Mammoth Shipping so Expensive....ARG!!!

[fuzzymuff]

Want to order a couple of pre drilled 1590B enclosures, total cost of $22.00, but the shipping to CA USPS was $14.00.  This was the cheapest shipping cost.....ARG!!  Tayda, though not pre drilled, but the same enclosure and same quantity would charge me $4 shipping.  It may take longer as it is coming from Thailand. 

[alparent]

But are you comparing the same shipping?
4$ from Tayda (that's regular mail, no tracking number, no insurence.)
14$ from Mammoth you must be getting a tracking number and insurance.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Actually...

My last Tayda order had an origin shipping address in Colorado 

Took less than a week to get to the east coast.

[fuzzymuff]

But are you comparing the same shipping?
4$ from Tayda (that's regular mail, no tracking number, no insurence.)
14$ from Mammoth you must be getting a tracking number and insurance.

Yes, same shipping, the cheapest USPS, ground.

[fuzzymuff]

Actually...

My last Tayda order had an origin shipping address in Colorado 

Took less than a week to get to the east coast.

Yes, it does ship from Colorado, but your initial order comes from Thailand and it is shipped to Colorado and then shipped to you.  This is what Tayda informed me when I asked for the shipping tracking, they stated that the could not provide on until the order has arrived at their Colorado distribution facility and that is when it will be shipped USPS with shipping tracking.

[Mark Hammer]

I've received an order from Tayda that was shipped from Germany.  I don't think they are alone in making use of the diversity in international postage rates across countries.  I remember an incident here in Canada, a decade or so back, where subscribers to Canadian Geographic magazine were more than a little irritated to find that a magazine produced in Canada, for Canadians, was being mailed to them from Columbia.  Apparently, it was cheaper to sent a crate of magazines from here to Columbia, by boat, and mail them at Columbian postal service rates, than it was to mail them from down the street in the same city where they were printed.

As country after country rationalizes and updates their postal rates for different international destinations, businesses with international clients are likely shifting where they mail from to save costs.  Weird, but that's how it is.

[davent]

It appears USPS international rates took a massive hike this month (Jan.2013). Madbean recently had a note on his forum expressing shock for new rates whick pretty much require doubling what he had been charging for shipping and his product can go out in an envelope so i would think shipments with any bulk will be hit even harder. (He has emended the post since he first posted it.)

Aron  put up a post he's reviewing shipping costs for the store here.

I put a 1790NS in my cart at Smallbear, $12.25 enclosure, i keep getting $19 for shipping to Canada, i do hope that's wrong. (Electro-sonic show the Hammond 1590XX for $11.18 so that's where the money will go.)

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=8116.0

[Mark Hammer]

I've told this allegory before, but it bears repeating.

One of the contributing editors to the British computer mag PC Plus had a piece about 15 years ago about what was holding back e-commerce.  He had a side business as a niche greenhouse, selling specialty shrubs.   He set up his order site, and everything seemed ducky. One of his customers, however, sent in a complaint about not receiving the order, despite paying extra for express shipping, insurance, etc. 

The customer was in Sweden; the vendor in England.  The vendor found, after considerable and burdensome detective work, and fighting a great deal of resistance that I won't go into here, that the parcel service he used had decided unilaterally that they were not going to have anything to do with the Swedish postal service.  Apparently, when things got handed off to them at the border, subsequent delivery times would vary considerably, and the parcel service didn't feel like taking the bad rap for what they felt was not their fault.  They had neglected to tell their customers of this little wrinkle to their service, so the vendor paid the parcel service for the service the customer had requested, but it was not provided, and a month or two later the shrub was found in the warehouse where it would have normally been handed off to the Swedish postal service, unwatered and dead.  I think the vendor eventually received some type of reimbursement from the parcel service, but whether he did or didn't, he was on the hook for reimbursing the customer, and restoring his reputation.

In ending the piece, the writer simply noted that if e-commerce was ever to have legs, it was going to have to tend to the niggling real-world details of getting things from vendor to customer, and not just the software side.  And what we see outlined in this thread is that websites and shipping calculators can sometimes convey inaccurate information to customers, and occasionally be a little behind in adjusting to changes in what the shipper charges, or in the case of the shrub, is willing to do.  A vendor may find themselves caught by changes in delivery rates and service that can suddenly cut them off from a particular international market byt being uncompetitive.

I don't know about other countries, but in Canada we often have this irritant of "broker fees".  The parcel arrives at the border, and before it can go anywhere, there may be a tiny bit of duty owing, and a "service" pays that duty on your behalf, charging you for it, on top of the duty and shipping.  The brokerage fees can sometimes be well in excess of the cost of the goods, duty, and shipping combined, and often you don't know in advance that you will be hit with this charge.  I remember buying some aluminum boxes a dozen years ago that were a terrific bargain, even considering the exchange rate (the canadian dollar was worth about 75 cents US at the time).  By the time they arrived at the parcel service office, the boxes ended up costing me more than buying the same item in town from a vendor not known for their bargains.