The cost of shipping is out of control. I had to ship a pair of hockey gloves and a hockey helmet weighing in at a total of 4 pounds, and it cost $70. The guy told me it was the size of the box that determined the price. He said the weight didn't factor in until it went over 40 pounds. Sent from my SM-G920V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I don't disagree that the shipping companies need to make a living. I don't begrudge them that one bit. The problem I have, like others have said in this thread, is when a small part can be shipped fairly inexpensively and instead the seller puts it in a ginormous box and the shipping cost twice what the part does - that is simply BS. Sellers should be looking for ways to ship as inexpensively as possible. If they do they will have more business. Simple as that. Shipping can and does make or break a sale.
My daughter in law works for the airlines and she gets a discount from FEDEX for her private shipping.
I dropped a package off at UPS the other day and the woman asked how I wanted it shipped. I commented that it was going to Las Vegas and I didn't think they had any ships going there. I received a "you dumb SOB look."
I don,t use the Ebay postage calculator, i have the local post office price list next to me . We have worldwide flat rate, just 2 zones Europe or World. Size does,nt matter, it,s weight classes here. If i have a fragile item i advertise that it will be sent in double boxes up to the weight limit of a certain class. Sometimes i have gone back home with a parcel to cut a flap of a cardboard box to get it into a lower weight class. BTW we get our boxes free at the supermarket, it,s called recycling. I won,t send a box out that has cigarette names all over it. I,ve sent antique car parts all over the world , even India, Pakistan , Russia , Iceland, Greenland, Egypt. Global hobby . We don,t have those 3rd party parcel shops here like you do in the U.S. You know, the ones that bump up the postage rate 3 times and then they bring it to U.S.P.S. themselves and pay the standard rate. Here parcels can be presented at most big DIY stores or newsagents, collection is 6PM. Not to keen on adds that say almost nothing except "photo is part of the description " but if you need the part you have to act. Then there,s the BuyItNow , if we use that we must give a price of 40% over the minimum asking price. If i sell on Ebay here they get 10% and thats not including PayPal. Selling after the auction is better, then i can give the buyer that 10% or more discount and they pay straight into by bank account. Sorry RYAN if this post is to long and off topic.
I'm an "averages" guy. Some items need a devised package that I lose on. Assembled packaging, with wood, adhesives, sprayed foam, peanuts, respite of tape, whatever. Others not so much. A simple dropped priority mail box, and out the door easy. Love those. In the big picture, your wanted item, saves you "ass time" .... ie: driving to/flying to/walking to and from said part and party. Just a stroll to your front door, or mailbox. On another note, a lap dance, from a hot momma in a Dallas strip club is $20. So I guess your part and a 3 minute crotch wriggle is what you seek. Instead of looking high and low for maybe weeks on end for something just a nominal shipping charge away. I'm a "little guy". I totally see a big company just saying "f#ck it, we'll screw everyone on shipping". It's hard to find a company with a per order, shipping expert ...different sized parcels, custom packaging to save face, and customer dollars. Imagine the labor costs for "that" guy. Re-inventing the wheel sometimes a dozen or more times a day. Better to have one twiddling their fingers, and just over-charging one and all. Profit margins in a stamp licking.
I shipped an inline 6 cam, new in box, then boxed over with tons of bubble wrap using ebay GSP. Buyer in Sweden received 2 half cams, just in manufacturer box. It seems Pitney Bowes unboxed my shipment to make it smaller/cheaper (even though buyer paid them an arm and a leg based on my size/weight info). What a huge mess... I dropped out of GSP immediately after that experience. Now, back to shipping cost debate...
I only charge my customers the exact amount that the USPS charges me. The last thing I want is for them to feel gouged over shipping. I can spend a half hour wrapping and packaging an order carefully so that it makes it to them undamaged. Then there is the travel time to and from the PO. The way I see it is that my customers are already paying good money for their item, reasonable shipping costs in a timely manner is just a part of good customer service. making money off of shipping and handling is shifty business.
Doesn't make sense to lose money on shipping either. You have a unique product that you can factor in the additional costs to cover your time and materials to balance it out guys selling the same part that 30 other guys are selling are probably working on much slimmer margins and need to charge more than just the shipping cost to cover their other costs related to shipping. Some definitely pad that but you won't last long in business not charging for materials and an employees time to pick, pack and ship if you are working on smaller margin items. I factor in the total cost to get an item and figure out if that is worth it to me. I don't care how much the company is making on shipping if I think the total price I am paying is worth what I am getting.
I've got a growing stash of parts that I don't need, mainly because of the selling/shipping hassles. It's currently easier for me to work an extra couple hours here and there than it is to sell/ship.
