Buying polycarbonate & acrylic sheets from china ocean freight save 60% vs usa

[GVP]

This thread reminds me of the irony - saw a packet of printed "Made in Canada" stickers in a store but clearly marked "Printed in China"....

 

[Techman]

The reason no one else has posted about this is..
The one's doing it are keeping it secret and do not talk about it.
I use wood pieces and it comes in from china cheap. I have to order a nice load of it but its worth it.

 

[aluminumwelder]

Interesting you are the only person admitting it? Dont see the reason to keep a secret
I would love to see th wood pieces but maybe that is a secret too?

 

[aluminumwelder]

Looking for chinese aluminum

My next goal is to find good chineese aluminum supplier. A 20 ft container could last me a year not sure if discount on aluminum will be that great its already pretty cheap!

 

[reQ]

Actually, Yes. Do you want proof? I've ordered pens that are 2x more expensive because they are made in the USA.

They are 2x more expensive, because middle man ordered them from China and marked them up 2x & sold it to you.

 

[reQ]

My next goal is to find good chineese aluminum supplier. A 20 ft container could last me a year not sure if discount on aluminum will be that great its already pretty cheap!

If you are talking about Dibond/ACP, you will see noticeable price difference. In my case $59 per 4x8 ACP vs $38 per 4x8 from China.

 

[bilge]

It seems no one in the party been to China. My little experience on acrylics. Reputable factories in China are very big, they sell the goods through distributors only. Same as west. Acrylics or other plastics sold by weights i.e they make contracts several thousand tonnes per year. If any company sells it by sheets, it is definitely not a factory. Very few brands make pure acrylics. I've used Donchamp, Rongchang and Respect. Others have mixed some other resin in it, have bad odor and fade within couple of years. Even chinese companies prefer western brands like Degussa. Of course buying from China save a lot, if you put quality second. Someone going to try to get from china, only reliable source is sign-in-china.com. If they don't offer that you want, means don't try. This is just my experience after spending 3 full passport to travel to China.

 

[Bly]

I've been shopping for a router and one of the local dealers told me a lot of the aluminium composite board has rubbish in the core so it will blunt your router bits very quickly.
Like anything buyer beware and you usually get what you pay for.

 

[Kentucky Wraps]

Market Price VS. Market Value:

My question is ...are you going to price your product down for the customer with the difference in what you are saving on materials so you can be the lowest price seller or are you going to pocket all that difference?

Reason I ask is if you do the former...you are essentially pricing your jobs based on Cheaper imported materials and therefore making it harder for American manufacturers to compete.
This isn't a "buy American" comment, it is a "market price" comment. If you are changing the way the market is priced because your imported materials are that much cheaper, you are lowering the market price (NOT MARKET VALUE) of the product. This does hurt the industry overall because the product should retain most of it's MARKET VALUE if your'e using the same quality products...even if you are getting them cheaper.

So please, pocket that difference rather than give it to the customer...if it's Apples to Apples.

 

[reQ]

I don't think people with at least half brain would cut their prices due to be able to save on materials... or at least i think that way. In my case i am just saving few dollars on some stuff, but retail price does not change.

 

[andy]

If you are sell cheap Chinese plastic which turns out to be unsafe or faulty in anyway there is no where to hide.... liability is yours as the importer.

We considered reselling Chinese raw materials about ten years ago... we concluded that the savings weren't large enough to warrant us underwriting the quality of an unknown plastics factory on the other side of the world.

 

[aluminumwelder]

come on, get real.,

I've been shopping for a router and one of the local dealers told me a lot of the aluminium composite board has rubbish in the core so it will blunt your router bits very quickly.
Like anything buyer beware and you usually get what you pay for.

LOL, what kind "rubbish" could possibly mess up the router bit more than the actual aluminum does? comeon this is just "trumping" not facts. plastic isn't going to dull a carbide router bit and even if it does. I get my carbide router bits from china too they are a few dollars.

 

[aluminumwelder]

If you are sell cheap Chinese plastic which turns out to be unsafe or faulty in anyway there is no where to hide.... liability is yours as the importer..

Just another baseless scare tactic. all my products are used indoors anyways. I dont' have to worry about stuff fading out in the sun and weather, falling off the front of a store, etc.

Plastic is one of the most durable and hard to decompose products out there. that is why it's clogging up our landfills and oceans.

 

[aluminumwelder]

So I found an aluminum supplier!!!
only issue is US government has a anti dumping tax of 7.37% PLUS 33.18% PLUS regular 5.7%
basically close to 50'% by the time you pay all fees.
this ONLY applies to 1, 3, 5, 6000 series aluminum extrusions.
You can import 2000 or 7000 aerospace grade stuff no problem
or sheet metal etc, and there are other rules too, like it's ok to import if it is a finished product, etc.

here is the link to the anti dumping rules
http://enforcement.trade.gov/frn/2014/1412frn/2014-30662.txt

google Chinese aluminum, and be in for a surprise. china has gone from 10% to close to 60% of world wide production in the last 13 years. USA Alcoa is closing 6 of it's smelting plants, only two left in USA.

we will see if this changes in 2020 which is the next time the custom duties will be assessed.

 

[aluminumwelder]

I don't think people with at least half brain would cut their prices due to be able to save on materials... .

EXACTLY! labor is 75% of the cost of goods anyways, of the 25% that is materials the plastic might be 10% if that of material costs.

 

[reQ]

If you are sell cheap Chinese plastic which turns out to be unsafe or faulty in anyway there is no where to hide.... liability is yours as the importer.

We considered reselling Chinese raw materials about ten years ago... we concluded that the savings weren't large enough to warrant us underwriting the quality of an unknown plastics factory on the other side of the world.

I have 2 suppliers that i use for acrylic/ lexan when i need it "right now". I know owners personally. Guess what, most of their substrates are imported from China. They sell to all western Canada & never had an issue.
In China,its exactly "YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR" Of course you can spend pennies & get crap, but there are bunch of good quality products out there. People are scared to deal directly with China manufactures & they feel "safe" by buying from suppliers who are not scared to import & resell at 2x or bigger mark up.

P.S. been importing from China for a little bit over 3 years now, did not have a single issue yet.

 

[Baz]

Guess what Andy ... Your suppliers are selling you cheap chinese plastic.

 

[Bly]

LOL, what kind "rubbish" could possibly mess up the router bit more than the actual aluminum does? comeon this is just "trumping" not facts. plastic isn't going to dull a carbide router bit and even if it does. I get my carbide router bits from china too they are a few dollars.

Strange my trade router guys have a disclaimer on their page saying they will only cut 3 brands of ACP.
Some brands will ruin a blade cutting one sheet.

 

[Gino]

If you are talking about Dibond/ACP, you will see noticeable price difference. In my case $59 per 4x8 ACP vs $38 per 4x8 from China.

I can beat your Chinese price by a mile and I'm buying locally. Not saying if it's Chinese knock-off or not, but I have no problems with port authorities or having to buy $10,000 at a pop, either. One sheet or more. Get to 6 sheets and it goes down a little more. Go to 25 and it goes down, further yet. Must be a Canadian thing, eh ??

edit: if ya wanna know who, PM me. I'm not making it public.​

 

[reQ]

Must be a Canadian thing, eh ??

Yup, Canada is going nuts with prices. Not related to signs, but... i am renovating my house right now & price of drywall went up from 10 dollars to 13.50, just because Canada does not import it anymore from US, so our Canadian drywall manufacturer decided its a good chance to ramp up the price lol.

 

[Kentucky Wraps]

Will the Donald fix this? Possible.