Shipping Charges

[87chrisss]

I just ordered a rear end girdle from TA can you believe i was charged $30 shipping for a 10# item. Ridiculous charges these companies dont make enough selling you the product they gotta get you from behind with no lube on shipping thats ridiculous. $30 shipping?!?! it weighs 10# and box is small ?!

My uncle owns a company that ships things all the time so i asked him to give me the commercial rate that TA is really paying and its more like $10-14 the most its truly saddens me

 

[QwikStop]

Shipping is expensive these days but not that much...I shipped 2 15x10 Draglites for about 20 a wheel 2-3 day shipping....Maybe they are charging somekinda handling b.s. charge on top of shipping..

 

[ttaowner]

I think $20 seems more realistic but what do I know

 

[S10xGN]

Most businesses get a pretty decent break on volume, too. I ordered a 2 gallon mix of SPI epoxy primer (1 gal can of part A and 4 qts of part B), from N. Georgia to SETX was only $15 bucks or so. I specifically asked about the shipping and was told about the volume deal...

 

[87chrisss]

I called TA and the lady simply told me it is what it is.

 

[John Larkin]

My wife just mailed a box to Ft Lauderdale. The post office tried to push her to use Priority Mail for $30 (it was a box about 1/2 the size of a copy paper box). She asked if they had anything cheaper, they hemhawed around and said she could use Parcel Post but it wasn't guaranteed in 2-3 days. It was $17. The P.O. is under orders obviously to push their higher priced services. Because it is easier to just default to the easy way out, most people probably pay too much including businesses. And yes I have heard the business retort of having to pay wages/supplies/HVAC/rent/etc adnauseum.

 

[Mike Licht]

dont know where you are located but a 10 lb box from us to TA, UPS ground is 19.61 not including insurance. Most small companies tack on a small charge for boxes packing and labor. It is either that or raise the price of the product, the money to cover those expenses has to come from somewhere.

 

[c55asleep]

What I've seen till now is, that most
"Small" companies don't even box the items. They simply drop ship from the supplier. So that being said, kinda ridiculous charging those insane shipping cost.

 

[Mike Licht]

I don't disagree with you there but many companies charge the vendor a 'dropship" fee which pushes the price right back up. Unless you are a huge company shipping hundreds of boxes a day this issue is not going to get any better

 

[BuickMike]

It is painful to see the shipping charges on some of the small items from the small vendors. I get where they are coming from though. They feel it is better to keep the product price reasonable and tack an extra $10 onto their shipping cost to cover the person boxing the stuff and the cost of supplies. I think they also need to pay to have an account with FedEx / UPS to pick up from their sites. Let's face it, most of these folks are hardly making a profit as it is and they don't do enough volume to get discounts on shipping. The small shops are ones like TA, NOS4GN, RJC, etc. You have to give them a little break. If I was them I probably wouldn't have the patience to stay in business unless I was independantly wealthy and doing it purely for the love of it. I'm not going to lie, it is painful when I call these folks and get hit with a large shipping charge for a single product, but I'm not going to get bent out of shape over it. Do I think they could work a better deal with shippers? Yes, but these folks put their focus on continuing to provide quality parts for us and are honestly not super savvy buisness people. If they were super savvy buisness people, they would sell is Chineese crap with free shipping.

 

[Mike Licht]

BuickMike you at least made me laugh, thanks. One thing people fail to realize is that shippers don't care about small items or cost they care about weight. if something costs $2000 or $10 it costs the same to ship if it weights the same (not including insurance or oversize boxes) not many items go in a one pound either, the shipping box and packing weigh and that counts too.

 

[turbo39151]

I agree that the shipping pricing seems to have gotten out of hand. They seem to keep changing their minds... Weight, size, location, etc...
I shipped a single wiper arm (no blade) via USPS and it cost me something like $9.75! Shipped a little power seat motor 3 hours away from me and it ran almost $8! Shipped a shirt, in a larger package and it cost me $7...

I have lots of junk for sale in the for sale section and have no problem shipping anything but the prices have gotten so crazy that no one wants to pay them! (I'm talking the bigger stuff like fenders, doors, dash pad, etc) I think the vendors try and work out the best deals that they can but if they don't do huge volume, they're stuck using the same pricing we individuals have.

