Thursday, January 30, 2014

My son learns about the downside of international trade

This morning my son got the bad news, further delays on shipping his printer, this time because it's run into the logistical craziness that is Chinese new year, a fifteen day celebration that this year starts on January 31st and runs 15 days. He won't get his printer until March though the vendors are holding out hope that it'll be late February.

This sort of thing is just one of the many fun problems you run into dealing with international trade. The China price looks really good on paper but actually dealing with them teaches you that the price on paper isn't the only China price you're going to pay. I suspect that he won't be doing business with these people again and will be looking warily at any foreign trade until he's got a great deal more in reserves to fix things if they are delayed.

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