Shipping Charges

[Dan Hintz]

I sure did! Nobody told me! Pretty dumb on their part because I was a Prime member for 3 years. If they had emailed a "We want you back" offer like that I would have taken it.

I don't care about any of the other Prime offerings besides the shipping. I'll bet that's the case with most people.

Evidently I missed it, too. Like you, I would have jumped at the deal. It's worth it for the amount of stuff we get from Amazon.

[John Coloccia]

FWIW, I ship a lot of packages for my business, and I use USPS almost exclusively. I've yet to have a lost package. Once, an item I sold to a fellow SMC member got lost in the system for a couple of weeks, but even that eventually turned up. Normally, everything is absolutely on time, even going overseas to Asia, Australia, Canada, and Europe.

I'm sure there are a few bad eggs at USPS, but priority mail has been extremely reliable for be, and extremely cost effective. Parcel post (or whatever they call it now) has been a little more hit or miss, but no worse than UPS or Fedex, and still normally cheaper.

[Prashun Patel]

My business ships hundreds of packages of all sizes weekly UPS, Fed Ex, USPS. I can tell you that managing your logistics provider is not as simple as the consumer would like to believe. Nor is my choice of carrier as intuitive to the layperson as it it may seem; we don't always pick the lowest cost provider on a particular package.

I can tell you that we get compared to Amazon all the time and berated for not absorbing credit card or shipping fees. I'll show you our bills and our chargebacks and our expenses for damages that we can never collect on. I'm not profiting on shipping charges, and I bet that company is not either.

I can understand your pain at having to pay that charge, but IMHO, it's not a flame-worthy subject unless you understand the other side.

[Lee Schierer]

RouterBitWorld - $1 shipping
http://www.routerbitworld.com/default.asp

I even purchased some Freeborn shaper cutters from them. Good prices, fast shipping and good service

I agree. This is a good company. I have often done business with them.

[Steve Peterson]

I don't really see the issue with an order showing the price plus shipping before you check out. If another place has a cheaper total price including shipping for the same item, then order it from them.

My personal preference for shipping charges is free shipping after a certain dollar amount. It minimizes overhead cost to the vendor if the purchaser can group multiple items into a single large order. I like Amazon's policy and am surprised that the minimum is only $35. I keep about a dozen items in my wish list that I can use to pad an order to get over the $35 threshold.

Steve

[Jim Koepke]

I own a business that has a weekly UPS bill around $300. The minimum charge is around $11 for 1 pound item, residential delivery at COST. Delivery to a business address is closer to $9 at the minimum. USPS is cheaper but only useful for very inexpensive items as those idiots will just leave it anywhere and SAY they delivered it, leaving the shipper with no way to get reimbursed for the items never received by the buyer.

As bad as the UPS delivery guys are, the US Postal Service seem to only hire the mentally handicapped that are completely incapable of basic functionality. I've heard so many horror stories from customers. I've personally argued with USPS delivery people insisting that they had to deliver a package with MY address on it to the business next door. I've been forced to physically threaten the staggeringly stupid carriers in order to actually receive packages addressed to my business.

$6 for delivery sounds better than $11-13 as long as the item is not critical and is worth no more than $20-30.

It all depends on where you are. In my old location, the FedEx drivers could never find my address. They refused to try a map or even internet applications. Here my neighbor is the FedEx driver for the area. They know where I live.

Here my latest package from Lee Valley was tossed next to a tree down my driveway. I missed it, my wife spotted it on the way in. Many of the UPS drivers are reluctant to come down our driveway for fear of not being able to turn around.

USPS delivery in my area depends on the delivery person of the day. It is a rural route and some drivers do not like it.

jtk

[Sam Murdoch]

My biggest frustration with on line vendors is when the S&H is dependent on the cost of the order rather than the weight of the item/size of the box being shipped. You know - the places that have a rate for $1 to $12.00 and then one for $12.00 to $24.00 and then etc.- soon you are paying $ 20.00 for S&H because you spent $ 120.00 on a pocket knife that weighs 3oz. and fits in a small box. My response to those vendors is to look elsewhere. I really have to be desperate to pay S&H according to those terms.

I prefer paying for S&H according to the weight and size of the package. I understand that for a business this requires more emphasis on the handling than the shipping. Don't know how to make it more practical. It seems that the preference and experience of sellers and buyers in regards to S&H is a factor of location and carrier options.

On the subject not asked by the OP but part of this thread nonetheless -

I am a huge fan of the USPS!!!! I sell stuff through forums regularly and find the Flat Rate Priority mail to be very fast, very dependable and very well priced - even cheaper if you pay for shipping on line. I have put stuff in the mail from Maine on Saturday AM and have it arrive in California by Monday afternoon - that kind of service for $ 5.25 .

These days here in our rural location packages sent through Fed Ex and UPS most often get delivered by our local post office. When the delivery fails it fails at the commercial carrier part not at the USPS end. You'll never hear me say a bad word about the Post Office.

