So much for trying to find some electrical plugs..
Admittedly electrical plugs are not the sort of thing normally bought through such a site, but it happens that the Chinese CPCS-CCC and the New Zealand NZS 3112 are compatible with each other, and I wanted to get a stock of these Type-I plugs. With spare luggage space, I thought I may as well save on the shipping. Guess again.
It seems that even though AliExpress is a platform for Chinese manufacturers, they don’t actually ship to addresses within mainland China. I’ve come across several theories for this, but they mostly come down to variants of the same theme: Hidden subsidies. One is the way foreign couriers are billed for final delivery, another is that manufacturers get a tax rebate. I’m unsure of the veracity of these, but it is far from the first time I’ve seen tax systems result in unintended consequences.
For all its faults the UK has the world’s most advanced e-commerce market, and once currency exchange and taxation effects are stripped out the prices UK retailers have are usually quite competitive. There are plenty of importers with better contacts than myself in competition with each other, so the margin they can charge for making things convenient for me is well squeezed.