[shivasaxena]

Good point, but custom duty on a 2€ wine opener is no where close to 10€. As far as I know on such goods it ranges for 0-30%.

Most of it is just outrageous markup since there's no competition in europe(save again for 1€ mom and pop chinese shops).

Not to mention european retailers would get huge bulk discounts on the sticker price of 2€.

[microtonal]

As people have repeatedly pointed out to you, it's not just about VAT and import taxes (do not forget that most European countries have around 20% VAT, which is often also not paid). In contrast to Temu, European companies have to deal with:

- Safety testing to ensure it complies with European laws.

- Liability. If a product causes harm to someone, they can sue you.

- Warranty returns, if a product breaks, you have to repair it or replace it.

- Other returns, at least in the EU you can return a product bought online within two weeks, no questions asked. This should not be underestimated, e.g. for European online clothing stores, this is a significant chunk of their orders. People order three pairs of shoes, try them on and return the pairs that they don't want to keep. Best case, the product needs to be inspected by a (paid) human, worst case they have to trash it.

Temu does exactly none of that.

The reason we have these laws are: companies try to maximize their profits. Getting your house burnt down, your kid lead-poisoned, or getting a broken product without any course for replacement just sucks. So we make companies responsible for what they put on the market. Temu makes money by skipping all of that and externalizing the cost.

[shivasaxena]

> The reason we have these laws are: companies try to maximize their profits. Getting your house burnt down, your kid lead-poisoned, or getting a broken product without any course for replacement just sucks. So we make companies responsible for what they put on the market. Temu makes money by skipping all of that and externalizing the cost.

I'm not against forcing Temu to follow EU regulations. I'm against this trumpian push for protectionism and changing of custom rules or straight-out ban under the guise of health and safety.

> Temu does exactly none of that.

I would say it's arguable since Temu also has returns and often european retailers are selling same exact goods from same factory.

However assuming you are correct, in you mind does it justify a 10 eur markup on a 2 eur wine-opener by esselunga?

It would serve our interests if we redirect a fraction of this outrage on temu/shein on our domestic inefficient retailers since it would motivate them to improve their own logistics and improve supply chain efficiency.

[fxtentacle]

Here's the bill my German company would have to bill for shipping 1 2€ wine opener to 1 EU customer from Asia:

2€ goods (obviously)

+ 0.12€ duty HS 76151010 aluminum-based kitchen household items

+ 0.38€ import VAT

+ 12.50€ processing fee

=> price of 14.94€ and I make 0 profit

The problem in my opinion is not that Temu is paying too low an import tax rate, the problem is that Temu is for many parcels completely circumventing the customs system, thereby incurring costs but not paying their fare share.

Now I could try to import a 1m^3 box with 1000 wine openers, in which case the economics get better:

2000€ goods (obviously)

+ 120€ duty

+ 38€ VAT

+ 45€ processing fee

=> imported price of 2.20€ each

But now I need to warehouse those 1000 items in Germany and re-package them into local parcels for each customer

+2€ packaging material

+4€ postage for local parcel

=> now I can sell at 8.20€ and if I have 0 returns, 0 warranty cases and 0 issues, I'll barely break even.

Calculating in that I might have to deal with 10% returns, I need to charge 9€ per piece. And here's the kicker: If Temu would legally pay customs and deal with warranty and returns accoring to German law, they, too, would arrive at a similar price.

=> The Temu price only works because they deliberately break the law.

[shivasaxena]

ah, what's the 12.50€ processing fee? Is it the DHL processing fees?

> But now I need to warehouse those 1000 items in Germany and re-package them into local parcels for each customer

Yes, it would be infeasible to ship such a low value good. Even on Temu I have to order a minimum of 29€. If you account for that, you should be able to see how a 10€ markup by esselunga/carrefour on imported price of 2.2€ is outrageous and reeks of lack of competition.

> Calculating in that I might have to deal with 10% returns, I need to charge 9€ per piece. And here's the kicker: If Temu would legally pay customs and deal with warranty and returns accoring to German law, they, too, would arrive at a similar price.

Temu now pays customs since the 150€ customs exemption has been gone for years now, and more importantly also the same VAT as your domestic retailer! So the 2€ price for the wine-opener I gave you includes customs and VAT.

For example my order of a few months ago of 38€ included a VAT of 6,09€

I hope you can see my point now that all this outrage against Temu/Shein is based on trumpian style misinformation about VAT and customs and a general "chinese bad, temu bad, we good" attitude which I personally find defeatist and embarrassing.

If we were to spend a fraction of this outrage on how bad our logistics and supply chains are for domestic producers(specially in DE: I used to work in retail dealing with EDI systems of EDEKA/REWE and domestic suppliers) we would be doing some thing productive.

Not to mention things like regulating/fining anti-competitive behaviour by GS1 and others.