Would you pay $4.60 just to send 10 LED's?

[Zclyh3]

Case-mod.com engages in this practice. Here is a copy of the email from my account.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Unfortunately, your order was already shipped earlier in the day. You may return the package back for a full refund once you receive it if you like.

I feel I may not have explained how the shipping charge is calculated. Any package weighing 1 pound or less is billed as a 1 pound package. This is the policy of all carriers: UPS, Fedex, Airborne etc. We are charged the 1 pound rate for sending a package that weighs less than 1 pound (2 pound rate for a package more than 1 pound and less than 2 pounds etc. etc.). We do not make any money off of shipping charges. For the package we sent to you, we were charged $3.20 for shipping plus $1.25 as a Residential Surcharge for shipping to a residential location. $0.15 is added to the shipping cost to cover any tape, box, or packaging supplies and fill that may be used in packaging an order. So the total is in fact $4.60.

The shipping charge would actually be the same if you were to buy, for example, a standard 80mm fan because the total weight would be less than 1 pound. I hope I better explained this.

Again, if you would like to return the items, you may do so once you receive the package. If you decide to do so, please include a copy of this email and a note stating that you wish to return the items for a full refund.
Best Regards,

Sarfaraz Rydhan
Case-Mod.com
(408)937-4438
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What are your thoughts? Could these LED's be easily shipped with USPS with a padded envelope and 50 cents postage? I think so. Please give me some feedback from consumers like yourselves because I too am a consumer here. Oh yeah. This is one of my recent orders. I'm trying to get him to change the shipping cost JUST for LEDs. I find it totally ridiculous. I also live like 5 miles away from him. I use to pick up orders until he didn't want to do it anymore.

 

[ChrisIsBored]

Yes you're wrong. If you didn't want to pay the shipping, then don't buy from them. It's a PITA when you have an accustomed shipping setup and someone cries for a different service which is out of your way. You should have haggled with the guy before making your purchase.

 

[Zclyh3]

In terms of a business, would YOU have charged this high rate?

 

[snooker]

If you just live 5 miles away then I would say "If you want my business in the future you will allow me to pick them up from here on out"

I had a few LED's come from the UK a few months ago and it was just over $5.00 to get them from there to the US. Soooo tell him you will go overseas to get your LED's since shipping is cheaper

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Zclyh3
In terms of a business, would YOU have charged this high rate?

That's just the thing, it's not a high rate.

He explains it pretty well in his email...

Didn't score too high in the reading comprehension tests, eh?

 

[Zclyh3]

Checked out his reply from my message about the shipping costs.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Your reasoning is definitely valid. I do understand exactly what you are saying. We have similar issues with items like Arctic Silver 3; a person buys one tube for $5.99 and has to pay $5.00 shipping to Florida, for example.

A few months back, we would actually offer free first class shipping on items such as Arctic Silver 3 and 3 to 4 pin adapters. Yes, we would just send those in brown padded envelopes with postage. At the time we were able to do that without any problem. Until July, we only shipped with USPS. At the time we were still a very small company as far as our daily sales and were able to keep up with the label making and daily trips to the post office. USPS does not offer pick up service for priority mail packages unless a minimum daily quote is met. In July, we were not able to meet that quote. In July USPS raised its rates and changed to a zonal rate system. We experimented with UPS daily pick up for about 2 weeks, but after a few lost and damaged packages we decided to try Airborne.

Overall, we have been very happy with Airborne Express as far as packages getting to their destinations on time. We have hardly had any lost or damaged packages in the last few months.

At the moment we do ship all our packages via Airborne Express. Until about a month ago, we would actually ship LED and other light weight orders for $1.10 at the Post Office. (We were also sending packages to Canada via USPS Airmail which meant we were still going to the Post Office on an almost daily basis.) Now there were a few problems we encountered. We had numerous complaints about first class mail taking up to 2 weeks to the East Coast. Also, many people complained when they were unable to track their packages. Just recently we stopped going to the Post Office, as we no longer ship to Canada and with we stopped shipping first class mail for light weight items.

You are correct that we could have put 2 stamps and sent it in an envelope. As easy as this may seem to you , it is much harder when all packages are being packaged, labeled, and shipped a certain way and only one package has to be packaged, labeled, and shipped differently and separately.

