[I posted this on another board but thought folks here might find it interesting also]

I do a lot of importing through our graduation cap and gown company.  It can be complicated, but at this point I am pretty good at it.

Out of curiosity, I checked to see what it would cost to import polyhedral dice from China.  These would be the same manufacturers of some of the more common dice companies here in the U.S., at least for their more basic dice.

Here is what I found out:

4sides, 6sides, 8sides, 10sides, 12sides, 20sides [Note: FOB = Freight On Board]
 
1) PRICE for 10000pcs each item (this is the much higher set of prices):
4sides: FOB Ningbo USD0.155 /pc
6sides: FOB Ningbo USD0.12 /pc
8sides: FOB Ningbo USD0.19 /pc
10sides: FOB Ningbo USD0.22 /pc
12sides: FOB Ningbo USD0.26 /pc
20sides: FOB Ningbo USD0.35 /pc
 
2) PRICE for 50000pcs each item:
4sides: FOB Ningbo USD0.06 /pc
6sides: FOB Ningbo USD0.05 /pc
8sides: FOB Ningbo USD0.07 /pc
10sides: FOB Ningbo USD0.08 /pc
12sides: FOB Ningbo USD0.09 /pc
20sides: FOB Ningbo USD0.11 /pc

And here are the pictures they included:



Now those prices are not the final price to get it here (which would be the LDP price, which is Landed, Duty Paid).  You still need to have it put on a ship in the Ningbo/Shanghai port, shipped to the Los Angeles port (or wherever it is going), cleared through customs using an agent, unloaded, warehoused probably for a day or so, loaded, and then trucked to your warehouse, and unloaded.  All of that probably adds roughly another 15-20% to the price, depending on how far you are from the west coast.

So the distributors get an inexpensive set of the traditional 7 dice for about $0.62, plus a couple of cents for a plastic bag and label.

My estimate is for about $4,650.00 you get 50K dice, in packages of 7 dice each, labeled.  Mind you, I did not shop around, or negotiate the price.  This was just the first manufacturer I spotted, so that price might be a bit high.

Anyway, no real point to this, and I am not planning on opening a dice company at the moment.  But, I thought it was the kind of data that some might find interesting.

It, indeed, *is* very interesting. Thanks for that, Mark.

Are the phthalates and carcinogens free?

Damn, I really should stop sucking on my dice.  

Quote from: Mistwell;366662My estimate is for about $4,650.00 you get 50K dice, in packages of 7 dice each, labeled.  Mind you, I did not shop around, or negotiate the price.  This was just the first manufacturer I spotted, so that price might be a bit high.

I would actually say that is a bit low.  Chessex has a "pound o' dice" bag with about 100 dice in it.  That works out to about 500lbs for all those dice, which is another $900 if you go FedEx three day.  If you need it tomorrow, it's $1500.  And that just gets them to your warehouse, where they will have to sit until they are sold.

In regards to re-selling them, that makes the average cost for each die about $.11, or $.77 for the set.  Shipping out a single set of dice is clearly far more expensive than shipping 500lbs of them.  You can probably get third class shipping for about $.50 or so (or about $3500 to ship them all out again), bringing the set up to $1.25 or something.  Which is the cost of a single die in most game stores, but they are not likely buying 50k at a time, either.    Calculating shelf space usage and warehousing is more of an art than a science, but it should be less than shipping them out again.

Not a refutation of your point, just additional data for the calculations.  None of which is applicable if you are sitting on $6k and just want 50k dice for yourself.  

Quote from: StormBringer;366736I would actually say that is a bit low.  Chessex has a "pound o' dice" bag with about 100 dice in it.  That works out to about 500lbs for all those dice, which is another $900 if you go FedEx three day.  If you need it tomorrow, it's $1500.  And that just gets them to your warehouse, where they will have to sit until they are sold.

In regards to re-selling them, that makes the average cost for each die about $.11, or $.77 for the set.  Shipping out a single set of dice is clearly far more expensive than shipping 500lbs of them.  You can probably get third class shipping for about $.50 or so (or about $3500 to ship them all out again), bringing the set up to $1.25 or something.  Which is the cost of a single die in most game stores, but they are not likely buying 50k at a time, either.    Calculating shelf space usage and warehousing is more of an art than a science, but it should be less than shipping them out again.

