Shipping costs....why so much from some online retailers?

Trying to order a metric brake tee for a brake upgrade on our chump car and the few online retailers that I've found that have them in stock want almost as much to ship it as the part itself. Same with HPD-any money you save by doing the affiliate program with them for parts you lose because they'll charge you $13 to ship a valve cover gasket that you're saving $5 on vs. buying from the dealership down the street. I understand shipping isn't always free and not everyone is Amazon prime. I'm willing to pay for it if it's proportional to the value of the item being purchased and the size/weight of it. /chappedassrant

In the challenge thread from last week, I mentioned this same problem too. Rock Auto shipped front and rear complete brake kits to myself for a friends car for $25, I think, which is a good price IMO. I use only the fronts, so I returned the rears and accepted the shipping cost reduction from the refund. Return shipping on 2 rotors and brake pads was under $7 from here in BFE Kentucky to somewhere in New York... Yeah, nobody is skimming money off the top because of shipping to cover nearly sub cost pricing.... I don't get the $8 in shipping for a part that costs $3 and can be mailed/shipped in an envelope that comes in a box the size of a Yugo.

Ranger50 wrote: In the challenge thread from last week, I mentioned this same problem too. Rock Auto shipped front and rear complete brake kits to myself for a friends car for $25, I think, which is a good price IMO. I use only the fronts, so I returned the rears and accepted the shipping cost reduction from the refund. Return shipping on 2 rotors and brake pads was under $7 from here in BFE Kentucky to somewhere in New York... Yeah, nobody is skimming money off the top because of shipping to cover nearly sub cost pricing.... I don't get the $8 in shipping for a part that costs $3 and can be mailed/shipped in an envelope that comes in a box the size of a Yugo.

Exactly. I mean i understand the business of having standard size boxes and just ship whatever fits in it. Less overhead on the business and better bottom line. On the other hand you'll lose my business if I'm paying $40 for a $18 part because of shipping. Hate to sound premadonna but I have a hard time paying more to get a part than the part itself. Like craigslist people that want you to drive two hours to meet half way for something you are selling for $20. Just PayPal me the money and shipping costs and I'll send it to you instead.

Shipping is one of those things that seems really easy until you have to actually do it without losing money. It's a considerable cost.

Small parts usually cost disproportionally more to ship - the first pound is always the most expensive. Also, if you have people who work in your shipping department and you have to pay them, their salary is not dependent on the value of the parts in the package. If it takes them 15 minutes to pull, pack, label and ship a $5 item and 15 minutes for a $400 item, the overhead cost is the same. Ecommerce software also has difficulty quoting parts that are outside the norm. You would not believe what a headache shipping quotes can be with ecom software.

Retailers can either jack the shipping charges on expensive items to subsidize the cheap ones, or acknowledge that they won't be "competitive" on small ones and give up a sale with 25 cents of profit. They can ship via a trackable method with a packing design that is guaranteed to get there, or they can accept a certain level of product loss in transit in exchange for faster (cheaper) packing and cheap, non-trackable shipping methods. Customers really hate the latter option, BTW, despite what they might claim at the time of purchase.

Or they can just lose money and subsidize their retail store with something else like Amazon does

If you are looking for this particular part, give Flyin' Miata a call. The people on the phone are smarter than the website software and can get you a much better shipping price for a metric brake tee than the site will quote you.

I'll have to check your company out Keith. I know shipping can be a huge pain. I can understand for smaller companies like yourself that it can work out like that sometimes. My gripe is more towards the larger retailers and manufacturers affiliate programs. I've gone through the asspain of shipping with my wifes small business. Nothing fun about it on selling or consuming.

At DIYAUtoTune, our rule is that shipping charges are the official rate the Post Office (we're looking into adding other carriers to the site) charges for a package by weight. I've sometimes had people ask, "Why doesn't the site charge lower? This can fit into a flat rate box." If the shipment actually does fit into a flat rate box, I usually respond, "Yes, but we haven't figured out a way for the website to know." Getting a website to find the lowest possible shipping rate is a pretty big challenge - the flat rate box example would be like programming the website back end to play Tetris in three dimensions with parts that aren't convenient block shapes.

Still, as Keith noted, if the shipping really seems out of line, we can put a manual quote together. We generally prefer email in our case since that gives us a chance to see if a shipment really does, in fact, fit in a flat rate box.

Using published rates means you either have to get a really good cut from the shipping company (enough to cover your costs) or you have to recoup those costs elsewhere. On relatively small, high value items like an ECU, no problem. On something bulky it's harder. Same with something of really low value regardless of size.

