But that’s what I’m saying. They talked in one of the articles about entire containers being shipped from China to Amazon directly. They’d have to track country of origin. And if someone else received those goods first, country of origin would still have to be tracked, in theory. It might force Amazon to change how they handle merchandise. I’m just speculating here, I’m no expert on this stuff.
A trade war with China would impact every aspect of our daily lives-- it wouldn’t be limited to Amazon prices, that’s for damn sure.
We know that, but this is a topic about Amazon. Amazon has a unique way of commingling things with their third party vendors… it’s even possible to buy direct from Amazon and get a third party product.
Yes, that’ll be tricky for Amazon. But we’ll all be so awash in misery ourselves in the severe recession that would follow a trade war that it won’t be a major concern at that point.
Oh for sure. I look around my home office right now, and I’d be hard pressed to find something not made, at least in part, from China. Christmas stuff, forget it.
I’m certainly not advocating such a thing, just thinking out loud about how it would impact this particular system.
I’m not sure exactly what future tax/tariff system you’re envisaging, but they already have to track “country of origin” (technically that’s not what we’re talking about, I think). For instance anything over a low value threshold sold into the EU gets VAT added to it at the border (basically like the border adjustment tax), as well as any customs and excise duty. Either it would get imposed CBP at the point of entry, as it presumably does for imported Chinese goods now, or Amazon would have to charge BAT (or whatever) when selling on to consumers as it does in Europe.
I’m thinking about something like the import tax from Mexico that was being thrown about last week. Suppose a similar tax on China. Further, suppose a Chinese knockoff of a US-made product, we’re both sold on Amazon. If a product were sold, I’m suggesting that in that kind of scenario that perhaps those two products couldn’t be commingled in the precise same way they currently might be. Of course, there might be a completely different way around that. This was just a mental “what if”, nothing more.
There already is an import tax on China. It’s not structured in quite the same way as the border adjustment tax being suggested for Mexico is, but that tax looks an awful lot like VAT in Europe, which Amazon already has to deal with.
I don’t believe it’s a straight across the board import tax of something in the ballpark of 20%. I thought it varied quite a bit by product type. And I didn’t think it was anything like a VAT system.
VAT is just a nation-wide sales tax. The import tariff on Mexican goods is completely different; it would be passed down the line to consumers and since our economies are so closely intertwined everybody would end up miserable. China is similar but already has various tariffs as we don’t have a free trade agreement with them.
We’re talking about 3%. I know it’s not Free Trade but it’s not… 20%. That’s a big difference. I mean what are you going to stop using if something went up 3% If something I buy today went up 20% you’d bet I’d think twice about it.
3% one way or the other is enough to cause entire economies to shift and crumble.
If Apple could save 3% realized over a 5 year window making iPhones in Bandung Indonesia rather than Shenzen China, they’d do it in a hot second.
American goods would be similarly tariffed in those countries, too. If China can save 3% buying soybeans from Brazil rather than the US, they will absolutely do so.
And that’s only 3%, where it only counts at massive scale and with commodity items or edge cases. At 20%, everything would change.
no one is advocating for a tax. it was strictly a hypothetical considering ramifications for how Amazon treats merchandise.
I don’t know why you’re taking this to such an extreme like I am the one suggesting it or I don’t understand economics or taxes.
Let’s review what’s going on here.
We have a President who throws around numbers loosely. He suggested 20%. I did not come up with that number, he did, for Mexico. China is another trading partner we have that groups might feel have an unfair advantage considering how hard it can be for a US businesses to do business in China, an their labor is cheap.
3% was used as as example because I believe that is closer to what we actually have in place today, a single digit tax. You’d think this is relevant because you are the one that pointed out it’s not Free Trade between the US and CHINA. So I did a quick search and found it looks like around maybe 2-3%, today.
Then I pointed out that a jump from 3% to 20% would be HUGE. I made no comment on whether or not I think 3% is okay or whether or not any change would make a difference. I am strictly speaking about a hypothetical involving a jump to 20% which is actively being talked about with trade with Mexico.
Then we go back to the Amazon scenario. Amazon is a little unique, and if you read the articles I posted, you’d see why, with what they’re trying to do with business from China and their storefront. In addition, they have a known counterfeit problem with a lot of those counterfeit products coming from China.
So being the masochist that I am, I ordered a brand new 85W Magsafe 2 power adapter for my Macbook through, you guessed it, Amazon. Free same-day delivery and was sold by Amazon (not from the pirates and counterfeiters that appear to sell everyplace else on their site). A brand new adapter arrived, no problems noted.
I figured I would give credit where credit is due.
I appreciate your experience Chris. I am not so pro-Amazon I don’t see their flaws. My sister literally received a wet moldy chair in a brand new box from one of the third party sellers. Her solution has basically been not to ever order anything like that from Amazon again because she figures if it’s got the word gaming in it, our group is more likely to screw someone over like that and Amazon isn’t really addressing this very well.
What keeps me going back after the few not great experiences I have is… they usually make it right via a refund when you do have a problem.
On a completely unrelated note, they’ve managed to completely screw up the vine program 1099-MISC forms this year. It’s the wrong value, and when I mentioned one of my forms should say corrected on it… no clue. I don’t know if that means they didn’t send one to the IRS or if they really don’t know they’re supposed to check that box when they mess up and send a new one.
I just came across a storefront that was selling the monitor I just bought for $320 for $5.12. Yes, five dollars and twelve cents. I looked at the seller profile which has zero ratings and it is selling hundreds and hundreds of products, all for $5.12.
Clearly a scam but I’m not sure I get how it works. Do they buy a bunch of stuff from themselves and then build up a good store rating to start the real scam in earnest?
If I was a criminal, I’d buy it with money I needed to clean.
Stolen credit cards
Other income I needed to clean
However, I can’t think of a single scenario where it wouldn’t make more sense to sell the items for larger amounts of money.
The only explanation is that the commission paid to Amazon it dependent on the worth of the good. I’ve heard commissions as large as a third? If this is the case, it follows that your initial scenario is the most likely.
