OT - HTF do they do that?

[Dave Baker]

Yonks ago, 2000 maybe I bought a digital camera which I rarely use and not at all for the last 5 or so years after the batteries died. They were 4x AA

1800 mAh NiMH ones and they went all furry and corroded the contacts in the camera and wouldn't recharge. Anyhoo, I decided to resurrect it and went on the search for new batteries online. About £6 plus postage for 2500 mAh ones from most places and a lot more from others.

I don't always remember to try Ebay but this time I did and found these.

for four 3000 mAh batteries which I think is the highest capacity you can actually buy with FREE postage from Hong Kong. I figured it's a scam because the postage alone must cost more than the sticker price but I'm not going to lose much sleep about two quid wasted if nothing arrives so I bid on them. To my amazement they arrived 10 or so days later. They were flat as a witch's tit but after half a day in the battery charger the camera works again and still does a week later. Just going by the time it took to charge them they must have a pretty high capacity so it all looks pukka.

So how does someone make any money at that sort of price with free postage from the far side of the world which it would cost me more than £1.87 to post something to?

[Peter Parry]

Usually by having a bulk standby freight agreement with the HK Post Office. Their packages go as space fillers, sometimes via very circuitous routes and hence at low rates. The downside is you don't know which week your goods will arrive in - the upside is the shipping price is very low.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dave Baker" saying something like:

Cheap labour, no waste disposal costs, un-pukka labels for size, heavily subsidised postage. Any or all, or more of, those.

[Simon Finnigan]

But they still have to buy the batteries, pay for packing materials, staff to do the packing, printer, paper, ink etc. Even if the postage was free, I can't see how it's doable.

[therustyone]

electronics bits are usually dirt cheap to make. Ten years ago it cost less than 50p to make a mobile phone in Taiwan that sold for =A370 in the UK. As long as the order was for a million units that is. All the profit went on distribution, inventory, research etc.

rrusty

[The Natural Philosopher]

the post is subsidised and the batteries are usually 'fails' ie. less capacity than they should be

And of course the markup on anything in Europe is 3:1 and theres vat on that.

[The Natural Philosopher]

two bowls of rice a day and no public sector.

[John Rumm]

Interesting that if you buy 12 packs of those that is 48 cells for 21 quid. However they will do you a pack of 48 at 24 quid. Which suggests that they have not quite got the idea of a bulk discount (or more likely they get very cheap postal rates for small packages)

[Scott M]

Even allowing for that, what about eBay & Paypal fees? Unless they pay a damn sight less than here (currently seems to be about 25%.)

Anyway, I reckon Dave's been done. I've had things from HK for 99p all in ;-)

[Harry Bloomfield]

They get special deals on carriage, often using spare capacity going in generally the right direction. The actual batteries cost peanuts anyway, we pay well over the odds for everything here.

I bought an IR thermostat from Maplin for £30, it was cheap and very nasty, poor quality. I ordered a replacement a few weeks ago from HK for £6 delivered, not really expecting much. Quality is superb.

I do by quite a few things from HK - sometimes the quality is good, sometimes (rarely) not so good. Sometimes they sell knock offs of designs, which are not so good.

[Theo Markettos]

I've done quite a bit of research on eBay batteries, looking at feedback, etc. I'm particularly interested in high capacity D cells, 10000mAh mostly.

There's a noticeable price shelf if you look at the sources. There's the Hong Kong ones, which usually come in an plain unbranded green (sometimes red, sometimes yellow) wrapper and are something like 2.50-3 pounds per cell delivered. There seem to be quite a lot of these, from apparently a variety of sellers. They all have the same style of pictures, which suggests some collusion/selling of the same product from 'stock' photos.

Then there's a large gap, until cells of other brands at about 10 pounds per cell. This gap is rather unusual: I would have expected a range of pricing in between the two camps. And it's not just UK sellers: if you look at worldwide sellers the prices (neglecting postage) are similar.

Going through the feedback of the Hong Kong eBay sellers, I can see various trends appearing:

1. The cells appear to be much lower capacity. For example, 3000mAh AA cells that are actually 500mAh. At the time (a few months ago), I don't think genuine 3000mAh cells were available on the open market (2800mAh were) so this was fishy.
2. C and D cells that are much lighter than they should be: AA cells have been surrounded by filler to make them bigger.
3. Cells that tend to loose capacity after a small number of charges: I suspect these are factory rejects.

After a long time poring over the feedback reports I decided I couldn't trust these with a bargepole. And this morning I received my order of

9000mAh D cells, at GBP4.50 each delivered. GP brand, so a reputable type with a datasheet. And a non-eBay UK supplier, so I can go and moan if they don't work. A much better deal IMHO.

Theo

[PeterC]

So, which supplier? My philosophy is the same, which is why I bought Eneloop AA cells rather than unbranded ones. BTW, the Eneloop last far better in a camera than do good 2.7Ah ordinary cells - I suspect that the internal resistance makes most of the difference.

[fred]

Yes Eneloop are reputed to be pussy's nightwear

Paul Mc Cann

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes. I've come across this with cheap Sub C cells which claimed a capacity far higher than they had. Other thing is they won't deliver anything like as high a peak current as decent cells - very important with a power tool.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Generally, I've found Lidl ones pretty good. Although you do get the odd faulty one. But if it works ok from the start, seem to have a good life and perform well.

[Tim Streater]

Yes, I dunno why the OP didn't just buy Eneloops. I got some from Amazon for SWMBO. They arrived charged and were still showing full charge after nearly a year of regular use in her camera.

[stuart noble]

I just bought a usb mains charger for 99p incl post from Ireland, which arrived the following day. What puzzles me is why The Pound Shop can't or won't sell them when they have all kinds of other basic electronic stuff that would appear to cost more to produce. Same applies to hdmi leads which appear to cost a tenner anywhere on the high street.

[Theo Markettos]

These ones:

be quick, because he only has 10 cards (20 cells) left.

Theo

[Theo Markettos]

Poundland et al do, but they only have N metres of shelf space so can't hold so many different stock units. It's noticeable when they get dumbphone charger cables in that there's usually 'Siemens' or 'Motorola' left: the 'Nokia' cables go pretty fast (note that currently their 'Nokia' or 'Blackberry' USB cables are microUSB, so usable on anything so endowed). Poundland seem to operate on a 'whatever fell off the back of the lorry this week' business model, so the ranges change from time to time as their supplies change.

So of the 99p deals on eBay are, I think, feedback pimping: sell a few thousand 99p gadgets and you get a good feedback rating: that gets you lower eBay fees and a good reputation. And then you can start selling laptops.

Theo

[PeterC]

That's what I was using, but what I found in a camera was that the NiMH still had good voltage when they wouldn't run the camera - still OK in an LED torch for instance. The Eneloop run down to a much lower voltage before they pack up.