If you don't mind me asking, does working with an import/export firm give you an idea of how/why international shipping fees would be expensive? I saw you mentioned it an ask.
Hello there dear anon and my apologies for the wait! I find myself unable to answer asks after a day at work, and in the morning I usually don't have time xD So I'm slow with these, sorry :''''(
Especially since this is a very interesting ask, and I'm probably going to ramble about this for pages on end, I'll put the reply under a cut xD
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Okay so, first of all, I think international shipping is as cheap as it is ever going to get about now xD Or at least we're reaching the pinnacle of this cheapness around this time. How corona will affect international shipping together with the ongoing boom in internet shopping are going to affect everything is of course a thing no one can predict xD
I still remember though, back almost 15 years ago, when I bought my first Japanese manga via the order system of a local bookshop who had a policy of ordering any book in the world for you if you only had the ISBN code for it, and I had to wait for over HALF A YEAR for them to arrive to the shop xD In the end I actually didn't need to pay all that much for them, the price only doubled, but as manga is cheap I paid like 8€ per tankoubon (they came via surface which is cheaper). But yeah, back in those days I couldn't even imagine I would one day be buying shit from Japan at this rate xD I don't think Amazon even shipped to Finland back in those days xD
OKAY but back on topic. I do work in an import/export company, but I only work part time so I don't get to handle any of the real stuff xD And even if I were a part of the negotiations between us and freight companies of the Finnish post office at that, I'm sure I couldn't share any real details with anyone outside of our company xD That being said, the basic rule seems to be the bigger you are the better deals you make with those parties :) eg. get shipping cheaper.
I'm by no means an expert on international logistics and trade, so everything I'm going to be saying from now on are just educated guesses xD
I think the highest factors in determining the costs of international shipping and mail on a global scale are international trade deals and the cost of fossil fuels. Our current global trade is made possible by the myriad of free trade deals done between different countries and alliances of countries like the EU for example. EU is basically a free trade area where the cost of shipping is bought down by the lack of border control which leads to lack of paperwork and the lack of customs having to inspect the goods at every border (which ofc leads to crime, too), which makes the process of shipping goods quicker and cheaper as less people are needed to handle the bureaucracy of each shipment. I've been following the situation on EU-UK border with much interest after they left the EU. You can look into it if you want to see how border control/tariffs affects the flow of trade on the EU-rest of the world border.
This system creates different borders of cost for products. For me there's mail withing Finland, then there's European shipping costs, and after that the rest of the world, if I'm sending stuff away from my country. Finnish legislation pertaining international goods coming outside of the EU have also changed quite a lot these past ten years, going from me not having to pay taxes for anything under 48€ (and if the VAT would be less than 10€) to this year's decision of making everyone pay all the taxes for EVERYTHING they order from outside of the EU. This is to curb the flow of Chinese cheap shipments, that have been clogging up our customs for years now.
Then there's all out trade wars like what the US did with Germany recently putting bigger tariffs for cars etc. to block unwanted trade. This doesn't affect us private customers all that much (especially me since I basically only buy stuff from Japan xD), but it hampers international trade and goods flow so it will eventually bleed out to prices of shipping.
Then the fossil fuels. The cost and availability of them is basically everything for our current society, international shipping included. Most of the private customer orders come via airplanes these days, and flying is pretty fuel heavy thing to do. I know before corona we reached another all time high in flights per year, but how things will roll out after corona and now that our fossil fuels reserves are almost depleted, I'm pretty sure the prices won't be coming down a lot anymore x)
Then there is of course the postal offices of each individual country, and the private freight companies that operate next to them. Every post office needs to work under the legislation of the respective country and I've learned over the years that these are wildly different things even within Europe xD I remember buying some doujinshi from a Canadian girl ten years ago and she sent it to me via ship and the surface mail by Canada post cost about as much as an EMS from Japan x)))) Back in the day I didn't know this though.
All in all, international shipping CAN'T be that cheap in the end. The fuel needed, all the people working at various points of the way, the bureaucracy and all that add up to quite a lot of money.
Of course there are companies that offer free international shipping, like Aliexpress and Amazon for example. They do it by first adding the shipping costs into the price of the product itself making customers think they are getting a good deal (no shipping feels good xD), and usually the actual cost of the shipping is flayed from the backs of the underpaid workers of their logistics centres, and the underpaid workers making the products :'''') There are no free meals here either. And of course countries themselves can direct the flow of trade via monetary support paid to companies which will make it easier for example to offer cheaper shipment to customers. I think most countries have these sort of support systems, Finland included (and these are not aimed only at international trade companies!). I'm sure China also supports their international trade companies very heavily. Now we're venturing into global power politics already. It is another important aspect of global trade, superpowers are forever wrestling for control of this lil' planet and the US import blockades for Germany I mentioned earlier are also a part of this. Another one is China supporting their manufacturing and international trading companies to pivot the global (trade) power nexus towards themselves. China is the biggest economy in the world now, it used to be USA, and Japan was on second place.
Japan of course promotes the export of their goods to abroad as much as the next country, but too bad this doesn't extend to the international trade of anime/otoge goodies xD Most of the Japanese entertainment companies are pretty happy with the internal market, not seeking to globalise aggressively when they make good money in the home market. It's a big market too with over 100 million consumers too. I don’t mean there’s no international trade going on, the amount of anime in Netflix alone proves that there is, but it could be a lot more aggressive imho. Us westerners causing an uproar after another from this and that game/manga/anime being problematic or some shit doesn't really encourage globalisation from their part either xD
Whew, I wrote a lot and probably forgot 15 things I've been thinking about these past few days, but I hope this helped :''''D Feel free to send more asks if I didn't make sense xD