I have posted this before, but I think it needs to said here. In a former life, I had a small computer company that specialized in custom software for small to medium sized distribution companies. Almost all of the software packages we supplied had a sophisticated shipping cost mark-up function. They also included modules to analyze the extra profits generated this way. Since it was over 20 years ago, I don't think it's talking out of school to tell you that, for some of my customers, more profit was generated by marking up shipping than by actual product sales. I never heard that any of their customers complained about it. I am sure that we never changed the software to reduce this practice. It's now 20 years down the road, and I can only imagine what's going on these days! Also, you may not know that UPS, at least, offers significant discounts to their larger customers based on volume. This explains to me why so many of these outfits use UPS rather than USPS flat rate packages that would probably provide substantial savings to their customers. Marking up a discounted cost can yield a lot of profit.
I have lived on the big island of Hawaii for along time, talk about getting screwed on shipping ! I,was told by one vendor we only ship 2nd day air by that they mean it gets to Honolulu which is 600 miles from my house. I got fed up with paying more to ship than buy. Now I do my home work and know how to ship the item the cheapest way. I call the vendor make it clear that I will buy only if they can ship it at a price I state . Some vendors won't do it ,others go out of their way to make it happen .Here's an example a complete 32 ford axle hairpins brakes first shipping est. around $5000. told the rep find a way to get it here cheaper and you get the sale . He said give me few days comes back with $1200. I bought it .Had a guy in AZ ship a big block mopar to my door for $ 250 .
Problem is that's corporate-speak. Customers simply view it as being gouged. They expect rightly or wrongly that the price is the price, and shipping a necessary evil, not a "system of leveraging our synergies."
Do we really need a thread about shipping costs everytime someone orders something from Mac's or Ecklers?
try ordering tri five parts from danchuck. It's a nightmare. I once had an $80 order for a couple brackets and a few other smaller items, shouldn't have weighed more than about 2 lbs, when i calculated shipping the total was $148. I said screw this and bought sketchy non branded parts off ebay instead.
Try paying freight to Alaska. does not mater if it is small or large , it is ridiculous either way. I am sure the guy's in Australia, and New Zealand know what I am talking about.
What part of Mac's-shipping-is-fucked you don't understand? The only time I buy from them is on eBay, fair shipping there.
I do shipping every day with UPS and Fedex. Without knowing the specifics - from where, to where, cost of the part - that doesn't sound to far out of line. Not saying it's not a lot of money to ship something, and maybe it could be done cheaper, say with USPS, but when I ship regular ground, it's based on weight, box size, and if there is extra insurance. It'll cast a heck of a lot less to ship 1lb in a 5x5x5 box with no insurance value compared to the same thing with a 500.00 insurance value.
Agreed! I once bought a vintage magazine off eBay. The magazine was roughly $20. When I got the invoice to pay, there was $8 shipping and handling and about $15 postage. When I asked what the $8 s&h covered, he advised that he had to buy a manilla envelope, cut a piece of cardboard to protect the magazine in the envelope, and then drive to the post office to mail it. It goes without saying that I cancelled the purchase.
I like every one watches there shipping. Summit, Amazon, Speedway or Jegs always gets the minimum for free shipping. Eventho I can get next day from McMaster Carr I get pickup because I live about 20 miles from them and my Honda get 40 mpg on the road. I asked company's if they can use the cheapo USPS boxes and they can't. I never hurts to ask....
...could you drive to Mac's and back for what they charged?...then you gotta include your time's worth somethin and wear n tear on your vehicle, etc,...just be happy you can get your parts sent to you..
Just hope you get the correct part and it doesn't actually cost you for nothing. Then do a search on Mac's and see if you ever want to do business with them again.
About a year ago we were b.s. ing about this . Just to prove how screwed up it was I decided to see how stupid of example I could come up with. We have Amazon prime which gives you free shipping on most items. I searched Amazon and bought a potato peeler. I bought this particular one because it was not in stock ,it needed three weeks delivery and was posted as its location ,"China". Three weeks later it arrived , UPS delivered it to me . The rest of the story is ,I ordered it ,it was sent from China in a container,transfered to UPS probably on the West Coast ,driven to Iowa and brought to my door . I was charged $2.37 for this including shipping. Tough way to make a living I would say.
The other thing is if you are ordering online the automated systems for most companies are not set up to price shipping for each individual piece they have in stock and that is why they use a blanket cost for price point. They probably win some on shipping, some items break even on and lose money on others. I just priced out a nut from a company for a headlight switch online. The piece was $12.00 shipping to me was $30.00. I don't know if they could ship cheaper if I called as I haven't yet but I am sure the automated system has no idea what the piece actually is to price shipping accordingly. If it doesn't let you know the cost when ordering then a company should call and let you know. I had that happen with Chevy's of the 40"s once ordered some stuff online, it doesn't give a shipping quote on their site for Canada, got a call from them saying you ordered such and such and the shipping is crazy for what you ordered do you need anything else as the price of shipping won't go up as the cheapest box we can ship will still have room in it. so I ordered a few more things. They got an extra sale and I felt like they were looking out for me.
I get (if ordered early enough) same day delivery from MC for $5 Years ago ordered parts for a customers car, 5 parts total and were sent in 5 seperate boxes each with postage and handleing
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