As far as your suggestion to ship light weight items with USPS and heavier items with Airborne, this is something we had already thought about weeks ago and are in the process of implementing on our site and in our business. Again, some things are easier said than done; it does take time to work things out.

Anyways, you should probably receive the LEDs on Wednesday, in a few hours. You can just keep them as I have refunded $4.11 to your account. I believe LEDs via first class is $0.49. If there is anything else, just let us know.
Best Regards,

Sarfaraz Rydhan
Case-Mod.com
(408)937-4438
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Woot! I should do something about his shipping problems. Case-mod.com is definitely a great business to deal with!

 

[Viper GTS]

What you should have done is not bitched in the first place.

Everybody knows that shipping extremely small items is less efficient than larger items.

Viper GTS

 

[Lucky]

i find it incredibly lame you bitched to him, and even lamer than he caved in to you and refunded you his hard earned profit.

 

[ggavinmoss]

Are the shipping policies clearly stated and did you read them? If both are yes, then tough.

If I feld the price for shipping was unreasonable, I wouldn't have ordered there.

-geoff

 

[Zclyh3]

Lame? He doesn't make profit from shipping? I'm trying to get him to rethink his shipping ways. Even he said himself he's trying to reevaluate their ways. I feel it was noble and kind that he refunded my money as a consumer to another consumer.

 

[Lucky]

He doesn't make profit from shipping?

No, he doesn't, unless he is lying in his reasoning of how he prices shipping charges. Yes, it was kind of him to refund the charges...but the site CLEARLY states the shipping charges before you finalize the purchase. Is there a reason why you could not contact him beforehand and save him from losing four bucks in profit? I'm sure he would have made an exception for you and been just as kind. Badgering him after the fact about his shipping charges and asking for a refund is very rude, and lame in my opinion.

 

[Zclyh3]

I did ask him before hand and he said that he would charge me ACTUAL shipping charge for it. Next thing you know, it became $4.60.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: Zclyh3
I did ask him before hand and he said that he would charge me ACTUAL shipping charge for it. Next thing you know, it became $4.60.

Duh, because that's what it cost him to ship it.

Viper GTS

 

[dolph]

you're right & wrong...
right, because that's a ridiculous amount to pay to ship leds. no one disagrees. wrong, because they shipped it to you and you're complaining after the fact. they didn't lie, they charged actual shipping rates. high, yes, but not dishonest. moral: always check first if there's any unusual circumstances.

 

[ddwbi0]

did you send an email out to usps to suggest they change their shipping system as well?

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: Zclyh3
I did ask him before hand and he said that he would charge me ACTUAL shipping charge for it. Next thing you know, it became $4.60.

Duh, because that's what it cost him to ship it.

Viper GTS

It's actually less than it cost him to ship it, there's no way he covered box, tape, packing, etc for $0.15.

 

[T2T III]

Lame? He doesn't make profit from shipping? I'm trying to get him to rethink his shipping ways.

Why should they rethink their shipping ways? Clearly, they want to make the operation more efficient - and potentially stay with one shipper which has proven to be efficient, provide order tracking and also ensuring shipments are not being damaged. The company seems like they are trying very hard to respond to the customer's needs.

$4.60 for shipping some LEDs? Puhleaze! Were you around when Pricewatch.com vendors were charging $20.00 to ship a stick of memory? Now, that's something to get irritated about. Compared to $20.00, $4.60 seems like a drop in the bucket.

 

[T2T III]

Oh, one more thing. Sure, this company could go back to shipping some LEDs for an actual shipping charge of $1.10. However, I'd then expect them to invoke some form of "handling and packing fee" - for example: $3.00 minimum. As you can see, you can't have your cake and eat it too!!

 

[Jugernot]

Don't even get me started! I live in Alaska and we can only get 2day service from UPS and Fedex! That means, NO GROUND SERVICE at all! I bitched and complained at business all over the net cuz they wouldn't ship USPS! I pay $20 for a freaking CPU to get here... don't complain over a lousy $4.60!

