If you’ve purchased a Mac or iPad from Apple, you may have wondered why it shipped from China, rather than a local warehouse or retail store.

The majority of Apple’s products are assembled in China. For this reason, shipping them to customers directly from the factory is usually much cheaper than sending thousands of units to sit in warehouses across the globe.

Now, this isn’t the case with certain products like AirPods or other accessories, since those are considered off-the-shelf items that local Apple Stores can keep in stock fairly easily but other, more complex products like Macs and iPads…