Shipping ripp offs

[VolunteerK9]

Slacker..I apologize...That warning should have came to me and not you. Wont happen again.

[buzzbee]

It was not really a warning,just a FYI notice of policy at Beemaster forums.Have a good day all!

[John Pfaff]

This really s****. I posted earlier this year about a really bad product and the facts about why it was unusable and was immediatly deleted - took about an hour to have it ripped off the board.

[BeeMaster2]

No offense to the original poster but if you didn't find out what the shipping rate was before you placed your order, its hard to knock them for charging what they did. If they told you one price and you received another, you have a valid complaint.


...JP

edit: Removed company name:    Buzzbee

I called this company and the girl told me she didn't know what the cost of shipping was. I figured this is a credible company and figured they would be fair. Boy was I wrong. I will never call them again.
Jim

[bee-nuts]

I always ask if there is any handling fees or anything other than shipping.  If so I dont care how much it is, I dont buy from them.  If they dont figure out what they need to make a product profitable and include it into the price I find that to be fraud.  Of course its legal but fraudulent in my book non the less.  Sounds like this place has a ten dollar handling fee.  I worked for a buddy and I dealt with UPS and one of their perks was that you could charge a handling fee and the customer did not know it unless asking because it was not stated on the label.  The shipping charge total was printed but there was no way of knowing what the actual shipping price is without asking.  It dont take long at 10 an order for a company to cash in.  There was a guy making bee equipment not long ago (probably still does) and I asked the big question and he beat around the bush and tried telling me what the total would be with shipping.  Thats it, im done, all I asked was if they charged a handling fee, either you do or dont.  I dont think USPS has a way of adding a handling fee and im sure thats why this company did not want to ship that way.

[Katharina]

USPS also let you add in a handling fee without showing.  You later print your commercial label in "stealth" mode, so it does not show the actual cost or any amount for that matter.  The only way to find that out, is take the weight on check online what it would cost you to ship.  Still commercial shippers get a discount on top of it.
This basically applies to all shipping companies like USPS, UPS, FedEx, etc.

[bee-nuts]

Imagine if you went to wal mart and bought a gallon of milk.  Lets say it 3.49.  You go to the cash register and bling, and bling.  Cashier: "That will be $13.49 sir".  You: "What, 13.49, the milks 3.49".  Cashier: "Im sorry sir there is a $10.00 handling fee associated with each check out."

Would anyone put up with that?  Nope, and you should not with mailed items either!

[sc-bee]

The vendors view: the choice is always yours but we all know the price of fuel cost-

>Shipping is a funny thing to us, we're darned if we do and we're darned if we don't I guess. We can't ship via the USPS because we have had so much fraud with the Post Office and it takes a minimum of 30 days from the ship date to be allowed to file a lost or damage package claim.  UPS does a far better job.

>The shipping prices on that item qty is $22.66 and the handling charge is $1.50.  If you go to UPS.com and go to there time and cost estimator, enter the origin zip as 12834 the delivery zip as 16101 enter the pick up schedule, the 16 x 8 x 8 box the 5 pound weight(all carrier round up for small parcels to the nearest pound we come up with  $24.67 on the UPS site.  The current fuel surcharge is 9% of shipment value.  So at the $22.66 price from (vendor) that is cheaper than the UPS prices online. Location is 474 miles from Greenwich, NY and the actual transit distance is likely farther given the box would be picked up at our facility then transported to the package sort facility in Albany before traveling to a package sort facility in PA before it gets on the vehicle headed to the customers house and delivered by the driver.

>The average UPS Ground shipment takes 44 people to process the package and that doesn't include the 5 (vendor) employees who are involved in the taking and processing and shipping of orders.  With that 474 mile distance that works out to be $0.0478/cents a mile.  I don't know about you but I can't travel that far that cheaply. I have a pickup truck that is a half ton and it cost $75 dollars to fill up last week and I have to fill it up once a week(I'm saving my pennies for a Prius or a Volt and some solar panels to charge it, take that Exxon).

This is why I try to wait on free shipping. Also I never got my money back from USPS for dead queens. I opened them up in the office everyone saw they were dead, it was the paperwork red tape!
 

[slacker361]

I too sell and ship , and if I did that to my customers, there is another vendor that will take my place..... When an item sells for 5.00 and this shipment is 15.95, and the shipment is less than a pound, the charge doesn't equate..... The item could have been put in an envelope and a first class postage I think would apply.... Even if you cant do first class, the ship all for 4.95 box would have sufficed.....

I personally would have been looking for repeat business, and when I spoke with the gentleman about the shipping charges and asked can you throw that in a USPS and mail it... If he would have said yes ,because that shipping charge is way out of line.... I would have been a repeat customer, and in return he would have made more $$ off of me....

I guess it doesnt really matter as I will not be purchasing from them ..... But it was just the extremeness of the situation as to why I shared with everyone....

[sc-bee]

Don't get me wrong, I agree! Was hoping if it were brought to their attention maybe they will think twice next time. Maybe they will maybe they won't.

Spend your hard earned bucks with those that earn your business!

[njoylife10]

I have actually not ordered from them before, for this very reason.  I too called to see if it was an online error.  Nope.  That was the actual charge, so I took my business somewhere else.  I have since purchased 7-8 hundred dollars worth of product from the other company and I've got many years of beekeeping left.  It seems to me they would want to know that they are losing many customers due to their out of sight shipping prices.

njoylife10