There is very little thought that goes into the purchase of most household appliances and furniture in regards to the overseas shipping process that was involved to get them to you. Most people buy a product because of the price or a review that was written about it telling them that it is better than any other product. Many of these items make their way to you via overseas shipping from different countries and continents around the world.

Consider, for instance, the new computer that you just bought at the department store in the mall. You got in your car, drove to the mall, and asked a salesman to explain to you the benefits of owning that particular computer, what the price is and if it's negotiable, and if it's in stock so you can take it home with you when you leave. You might have even asked where it was manufactured. But did you ask what route it took to get to your home town? Most people don't.

The truth is that overseas shipping is never really considered in a purchase unless you buy the product directly from a company in another country and require overseas shipping to get it into your hands. When an item is purchased at a local retail store by a home town resident the process that brought it there isn't really all that important to the buyer. What most people don't realize is that the cost of overseas shipping is being transferred to them in the purchase price.

Let's get back to your new home computer. Odds are that it was manufactured in Japan or Taiwan for about ten percent of what you just paid for it. It was packaged up in a cardboard box lined with protective Styrofoam and moved out to a loading dock. Add another five percent to the price. Then it was loaded onto a truck and transported to a departure port where it was loaded onto a ship with thousands of others just like it. Add another ten percent.

The ship, which is most likely owned by an overseas shipping company, transports your computer to an arrival port in your country where it is offloaded onto another loading dock. Add twenty-five percent. Another ten percent will get it to the retail distributor where it is separated from its cousins and shipped to the retail store where it is marked up another forty percent so the retailer can make a profit.

You just paid $1000 for an item that was manufactured five thousand miles away for just $100. The cost of overseas shipping came right out of your pocket and landed in the bank account of a company that is making billions shipping to home towns just like yours. Of course, if you live in the United States, the manufacturing costs to build that same computer locally would have been much higher and the final price probably wouldn't have been much less, but the profits would have stayed in the United States.