Doesn't cost me much for delivery from Lee Valley cause it's 5 minutes from my office & on the way home
On the other hand, Lee Valley costs me plenty, cause it's 5 minutes from my office & on the way home.
Contributor
Doesn't cost me much for delivery from Lee Valley cause it's 5 minutes from my office & on the way home
On the other hand, Lee Valley costs me plenty, cause it's 5 minutes from my office & on the way home.
Contributor
Then I can buy cheap widget from China and have it delivered for under one dollar total cost. It would cost more for just the item at a store here. I do not think it is really legal but lots of folks will not ship to Alaska or Hawaii. I can see that if the item can not be sent by air. California does not allow a lot of plants or animals to be shipped in. I had the USDA knock on my door after I bought some bamboo seeds from China.
My Nephew lived in New Zealand and any package shipped to him was about 30 dollars US.. It is all by air not boats.
Bill
Bill D.
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People in New Mexico have also had to deal with this lack of geographical knowledge or U.S. history.Try living in Alaska, where our own country often treats us like another country entirely. I've actually had CS reps tell me, "We don't ship outside the United States."
Some actually have intelligent staff and programmers. The weight of the product and packing is in their database and figured in when a person clicks the buy button.I think shipping charges based on cost of the item is the only simple way a retailer can do it.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
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Remember some retailers mentioned previously have zip code specific catalogues. Prices vary based upon zip code. So an item shipped to just across the street could actually cost more, or less than the other side of the street. As for shipping to a specific zip code, many vendors do that. You ask what it costs to ship to your zip code, and they figure it before placing my order. One vendor I use, its about a buck cheaper to pay shipping on orders under $35, than to use "free shipping."
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That was a running joke at work when Frys Electronics opened a store across the street in the mid-'90s: "Can we just have payroll direct-deposit our checks to Frys?"Originally Posted by Frank Pratt
(That was the Boeing/Rockwell campus in Anaheim, the last bits of which moved to Huntington Beach some years ago. Apparently the joke wasn't that funny to Frys, who closed the Anaheim store earlier this year, well before the coronavirus hit. But I hear the Fountain Valley store, just up the road from Huntington Beach, is doing quite well.
Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
"Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.
Contributor
I had a Catch-22 on an item a couple of weeks ago. It was $51, on a "free shipping over $50" deal.
Turns out I needed two of them. When I logged on to order the second one, it showed up with a big red "PRICE REDUCED" banner. That made it $48...plus $8 for shipping.
Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
"Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.
Contributor
Why would it be illegal not to ship to Alaska or Hawaii?
I know shipping to Alaska via Fedex Ground or UPS Ground is super expensive. I was selling something on Ebay about five years ago and was offering flat rate shipping anywhere in the USA (Alaska and Hawaii too) for like $20. It was an auction that also had a Buy It Now price. Someone from Anchorage, Alaska snapped it up at the BIN price. After I found out UPS Ground and Fedex Ground were both $225 to Anchorage I realized why he snapped it up. Luckily, Priority Mail was only $40 or $50 so it turned out okay for me.
I wonder if companies don't want to ship to Alaska or Hawaii due to high shipping costs? How many people would buy a set of $500 headlights if the shipping was nearly half the cost of the item?
Contributor
I look at the bottom line delivered to my door price when buying stuff online. There have been plenty of times when a site had a cheap price on a small item, but the shipping made it more expensive than other places. I have often bought an extra item I would use in the future to get the total over a threshold for free shipping or a discount. Once I added a stupid filler item to an order to qualify for a significant discount.
Contributor
Them cookies got you! That's why I clear history after visiting sites.
Contributor
Recently purchased a 1/2" lock mortise or swan neck chisel on ebay. It was at a buy it now price with shipping included. My attention must not have been present because one of my reasons for picking this one was it didn't look like it was coming from overseas. Sure enough, it was coming from Great Britain. Took a couple of weeks. It set the seller back £18.50 for shipping. More than half the total selling price.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Contributor
More fun and games...sometimes you have to wonder how they stay in business.
About four weeks back, I ordered a SO-SIMM RAM module to max out my new laptop. This was direct from Crucial/Micron since I used their system scanner app to determine the correct part number. (Probably the 4th or 5th time I've gotten memory from them.) They shipped it the next day, but unfortunately they used that wonderful hybrid, UPS Mail Innovations, which uses USPS for 'last mile' delivery. Following the tracking info, it got to the local USPS distro center about when expected, and then just sat there. And sat there. And sat there. After a week or so, I contacted Crucial's CS people to have them push it along. Another week, it's still at USPS. (Mind you, that distro center is like three miles from my house.) Contacted Crucial again, they threw their hands in the air, refunded me, and asked me to contact them if it ever showed up.
So I ordered the same part from Newegg that same day, it showed up the following afternoon, and $2 cheaper. Lesson learned: get the part number from Crucial, buy it from somebody with a SoCal warehouse.
Five days later, the package shows up in my mailbox, presumably recovered from whatever hole it had fallen into. I call Crucial, they email me a return label, I drop it off at UPS. Turns out, for the return of a $35 memory module, they paid for 2nd Day Air. Just for curiosity, I tracked it back to Boise: it went (this is not a joke) from Anaheim to San Diego to Louisville to Salt Lake City to Boise...all in 37 hours.
A truly perfect shake-my-head moment.
Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
"Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.
Contributor
It's actually a little more than that. Apart from sale volume and prime fees there is predictive shipping and warehouse restocking. Essentially, being a volume business there are multiple options to absorb cost.
https://www.predictiveanalyticsworld...u-buy-it/3185/
On original thread, yup it's frustrating. Recently, we moved to Canada and it's a little more worse. Less websites and higher prices. I just wait till I have enough things to buy or sometimes I buy from some other website that has higher price but low shipping.
Thankfully, Lee Valley is only few miles from my home. I am loving store pickup.
Disclaimer: I work at Amazon.
Member
Welcome to Canada!
I agree that shipping and selection is more challenging here. UPS can be outrageously expensive crossing the border, for example and some US companies won’t ship at all. You are lucky to live near a LV store although I’m not sure you’re saving much. When I drop into the Halifax store, a few hours away, i always leave with more than was on my list! My wife would prefer I stayed out and just paid the shipping lol!
Member
I am a young guy, so almost my whole adult life so far everything has been free shipping from the big names. I think it has really ruined it for small businesses like I work for. People now have the expectation that everything is free shipping and 2 day delivery. I have also been ruined by it, I recently bought something off of here and when my wife found out I payed 30 in shipping I thought she was gonna slap me lol. Small companies like mine have no control what ups charges us. I think the minimum we get charged to ship a small package across the road is about $12. You can't even really negotiate with them. Sometimes I wonder is ups/FedEx/USPS are subsidizing Amazon's rates and charging everyone else more.
But sometimes shipping something even when it's half the price of the item is in reality cheaper. My wife wanted some clothes from the mall which is about 50 mins away. Shipping cost was 8, she was going to drive because of it. I broke down the math that 50 miles of driving at 13mpg is over $8 in gas.
Contributor
Thanks David!
Yup! Whenever, I go for picking up my order, I roam around and end up buying more stuff 😁.
Recently, got cashback from US Costco. With blessing of SO, ended up with Rikon slow speed grinder. One can't have too many means of sharpening. Went inside to pick it up, came out another $50 dollars lighter and items in my wishlist.
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