Still, I suppose it's not so bad considering the service that we are getting. I recall listening to Adam Carolla on the radio in LA some years ago ranting about people who complained about the price of a stamp. I think it was less than .40 back then. His argument was that he could send a letter to anyone in the U.S. (someone picks it up and carries it, then transports it via car, truck or airplane and then it gets sorted, then carried and then delivered) for the mere price of a stamp and that compared to all of the other crap people waste money on, that this was a heck of a deal.

 

[BuickMike]

BuickMike you at least made me laugh, thanks. One thing people fail to realize is that shippers don't care about small items or cost they care about weight. if something costs $2000 or $10 it costs the same to ship if it weights the same (not including insurance or oversize boxes) not many items go in a one pound either, the shipping box and packing weigh and that counts too.

You get my point though, right? I'm sure most of our TR vendors are highly specialized tuners, engine builders, machinists, engineers, etc. They are technical specialists, not marketing or international business majors. Their focus is on building a quality product with the best materials available for a small group of enthusiasts. They could care less about how to build a low cost, high volume product that is universal and appeals to the masses. Then turn around and figure out how to make the purchasing experience more pleasant.

 

[Mike Licht]

I get your point Mike but at least in my case I cant agree, I do business consulting and have managed more than one multi million dollar business in my career. My son Steve who is here, has a degree in marketing and an MBA. When we manufacture parts we do exactly that try to give the best part for a good value, the problem these days in there is no volume so many of the good ideas I still have will sadly most likely stay ideas because we simply cannot afford to make enough parts to justify the R&D / Production. the sales are not there. We do this because we love it and we can. Believe me no one is getting rich on Buick stuff and no one is getting rich on the couple bucks they charge extra for shipping. Without that many of the vendors you know here would just be gone. If we had to depend on Buick only we would not be in business today. Unlike many others this is our job, it is not a sideline that people do on their kitchen table to a regular job. We have a real building and expenses like any business. There is only a handful of Buick vendors that do these days. Its tough out there and these guys that sell parts are doing what they can to keep this going so we can all enjoy these cars in the future.

 

[williamsGN]

You can always buy your parts elsewhere..... if you can find them !

 

[scot w.]

Mike Licht is correct on everything he said and I would like to add that any products that we make here in our shop goes out USPS priority "With" insurance and a tracking number which all costs but it insures our product and your purchase.

Then there are the companies that drop ship parts for us which "They" have their own shipping account so what ever their shipping charges are thats what they are, we can't help that... We have our own UPS acct. but most of the time we don't have a better price than them so we use theirs..

WE also run specials all the time for Free Shipping like the special we have going on right now for 5% Off & Free Shipping... We are always trying to help save our members here money some way or another...

 

[Dennis Kirban]

I figured I would add my two sense worth since we ship every day....

First some items on our website that fall under 1 pound if the shipping is out of whack we adjust it with a refund. Every system is not fool proof when calculating shipping.

Where shipping costs take a huge hit is when you ship anything over 4lbs to Canada....even a simple letter that cost 47 cents int he USA is almost 2 1/2 times to send a letter to anywhere in Canada.

Packages to Canada required custom forms filled out....

Someone has to pay to keep all those brown trucks clean every day!

As it has been pointed out companies ourself included do takc on drop ship fees for some companies this can range fro $3 to $10 per drop ship. We do this with several companies example TA Performance in located in Arizona and we are in PA and much of what we buy from them is heavy so it makes little sense to have them ship it to us and then we reship to the customer.

denniskirban@yahoo.com

 

[scot w.]

We recently heard that FedEx & UPS will be raising their rates again, we could possibly see a 4.75% hike in rates!

 

[gnxtc2]

We recently heard that FedEx & UPS will be raising their rates again, we could possibly see a 4.75% hike in rates!

Hmmmm.......the cost of fuel has been going down and they still charge fuel surcharge fees. Now they want to raise rates...WTF!!!!

Billy T.
gnxtc2@aol.com

 

[GNRick]

If you ship with the P.O. you do not want to use their "if it fits it ships" box unless you have something heavy like 15 lbs or more. Cheapest way I have found is box it yourself and buy postage at the P.O. website. You can also buy stickers at the office supply store to print on, then slap the sticker on the box and you are done. Light weight items under a couple pounds usually cost about $6 to ship in the US. Something like a shirt or a few hotwheels cars would be $6.