Many Internet merchants do exactly the opposite of that. They tempt
people
with a price that is not the complete price and don't tell you the whole
price until after you give them your credit card number. With a grocery
store or hardware store, you know what you are going to pay when you read
the price tag.

this i will not put up with. i want the price before you get my card
number. couple times ive had people change it and i cancelled my order.



come up with a TOTAL price and buy it or dont. you'll just outsmart
yourself if you get too hung up on what costs go where and take
pointless
moral high ground.

But that's exactly what I did. Had they sold a $30 for $10, but charged
$15
to ship it when $6 is more reasonable, I'd still think they are not being
up
front about the true cost, but I'd still buy it since it would still a
bargain. It only becomes an issue if I need to return it, in which case
they
would keep half the money I paid for the actual merchandise, and try to
hide
that from consumers. In this case, the price was reasonable before I knew
the shipping charges, but was not reasonable, or even in line with other
Internet merchants when I went to check out. And of course, merchants who
do this will never list their shipping prices in their FAQ.

if its grossly overinflated i understand your point, but from my experience,
you usually save enough buying online to pay the 'handling' charge 4 or 5
times over and it would still be cheaper. over time you still save money
even with a return or two. but thats just my opinion. whats more important
to me is the reseller rating. id rather pay handling at a company i can
trust than take the low road with an unknown.


When people take the Infomercial route of telling you that you pay "only"
a
certain price, and the fine print says +S&H, I have a problem. If
somebody
says that they have a 15% restocking fee, I can live with that. But when
they try to get it out of me by bundling it in as a handling charge, I'd
rather not see it done that way. Commercials constantly promise things to
people for "only" a certain price, and these days it's more common for
them
to not even bother advertising the S&H charge. If people weren't fooled by
it, I wouldn't mind. But people will tell you that they paid the price
that
was advertised, not their total cost.

well, i guess this is kind of the crux of it. commercials are designed to
fool people whether directly or indirectly. i dont see any fundamental
difference between putting '10$ shipping and handling' in small letters on
the screen for .5 seconds (or not even listing the price just +S&H which you
find out later) and trying to convince men that buying budweiser will get
them the hot chicks. its all trickery. i make a concious effort not to
watch commercials.

randy