And yeah, dimensional shipping calculations are a pain.

The easy answer is probably to buy the valve cover gasket from the guy down the street.

Same story here as Keith and Matt were saying. I run an online storefront as well, and there is no easy way to calculate shipping automatically. And it's silly stuff too, like tape can make a box go from 31.9 ounces to 32.1 ounces and BAM you go up a pound rate.

I just gave up and went flat rate, makes life easier. But then again I don't usually deal with more than a 2lb package

We have had some very spirited internal discussions about flat rate and other shipping options. Flat rate has its own problems, but it's very clear to the consumer and that's important.

Somewhat off topic but I buy a lot of books on Amazon from private sellers. If it has tax I buy from the no tax seller. Personal thing. Yet I understand as a single guy those smaller bottles of condiment at Wal-Mart are more expensive. I think I might have the script for Fight Club II.

DirtyBird222 wrote:

Ranger50 wrote: In the challenge thread from last week, I mentioned this same problem too. Rock Auto shipped front and rear complete brake kits to myself for a friends car for $25, I think, which is a good price IMO. I use only the fronts, so I returned the rears and accepted the shipping cost reduction from the refund. Return shipping on 2 rotors and brake pads was under $7 from here in BFE Kentucky to somewhere in New York... Yeah, nobody is skimming money off the top because of shipping to cover nearly sub cost pricing.... I don't get the $8 in shipping for a part that costs $3 and can be mailed/shipped in an envelope that comes in a box the size of a Yugo.

Exactly. I mean i understand the business of having standard size boxes and just ship whatever fits in it. Less overhead on the business and better bottom line. On the other hand you'll lose my business if I'm paying $40 for a $18 part because of shipping. Hate to sound premadonna but I have a hard time paying more to get a part than the part itself. Like craigslist people that want you to drive two hours to meet half way for something you are selling for $20. Just PayPal me the money and shipping costs and I'll send it to you instead.

The problem that sure, you can stick it in an envelope and ship it USPS. But there's no tracking number to rely on. No way to track the package. What keeps the customer from calling and asking for a refund because they never got the part? How do you prove it? That's the problem we ran into. So you haveto use a trackable shipping service, which means Fed Ups. Their minimum package cost even on a relatively high volume part under a pound in the smallest boxes we could use(4"x4"x4") was $14 to anywhere in the US.

The second is shipping time. USPS is notoriously terrible on reliability. It can take up to 4 weeks for us to get an oil sample from a customer from USPS for no known reason. It's enough of an issue we stopped using them completely for prepaid shipping.

So basically, a business has to worry about trackability and timely delivery. Those cost money sadly. In the last 4 years at the dealer, I watched our shipping costs damn near triple.

Bobzilla wrote: The problem that sure, you can stick it in an envelope and ship it USPS. But there's no tracking number to rely on. No way to track the package. What keeps the customer from calling and asking for a refund because they never got the part? How do you prove it? That's the problem we ran into. So you haveto use a trackable shipping service, which means Fed Ups. Their minimum package cost even on a relatively high volume part under a pound in the smallest boxes we could use(4"x4"x4") was $14 to anywhere in the US.

I ship small parcels via USPS every day, under a pound, and they all have tracking numbers on them. Most packages I send are in the range of 9oz-12oz, which is around $3.00 for first class. Hit a pound and priority becomes only a few cents more than parcel post, and gives you default insurance. Never have any issues with late delivery except international, and those pretty much went away once I started putting invoices on pouches outside the box.

-Hans

It's the outliers that cause difficulties. Hans, your shipping methods are optimized for items under a pound or two, so it works well for those items. However, if you had to ship an exhaust (too big for USPS) you'd have a problem. Auto parts retailers have to deal with a wide range of values, weights and dimensions so they tend to default to UPS - thus the little stuff ends up being more expensive. Also, shipping people cost money and that money has to come from somewhere. If you're a small, single-person shop it's easy to overlook that cost.

USPS is no fun to deal with if they lose a package. Even with a tracking number, it'll be a year before you see your money. And their tracking is not on the same level as UPS. International tracking is often "We gave it to the other guys a week ago". When customers call up to find out where their package is (usually a day before the minimum shipping time you quoted them), you can't tell them much.

Retailers with lower shipping costs rely on inventory being all over the country, razor thin margins, and scale.

At work we add $6 to every freight order. Folks caught on so they make us use their UPS account number.