Not a refutation of your point, just additional data for the calculations.  None of which is applicable if you are sitting on $6k and just want 50k dice for yourself.  

Yeah, being located in Los Angeles, I am used to the prices to truck the cargo from the LA Port to our warehouse, which is a short and inexpensive trip.  Shipping it by truck or train back east or to the mid west is certainly more, and my knowledge of those prices is pretty weak.  So, you may well be right that the price is higher to get it to most locations in the US.

I just checked the import code on dice, and it looks to be HS 9504.90.90.80.  If that is correct, then there is no U.S. duty placed on these items.

I'm actually a bit surprised by that, since the products I deal with always have a duty on them.  But sure enough, it sure looks like there isn't one for dice, or other gambling/gaming related products.

So, that actually lowers the price a small bit.  My guess is the LDP portion adds about $450 or so (looking at an old bill for a similar weight from China, that includes a doc transaction fee, ocean freight bill, trucking fee, customs entry fee, AMS fee (whatever that is), warehouse in/out fee, and other).  So with packaging and labeling that's about $4,500 for 50K dice (to the west coast, not inland).  Or, about $0.09/die.

Having crunched all those numbers to that level of precision I feel like I should do something with it.  But...I don't think I want to be in the dice sales business...

Quote from: Mistwell;366784Having crunched all those numbers to that level of precision I feel like I should do something with it.  But...I don't think I want to be in the dice sales business...

Well, you could be in the dice wholesale business.  Even with your better access for shipping, you will end up with the cost of mailing them out to individual customers.  I have a feeling you probably wouldn't be able to sell them for much less than a few nickels better than anyone else, unless you want to ditch your current work with caps and gowns to spend 12hrs a day bagging 50k dice for the next six to eight months.

Ballpark figures, you would probably make something like $28,000 total if you sold them for around $4 a set, about half what the other guys charge.  I don't know if bagging dice until your fingers bleed and going blind filling out shipping forms is worth just over $2000 a month, though.  

Quote from: StormBringer;366829Well, you could be in the dice wholesale business.  Even with your better access for shipping, you will end up with the cost of mailing them out to individual customers.  I have a feeling you probably wouldn't be able to sell them for much less than a few nickels better than anyone else, unless you want to ditch your current work with caps and gowns to spend 12hrs a day bagging 50k dice for the next six to eight months.

Ballpark figures, you would probably make something like $28,000 total if you sold them for around $4 a set, about half what the other guys charge.  I don't know if bagging dice until your fingers bleed and going blind filling out shipping forms is worth just over $2000 a month, though.  

Gloves and computerized form-filling. The customer fills out data on the website; the computer prints a shipping form. You sign it - Or, stamp it.

That does add a cost of ink/toner.

Quote from: StormBringer;366829Well, you could be in the dice wholesale business.  Even with your better access for shipping, you will end up with the cost of mailing them out to individual customers.  I have a feeling you probably wouldn't be able to sell them for much less than a few nickels better than anyone else, unless you want to ditch your current work with caps and gowns to spend 12hrs a day bagging 50k dice for the next six to eight months.

Ballpark figures, you would probably make something like $28,000 total if you sold them for around $4 a set, about half what the other guys charge.  I don't know if bagging dice until your fingers bleed and going blind filling out shipping forms is worth just over $2000 a month, though.  

Bagging and labeling them is already in the price.  China would bag and label them, in sets of seven.  Though, it's possible I am underestimating the price on that and it would be upwards of $0.11/ea.  So, $27K margin in theory.  But that's not really how that part works...there are always other associated overhead costs before you get to the profit part.

But yeah, I am not looking to be in the dice business.  It was more just a curiosity.

Quote from: Mistwell;366855Bagging and labeling them is already in the price.  China would bag and label them, in sets of seven.  Though, it's possible I am underestimating the price on that and it would be upwards of $0.11/ea.  So, $27K margin in theory.  But that's not really how that part works...there are always other associated overhead costs before you get to the profit part.

But yeah, I am not looking to be in the dice business.  It was more just a curiosity.

Already tagged and bagged?  I'm sold!  

I have poked around a bit in similar corners out of curiosity.  For instance, one games wholesaler offered something close to a 60% discount if your last quarter was $25,000 or more in orders.  Normally books are about half what the cover says, so that would have been a metric shit-tonne of books, dice and accessories.  I don't honestly know how a local game store would move all that merchandise.