Getting a heavy package in the mail

[Ken Fitzgerald]

It's not free......Amazon is merely paying it out of their profit. Shipping companies aren't charities and they didn't adopt Amazon or any other retailer.

I am not saying you can't get a better deal at Amazon or anyother place that advertises "free shipping". But it's just a marketing strategy but you can bet Amazon is paying for the shpping and they are using revenue that came from......you.

[Dan Hintz]

I've always found the best deals on the less well known sites... and liftgate is usually included in that price. For example, Tools-Plus had the best deal I could find on the metal lathe I was after, and they were offering free shipping, including liftgate. I only found one other site that could match that total price package. "Free" shipping is becoming a semi popular option these days...

[Van Huskey]

No argument there but I agree with Matt, the shipping is "Free" because the price was not artificially increased to cover the shipping. My PM2000 on sale in June was $400 less than anywhere else on the internet then or now AND had free residential liftgate service included. I'd call that free shipping.

Obviously the vendor is not going to forgo his profit to offer free shipping. That just tells me that there is a large margin built into even the sale price.

Actually, free shipping w/ liftgate is now and has been for at least a year subsidized by WMH and not the re or etailer. There are very few (r)etailers you can't get "free" liftgate delivery on WHM machines. Prices vary for WHM machines by retailer but unless they are on sale the retailer can not advertise a WHM machine at less than MAPP however, calling a group of them usually gets you a far better price often when they have "bought" a block of machines, or sometimes just adding them to the "cart" will show the real price. This happened for me when I got a Baldor motored PM2000 for about $1,000 off, that was originally built for the custom PM2066 program but were sold at a discount to a retailer when Woodwerx scrapped the program.

In the end what we are discussing here is the process of shipping not actually the costs, one just needs to be aware that if they aren't one of those with a forklift in the garage/shop/barn or has a loading dock with a pallet jack they need to specify liftgate delivery whether or not it comes for "free" or not if they want to take delivery at home and not the terminal. Further, in the case of Grizzly's lower negotiated freight and delivery charges if one doesn't specify it up front it or at least get it set up through Grizzly it may cost significantly more when dealing with the freight company directly.

[Dave MacArthur]

Buy a shop crane for $99 from harbor freight, and just pick it up off the back of the truck and roll it into the garage. Yep, the truth is that anyone who DOESN'T pay for liftgate service either has a forklift, shop crane, pallet jack, or plain messed up.

And by the way... I was initially drawn to open the thread because I really couldn't believe anyone would give a thread that title, where I work that would earn you a chance to buy the bar. Thank gosh he spelled "mail" right, but that's just low SA