Graham Sutherland / PolynomialLCSC should do a thing where you can put a bunch of stuff in your basket, then link it to a JLC order as a parts consignment, so your parts and boards all get get bundled together and you save on shipping costs.
R@gsuberland we were told that they allegedly stopped doing that because it complicated something about customs/tariffs. don't have a citation though
multioculate@r @gsuberland also missing a citation, but that's also the version I heard: one parcel = one tariff ID number (perhaps because of something the states did?), so now you have to declare what vague purpose your boards serve and they can't bundle orders between the mechatronics/LCSC/PCB sites, even though they have a common payment infrastructure
@multioculate @gsuberland what we heard was that it was actually not-the-States that was responsible -- something about how they started pre-collecting/pre-paying EU/UK tariffs?
(IME the US doesn't really care about properly collecting these tariffs if you're "small enough" and not actually doing importing/dropshipping as your actual business)
@r @multioculate ah, yeah, assembled boards and components have different tax codes, so maybe that complicated it.
@r @multioculate although you say "stopped doing that" - did they ever do it? I don't remember such a service
@gsuberland @r they did, at least once upon a time...
Apparently March 2019 was the cutoff:
https://easyeda.com/forum/topic/How-to-combine-boards-JLCPCB-and-components-LCSC-into-a-common-order-cc0f3ff5fc0845839af9f37910bca742
210561 ✨ [Q]@r @multioculate @gsuberland this is all possible to do with sufficient bookkeeping, you just need to know which seller is responsible for which bits of each order and report that all appropriately
or one just collects VAT on behalf of the other as an online marketplace
@q @multioculate @gsuberland look, basically no Asian vendor trying to figure out how to operate in the West will have the necessary autistic catgirls on their staff s.t. they can do that (possible market opportunity? 😹)
@r @multioculate @gsuberland its not fucking difficult, like two more columns on the invoice of VAT amount (almost always the same number) and seller, then sum over that
@q @multioculate @gsuberland okay brb shipping you off for a sabbatical in mainland China for a year /jk
Sconient@gsuberland they kind of do that already. If you place a PCB order, then a parts order, there's an option to waive the shipping cost of the parts order. They still get shipped separately though.
At least they did that the last time I made an order. They may change that policy at any time...
@Sconient huh? the only thing I'm aware of is assembly order consignment.