A shift in shipping policy at Craft Supplies USA

[Don Palese]

In the Feb 2014 issue of Woodturning Design (on page 40) .. C/S has a half page ad offering free shipping on orders over $150 or $7 flat rate under. So I put together an order that is greater than $150 .. As it turns out their policy has changed mid month .. they have revamped their shipping .. it will cost $13.95 to ship this order. Now unless my mind is totally warped .. aren't we still in February 2014 .. so shouldn't their ad still be valid .. I contacted their C/S and was told flat out their policy as advertised has ended.

Normally, I would think they would honor thier ad .. Is there something amiss in my thinking ??

craftsupply 001.jpgcs_order.jpgcs-shipping.jpg

[Ralph Boumenot]

This is not how to build customer loyality. Mistake or not, they should have honored it in my opinion.

[Dave Carey]

In my experience they've been very good on customer service - meeting lower prices from other suppliers for instance. Am surprised they didn't honor the ad.

[Thom Sturgill]

Their latest email ad had me curoius too - '7 new PSI pens'. I thought they carried a better line of pens more in line with Berea...

[Dan Hintz]

CSUSA has slowly diluted their line of pens, including more and more PSI-level stuff over the last year or so. It's a shame, really...

[Michelle Rich]

I just checked my paper catalog. It says the 150 + is free to BUT lower down the page it says: "shipping offer can end at any time" . Therein lies the bugaboo.

[Wayne Lovell]

I have never found a situation when a merchant wanted to play games, where there were not several other honest ones "right down the road" who were more than happy to take my money. My only problem is not enough money.

[Stan Smith]

I have bought a lot from them over the years and they have had items that other sellers did not offer. However, it does seem that they are changing their policies and inventory. I got an email asking me to write a review of one of their products. I commented that the instructions could be made more clear and they didn't publish my review. I used to receive shipments pretty fast since they are in Utah and I'm in Calif.. Now they are using the mail and shipments take longer. I've always thought that they had sort of a monopoly and I have to wonder if that's affected their mindset. I've started making purchases from other vendors, but I'll still buy from CSUSA if they are the only place to get a product I want. I'm also sorry that they are reducing their pen products selection.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I have only had great CS from them. It does amaze me that they did suddenly end the free shipping offer. But as Michelle mentioned, they do have the opt to end free shipping at any time..... But then, I live in Hawaii, and free shipping is usually not applicable to us. Wonder how they'll charge me now? They have always been pretty reasonable to ship here.

I've been waiting for a sale or promo code to finally plink down some hard earned money for a vacuum chuck....

[Scott Hackler]

I too have only had good experiences from Craft Supplies. I recently ordered a very large (and expensive) out board turning attachment for my new VicMarc lathe and they sent it pretty fast. I didn't have "normal" shipping charges, but had the regular excessive weight charge, which was to be expected for a 150lb shipment.

So a week ago I got an email informing me that I had non-expiring frequent shopper points (or something like that) and I looked into it. Apparently I have a $60 gift certificate from my rewards points. So to me, that offsets a small amount of shipping expense that I might have to pay now. Nothing is free in the world so they would have to raise prices to absorb the shipping OR start charging for the shipping and send it the most cost effective way, unless the customer wants to pay more.

[Rich Harkrader]

On the plus side, if you order something small like the shaving brush I ordered last night, it's only 4.95 shipping instead of 7.

Rich

[Steve Peterson]

I never understood companies with shipping policies like the new one at CS. Sure, it costs more to ship a larger order. But there is the economy of scale that makes it more efficient to process large orders.

I find myself ordering less with the new CS method. I place a few items in my cart and check the shipping cost. Often there are one or two items that I only have a casual interest in. If the shipping cost increases by adding the extra items, then I will not order them. The old CS policy would usually result in me adding extra items to get over the $150 threshold. And with no penalty for extra items, I would often keep adding smaller items. The new policy will cause me to look at other companies with better shipping policies.

Steve

[Duane Meadows]

Economy of scale? Hmm, gotta be easier to pull one item and ship it that to pull 3 of these, 5 of those, and 1 each of 4 other items. Basically it becomes a question of where the shipping cost shows on an invoice! I can either show it to in black and white, hide it in the price of each item(that's what happens if you buy locally, by the way), or whatever, but some way, if I ship it, the customer is paying the cost.

Are some folks totally outrageous with shipping/handling? of course. That is why I look at total cost, not just item cost. Most times, it still ends up cheaper than buying local, thou many times I can't buy local due to unavailability anyway. So if I want an item, I pay what it takes to get it here, no point complaining about it, really!

When I was in business, many months shipping costs were second only to labor costs. Gotta cover that somewhere.

[Ralph Lindberg]

CSUSA has slowly diluted their line of pens, including more and more PSI-level stuff over the last year or so. It's a shame, really...

Actually I would say, across the board. IMO it started when Dale Nish was no longer involved in day-to-day operations and has accelerated with his passing.

[Robert McGowen]

You would have to think that an ad in the February edition of a magazine would have been done several months prior to you actually seeing it in print. Things change and sometimes they change faster than you would like them to, but they still change. Maybe they called the publisher and the publisher could not change it in time. Who knows? But seriously, did you REALLY think that you were getting FREE shipping before? You were simply paying for it in higher prices. They either change the shipping structure or they raise the prices of the merchandise. It isn't like they said it was free and then charged you and you did not know about it. It showed up in the shopping cart. You called them and they told you about the change in shipping. Either buy it or don't. Seems pretty simple.