I’ve had many emails over the last few years asking when the product will be available overseas (Europe, etc) again. I’m happy to announce that you can now place orders for the vinyl record frames in Europe. However, the shipping costs leave a fair bit to be desired, because orders will be coming via airmail from Canada.
Maybe a little backstory will be helpful. In 2013, I ran a successful kickstarter campaign to fund a manufacturing run in China. I produced a bunch of units, and started fulfilling orders directly from China to Europe, Australia, and the rest of the Eurasian continent. However, even then I felt a little apprehensive about the project. It seemed odd that the shipping costs from China to Canada were cheaper than if I were shipping within my own country, and they were a fraction of the rates if I were to ship to Europe.
Those shipping prices, along with offshoring manufacturing (which had always been done in Ontario, Canada) made me reconsider this method of business. Sure, I could sell more units and supply more people with this simple little product, but it went against some of my personal principles. Specifically, the overseas shipping rates from China drastically harms domestic industry. Here’s a quick interview with an industry expert, if you’re curious.
So for these reasons, I never made a second manufacturing run in China. I’m not a big corporation with share holders to answer to. I don’t have to play the game if I fundamentally believe the rules of the game are harmful to my community.
The rates posted on the site are below what I actually pay for the airmail. People have become used to Chinese goods shipped basically for free, but those low rates are largely being covered by domestic postal services. This is wrong, and it must stop. China and international business has taken advantage of a program to help the world’s poorest countries, and used it to crush our domestic industries. I will not be complicit.