[Brett Luna]

Even since I moved to Alaska, a little over 16 years ago, shipping has been a hot button for me. I've encountered far too many vendors who just can't seem to grasp that we are indeed a part of the United States and that we need more options than 1- or 2-day express. While I don't have much in-depth knowledge of it, I do understand that there are challenges for the smaller businesses. However, I have little patience, respect, or money for any outfit trying to rake me over the shipping & handling coals while other similarly situated companies have it well figured out.

I use USPS priority mail whenever possible and most advantageous. It's usually as fast or faster than UPS/FedEx ground delivery and sometimes is on par with 2-day...which is actually 3-day up here. (Not sure why. We have two robust hubs here.) Package theft isn't of great concern. Since we don't have door delivery, I have to visit our post office to pick up anything that doesn't fit in our mailbox at the bottom of the mountain. We haven't had a problem with mailbox theft yet, either.

What I do not recommend...most strenuously...is FedEx SmartPost. I ordered a Christmas gift for my wife from a mail order outfit that used it and it was a goat roping disaster. I ordered it in plenty of time (2-plus weeks prior) but the package took exactly 30 days to arrive. It made a long, slow, and tortuous slog through several en route stops via FedEx Ground until it got to Kent, WA where it was dropped in the mail. Not priority mail, evidently, because meaningful tracking data ceased at that point. Never again.

[Sam Murdoch]

Even since I moved to Alaska, a little over 16 years ago, shipping has been a hot button for me. I've encountered far too many vendors who just can't seem to grasp that we are indeed a part of the United States and that we need more options than 1- or 2-day express. While I don't have much in-depth knowledge of it, I do understand that there are challenges for the smaller businesses. However, I have little patience, respect, or money for any outfit trying to rake me over the shipping & handling coals while other similarly situated companies have it well figured out.

I use USPS priority mail whenever possible and most advantageous. It's usually as fast or faster than UPS/FedEx ground delivery and sometimes is on par with 2-day...which is actually 3-day up here. (Not sure why. We have two robust hubs here.) Package theft isn't of great concern. Since we don't have door delivery, I have to visit our post office to pick up anything that doesn't fit in our mailbox at the bottom of the mountain. We haven't had a problem with mailbox theft yet, either.

What I do not recommend...most strenuously...is FedEx SmartPost. I ordered a Christmas gift for my wife from a mail order outfit that used it and it was a goat roping disaster. I ordered it in plenty of time (2-plus weeks prior) but the package took exactly 30 days to arrive. It made a long, slow, and tortuous slog through several en route stops via FedEx Ground until it got to Kent, WA where it was dropped in the mail. Not priority mail, evidently, because meaningful tracking data ceased at that point. Never again.

Yeah - and that reminds me I just had a similar experience with them - the tracking kept telling us next day delivery but the darn package made 3 loops from Maine to Massachusetts and Connecticut over a 2 week period from New Jersey. When it finally arrived it was delivered to the local post office (1 mile away) at 4PM who finished the job the next day - adding another day to the process. What was "smart" about that?

[Wade Lippman]

I wanted something that was $25 plus $10 shipping; when they gave free shipping at $50. I offered $5 shipping and they accepted.

If you have the time for it, it is worth a try.

[Raymond Fries]

I just read a couple of days ago that UPS may start applying a surcharge for residential deliveries. They say that their cost is like three times more for a residential delivery than a business because they deliver multiple packages to a business. If they do this, we will all see an increase.

[John Huds0n]

I hate the post office! Makes me think of this video



UPS and FedEx goes out of their way for me

[John Coloccia]

Just to bring some perspective here, USPS handles nearly half of the world's mail...THE ENTIRE PLANET. Every year, it handles 150 BILLION pieces of mail, the vast majority of which get from point A to point B reliably and safely, just as is mandated by law. Every now and then, something is going to go wrong.

[Robert McGowen]

I just read a couple of days ago that UPS may start applying a surcharge for residential deliveries. They say that their cost is like three times more for a residential delivery than a business because they deliver multiple packages to a business. If they do this, we will all see an increase.

They have been applying a surcharge for residential deliveries for years.

[Brian Elfert]

Even since I moved to Alaska, a little over 16 years ago, shipping has been a hot button for me. I've encountered far too many vendors who just can't seem to grasp that we are indeed a part of the United States and that we need more options than 1- or 2-day express. While I don't have much in-depth knowledge of it, I do understand that there are challenges for the smaller businesses. However, I have little patience, respect, or money for any outfit trying to rake me over the shipping & handling coals while other similarly situated companies have it well figured out.

I shipped a fairly small 7 pound package to Anchorage, Alaska last year. Fedex Ground and UPS Ground both wanted over $200 to ship the package! $38 via Priority Mail. Sellers who charge you a ton of money for shipping are probably just passing along whatever Fedex or UPS charges.

A lot of companies only ship by one company because they get a better discount by doing so. They don't consider that other options may be significantly less expensive.