Why do all iPads ship from China?

[jgayman]

I know several folks including myself who have purchased iPads from the Apple store. All of them have shipped directly from China. This seems crazy. You would think Apple would ship a boat load of them to California or something and then ship directly to customers from there.

 

[GoCubsGo]

Why ship from China to CA just to ship to you? Ship from China, where made, to you and eliminate the middle man.

 

[Noumenon]

Why would you expect that?

 

[Kahnyl]

I know several folks including myself who have purchased iPads from the Apple store. All of them have shipped directly from China. This seems crazy. You would think Apple would ship a boat load of them to California or something and then ship directly to customers from there.

Even if they wanted to stock up locally they're just producing enough to sell on to customers and bringing them to CA only to send them to the same end destination anyway would just cause delays. They're being made in China either way.

 

[mojohanna]

3 days by air, 15 days by ocean container. Do the math. They are probably using ocean to stock retail stores and air to ship individual orders (placed on line).

 

[Julien]

I think two reasons.

1) UPS and FedEx compete to give the best price from China (since they are aggressively expanding in the China market).

2) Apple is trying hard to meet demand and container/bulk warehouse shipping would add almost a full month that Apple can't afford.

 

[eq2675]

It's very economical to do this. I've made about 6 purchases on eBay where the seller is in Hong Kong. Items that cost $5 or so. Sometimes they arrive in 3 days.

Why pay someone in the California warehouse that is making $40,000+ to ship the item when you can use cheap labor overseas to handle the whole process.

 

[wyneken]

I think two reasons.

1) UPS and FedEx compete to give the best price from China (since they are aggressively expanding in the China market).

2) Apple is trying hard to meet demand and container/bulk warehouse shipping would add almost a full month that Apple can't afford.

I'd say you're right on.

I've read that one of Tim Cook's first achievements when he came to Apple (where he's now COO and likely successor to Jobs) was paring down the inventory from many weeks to just a few days worth of product. Shipping directly from the factory in China is perfectly consistent with that.