Quote from: Phosphorous on September 18, 2014, 05:11:24 PM

Quote from: newguy05 on September 18, 2014, 02:51:35 AM

I honestly don't know how bitmain makes money. The hardware and labor is relatively inexpensive. Probably around $50. But the international express shipping is the killer. Retail price to ship the s3 from china to usa is around $200. I am sure he gets some discount but how much lower can he get? Probably make $50 for each unit sold.

Folks we are close to the break even point now for the 20/28 nm. I foresee many hardware companies cease to operate if the price remains depressed and difficulty continue to go up at 10% a clip. Sit back and watch history unfold.

I have no doubt that it would cost around $200 to ship an S3 from the US to China in 2 days.

However, there is something weird/fishy about what the Chinese pay to ship things. Are there some government subsidies perhaps?

I say this because there are numerous products on eBay priced at $1-2 that ship for FREE from China. Granted it takes 2 weeks or more, but eventually the product transfers from the Chinese to the US postal system for the last half of the journey and I assume USPS gets paid a portion of the shipping cost. It costs me around $2 to send a padded envelope weighing 3oz anywhere in the US. How the heck do these companies in China ship a product to the US for less than $2 + the cost of the product? I know I am talking about USPS vs UPS, DHL, etc., but perhaps there is something that allows them to save on shipping that we don't know about.

that's just china post shipping (similar to usps post office first class shipping here), they have different durations starting at 2 weeks and going all the way 6-8 weeks. The price is very cheap, that's what those ebay sellers are using.

However bitmain ships his stuff 2-3 day express and it's not a small package. So he's not using china post. There are not other options in china. You either go with one of the western shippers or ems, all very expensive.

i honestly dont know how he can make money selling those S3 units so low. Probably just dumping inventory towards the end to recoup the cost. As every minute those miners sit in the warehouse the price drops.