"tgilb" wrote in message
ink.net...

|
| If it were essential, I might have just ordered them anyway, but I
figured
| that somebody else might post something. And now I saw a couple of posts
| that said I can try Home Depot, so I might as well do that instead.
|
I realize we're not talking cigars here but the site
(https://www.jrcigars.com/) I buy mine from charges $2 for basic shipping
(3
days to my front door). Depending on the company's shipping volume some
are
able to ship quite cheaply.



All companies are able to ship quite cheaply. Putting a switch plate cover
in a padded envelope shouldn't need more than two or three stamps. That's
37 cents for the first ounce and 23 cents for each additional ounce. They
can get a box or envelope from the post office and send it to me by priority
mail for about $3.

The problem is that companies charge for "shipping and handling." Handling
is a phony concept. It's a way of splitting the price for any item into two
pieces and disclosing only one of them to make the price look low. Yes,
there are legitimate costs for handling. If I buy it at Home Depot, they
have to pay somebody to stock it. My neighborhood hardware store would have
to pay somebody to put it on a peg on a shelf. Both would have to pay a
cashier to ring it up, put it in a bag, and process my credit card. Handling
costs are typically lower for mail order companies, which do not need a
showroom or to go through the process of putting things on display. They and
retailers both need warehouses. Regular stores have the extra step of
stocking the merchandise instead of getting it to the shipping clerk. But
the latter can be automated and the former cannot.

Could you image the reaction if you checked out at a supermarket and
somebody tacked on an extra five dollars and said it's for handling? Of
course they have handling costs. All companies have operational costs and
they factor that into their selling price. Sometimes they even lose money
on the deal. If I show up at a cash register with a 39 cent item with a
missing bar code, they will probably lose money on my purchase. But
companies have to figure all that out when they set prices, and that's why a
switch plate cover might sell for $3 in the first place when it costs
pennies to manufacture.

Companies should just come up with the real price of the item and tell us
what it is. They should charge for actual shipping. If we want to save
money by getting multiple items shipped at the same time, that's legitimate.
If they want to give volume discounts because it's almost as cheap to send
me a dozen as it is to send me one, they can do that too. But when they
tell me that something is $3 when they are really going to charge me $10
plus actual shipping, I don't consider that honest.