It's actually cheaper to buy parts from China than to go to your local hardware store

For my next laser project I needed small wooden knobs. I do not have capacity to easily create them myself. I guess it would take a wood turner and some basic skills?

I started doing research in a selection of my local hardware stores, then on the biggest polish online marketplace - Allegro.

The consensus was I would need to pay roughly around 3 PLN (~0.78 USD) for each knob. I then went ahead and checked AliExpress just for the laugh.

I was not laughing for long as apparently I could order them in 10-piece pack for around 1.5 PLN (that is less than 0.39 USD per piece). And that is including shipping. 🤯

I placed an order out of curiosity and here were are - they arrived from the other side of the planet in just 5 days. They look good for what I need.

What blows my mind is that it appears cheaper for some Chinese producer to sell these & ship around half the globe, than to have them produced locally and transported to the store in Poland.

Then obviously Poland has been growing steadily for decades now, labor costs grows rapidly so does the living standard of some parts of the society.

Do I feel bad for not supporting local manufacturers by overpaying slightly? A bit, yes. But then same thing happens with more expensive stuff e.g. electric cars. They are currently taking Europe by storm just because they are slightly cheaper than say BMW or Citroen.

Interesting times ahead of us, Europeans, eh?

Curious about the actual project? It’s actually going to be a toy for our friends’ toddler. I will drop in a separate post when it’s ready.

— Mar 13, 2025