 

[BD231]

Shipping has always been somewhat of a problem for many online retailers. I myself have shipped out ALOT of computer items to many different people over the years and USPS is for the most part terrible. I've had boxes that have just never shown up. I've had boxes that were opened then re-sealed when they got to me with the insurance stickers ripped off, and the PO workers make trying to claim insurance when something happens to your package VERY tedious at times. Over all they are a very poor choice when it comes to shipping items out continuously. They may get things shipped ok from time to time, but IMHO I would not recomend ANY on line store use them for shipping ANYTHING. I hate paying high prices for shipping small thing (if you can call 5 bucks high), but these items are being sent the same way larger items are sent, so it cost the same amount of money to ship a small package as a large one for them. Do you really think those LED's are saving FedEx, UPS, Airborn gas money?

 

[ReiAyanami]

padded envelope and 50 cents postage...

 

[JokerF15]

First Let me get a few items out of the way . There is no HE here at Case-Mod.com. We have 4 individual working here, and Sarfaraz is one of them. He happends to be the person who deals with most of the emails. Zclyh3, the HE you are actually refering too is me.

What are your thoughts? Could these LED's be easily shipped with USPS with a padded envelope and 50 cents postage? I think so. Please give me some feedback from consumers like yourselves because I too am a consumer here. Oh yeah. This is one of my recent orders. I'm trying to get him to change the shipping cost JUST for LEDs. I find it totally ridiculous. I also live like 5 miles away from him. I use to pick up orders until he didn't want to do it anymore.

Simple answer: No, We could not have put these LEDs in a padded envelope.

Reason: Our systems here are AUTOMATED with Airborne Express. From the backend of our servers to the label, it is all streamlined. When you are processing a large amount of orders, you can't individually take orders out and customize each one. It would in fact COST us, and therefore you MORE to take the time out and ship these via USPS mail.

As for you living 5 minutes away, right now we don't deal with 'will call'. Yes, we used to, but due to some other reason's *that I wish not to be stated here* we don't do it anymore.

snooker: Was it a business who sent you the LEDs? An individual? How was it sent? Again please read the above reasons.

AND yes we are charging EXACT rates. Now, The only way to get 'cheap' led rates is: USPS First Class! No other carrier will offer that price.

Just for reference, if you goto other LED sites, one or 2 in particular which ONLY sell led's. They ship out via UPS Ground. IF you buy 1 LED the shipping charge is: $4.99. There is no if ands or butts. Yes, for a 5 dollar order it may seem a lot, but you are still buying more htan 1 led. If you did buy 1 led, think about the stock, the overhead, the costs associated with running a business. If shipping was that easy, we would have implemented it a long time ago. ACtually we used to ship out via First Class and Priority mail, but the hassle associated with goign to the post office is not worth it. How about walking into a post office with 200 packages?

Zclyh3: You should be pretty happy that you got refunded that amount. Any other worker here would have said, "It's stated on the site".

Everybody knows that shipping extremely small items is less efficient than larger items.

Tru Dat!!

and even lamer than he caved in to you and refunded you his hard earned profit.

Like I mentioned above, he's real lucky. No one else would have done it.

Lame? He doesn't make profit from shipping? I'm trying to get him to rethink his shipping ways. Even he said himself he's trying to reevaluate their ways. I feel it was noble and kind that he refunded my money as a consumer to another consumer.

Again, no he....But anyways There isn't much re-considering as far as our shipping ways. LEDs are a common seller, but it is very rare that someone buy's just LEDs. There is no way for us to streamline the process, so It will not be implemented.

I did ask him before hand and he said that he would charge me ACTUAL shipping charge for it. Next thing you know, it became $4.60.

$4.60 is the ACTUAL charges. These charges are not from ANY carrier, it is the actual charge that Airborne Express (Our only shipping carrier) charges to us. It may not be the 'cheapest' solution, but it is the best solution for our situation.



Ugh...long post...

I like discussions like this, it gets a chance for us 'online retailers' to show you guys that we aren't really out to screw you. There are reason's behind everything, and eveything isn't as easy as it seems.

Thanks to a Mr. Ernst for letting me know about this thread.

I used to post on here much more....but with time split between school, work etc..you know the drill

-JokerF15 (Owner of Case-Mod.com)