On Mon, 09 Jan 2006 17:55:17 +0000, Michael Plant wrote:

>
>
>> [quoted text muted]
> Mike,
>
> All this makes excellent sense. Better to be safe than sorry. I have the
> China Post rate schedule handy, and what you say about volume is clearly
> true.
>
> Michael

The objective here is "getting a good deal", or "not getting ripped off",
or "being able to make informed decisions about the tea that you are
buying by comparing the actual purchase price of the tea itself".

So, regardless of what the rates are or aren't, you can still negotiate
actual shipping charges based on the official China Post table. Using the
official rate chart can give you, as a customer, something solid with
which to negotiate the delivered price. It can allow you to focus on the
prices of the teas themselves, to decide which tea is a better value or a
more expensive purchase based on the price of the tea itself - if
the vendor is hip to doing this.

So even if the price is more than the published rate, perhaps the vendor
gets a volume discount and that makes up for it.

If you had a friend in China that were willing to ship some tea to you as
a favor, and the price went over the published rate, of course you would
forward h/er the difference.

You may not feel the same sense of obligation with a vendor, but in any
case, I don't see how it could hurt to arrange to pay the shipping fees
listed in the official chart, and then if the actual prices end up being
more, then maybe you can work something out with the vendor to try to
figure out why, and maybe split the difference, or do it differently next
time, etc...

If nothing else, the published rates make a great starting point, and if
they separate the price of shipping from the price of the tea, can help
you as a customer to make more informed decisions about what to buy or not
buy.