From: Julian Burke (julian@knology.net)
Date: Thu Jan 30 2003 - 13:19:22 PST
I have had quite a few comments on my posting about shipping and costs
therein. Some things cost money, some don't. I had a nice guy up in
Missouri who lives about 45 miles from the nearest city. He has a hard time
finding packing materials and has to buy much of what he ships in. I can
understand that. I have had another who lives about 25 miles from the
nearest post office. I can understand that too BUT in these extreme cases,
you post in your ad that you only ship on Mondays or whatever fits your
schedule.
Not in those cases but what I find is happening that people are
discovering that they can add a "handling" or "packing" fee to chisel extra
money. Now I'm not talking about a few who don't ship for a living and go
to a pack and ship. If you ship every day, then it is up to you to do your
best to help your customer with his purchase-and to get it to him in a
timely manner at a reasonable cost. If it is bulky/heavy and requires
special handling, you have no choice here but to charge for this service and
I understand that. It seems that some have made a "business within a
business" and trying to sneak in this cost in selling very small items.
Case in point here: I have thought about the little fuel pump that I
purchased from this guy. I only discovered it quite by accident by merely
clicking on it mainly wanting to know what fits a NOS GEN PART
M151/M715/M880/M1008/M37/M38/M35 or what this part has in common with all
of these vehicles. (I learned a new term here-keyboard spamming) I know
this part very well and thought I could use a spare here. I know this part
weighs about a pound and can be shipped very economically with a FREE box
from Priority Mail USPS. It could have gone regular mail for only $4.
Instead he over packed it making it weigh another 3 pounds plus his $1
packing/handling fee. I asked him about the seemingly excessive shipping
cost and he told me that he has to buy materials. He didn't here unless he
buys used newspaper and used boxes. He shipped FedEx when it should have
gone USPS. He wasted up to 5 dollars of my money for literally nothing. I
would never do this to anyone as I consider it a privilege to ship these
items to people who need them. Shipping costs are going to go up and
already is getting cost prohibitive to ship anything under $15. (with a $9
shipping cost like I paid) This isn't the first time it has happened to me
and from now on I look at the Ebay items more carefully for shipping info
and decide whether I should bid or not. I believe I won't be buying
anything more from him. $5 won't break the bank, but I am on a first name
basis with the UPS and FedEx man so I see quite a few packages come and go
here. It all adds up in the course of a year. Just some personal
observations. Julian Burke
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Wed Apr 23 2003 - 13:25:06 PDT