a bargain too, since their government keeps cost of postage artificially low to promote foreign sales.
Buying direct saves you even more. Why should anyone in your country make any money to feed their family?

Chris

[asp1880]

I also figured that Europeans would rather deal within the EU (and think I've seen evidence of that in the Marketplace.)

EU buyers prefer EU sellers because EU-internal trading is tax- and VAT exempt. More precisely, VAT and tax are already paid for once in the sellers country and is not applied again in EU-to-EU trade.

Regards,
--Anders.

[keruili]

China's "high quality" goods are a terrific value due to their extremely low labor cost, aka slave wages.

Of course this doesn't take into account that we also must accept that these same slave labor wages are paid to workers to produce goods that are then shipped to our countries and sold at huge markups. Their wages ensure that we can still afford the middle class dream and fund the upper class at the same time, all while we ignore our spiraling national debts that China buys up using the liquid assets of the frugal Chinese working for slave labor wages.
Not sure we want to go there in this particular discussion.