The other side of things (the side that I'm on) is the whole Amazon Prime syndrome. I want a cheap price (although usually not the cheapest) and free two day shipping. I know it's not actually free because I pay $10 a month but if you order enough it pays for itself.

Prime is subsidized by Amazon's other lines of business like AWS. I'm not sure the retail side of the house has ever turned a profit. But they sure do make it difficult for the rest of us!

I use Rockauto to look up part numbers and buy the Amazon Prime warehouse deals. Complete set (front and rear) of Powerstop pads and rotors for my 03 WRX for $65, showed up next day (Sunday) for free.

Prime is great in that aspect but I've run into issues where the retailer or 3rd party listing through Amazon has no idea what they are selling and you get the wrong parts even though everything says "It fits your vehicle!." For example, thought I was buying a crappy knock off hub for an 98-99 Acura CL 2.3L. They are perfect for converting a 94-97 Accord captive rotor setup to a rotor over hub and wanted to make a mock up before ordering higher quality parts. Making life easier at the race track. I just wanted it for a mockup. I literally got something for a Lada with the company stating I was in the wrong. Amazon eventually refunded me the money and I now have two hubs that are being turned into furniture...just the risk you take with Amazon and car parts.

Amazon is just the marketplace for a lot of this stuff, like eBay is. Even Sears is in on that action.

You can see who the actual seller is when you buy - some real car shops sell via Amazon, if you go through them instead of Joe Blow's Basement Warehouse Shipping Expeditor, you're more likely to get what you want. Although it's often less expensive to go directly to the car shop, because then they don't have to pay the Amazon fees. Example: I wanted a loaded pickguard for one of my guitars. They didn't have the exact combination of parts I wanted listed on Amazon, so I contacted the seller with a question about custom work. They referred me to their own website to see what was available for a build and I found exactly what I was looking for, and for a bit less.

I worked in Amazon's transportation strategy and ops department for years. Won't talk about it.. I'm commenting as a private citizen here.

But will say that, like healthcare or steel or whatever, there is a limited supply of transportation in the world. Doing it right is very, very expensive. Doing it wrong is 6x as expensive as doing it right. I don't see transport costs going down anytime soon, nor do I see as e-commerce as a money adder to an organization. It's a race to the bottom. People will still do it, but I don't expect what we enjoy now to continue in its current form at its current price structure.

Now.. in the transport industry, you can get rates pretty easily. They control them by the dim weight of an item. Compact heavy items are often cheaper to ship than a larger cheap item. Think about a book versus a box full of ping pong balls. I can fit lots of books on a package car(what ups calls their trucks). I cannot fit many large boxes of ping pong balls. https://www.ups.com/content/us/en/resources/ship/packaging/dim_weight.html

Remember this. The final mile cost is the most expensive part of the supply chain. That is from depot to your front door. All costs are optimized around that final mile. The Mid mile cost is a commodity. A truck from Dallas to Kansas City is essentially a fixed cost......

Amazon Marketplace has another nasty issue - one merchant can create a listing, then another one can add their item to the listing saying they're selling the same thing. This second merchant can do things like change the listed shipping weight, even though they didn't create the listing. We've had cases where we listed a Weather Pack kit on Amazon with our name on it, somebody else put their own item on our listing, and the customer was mad at us because the Weather Pack they'd bought from someone else was missing the extra pins we would have included with ours!

Keith Tanner wrote: It's the outliers that cause difficulties. Hans, your shipping methods are optimized for items under a pound or two, so it works well for those items. However, if you had to ship an exhaust (too big for USPS) you'd have a problem. Auto parts retailers have to deal with a wide range of values, weights and dimensions so they tend to default to UPS - thus the little stuff ends up being more expensive. Also, shipping people cost money and that money has to come from somewhere. If you're a small, single-person shop it's easy to overlook that cost. USPS is no fun to deal with if they lose a package. Even with a tracking number, it'll be a year before you see your money. And their tracking is not on the same level as UPS. International tracking is often "We gave it to the other guys a week ago". When customers call up to find out where their package is (usually a day before the minimum shipping time you quoted them), you can't tell them much.

All ofthis. I ran the website side and shipped 15-20 boxes a day with Fed Ex as they offered the cheapest option. Most of our packages (being a dealership) were larger and heavier than the typical. USPS just wasn't an option for most of this. The few times we did send some small stuff, we lost out everytime. Customer claims to never receive it, charges back the credit card. Credit company asks for proof of delivery and there's nothing from USPS that satisfied their request so we lost. Not only the part cost, but the shipping cost as well as the time that it took to package, invoice and ship, along with fighing the charge backs.

shipping gets costly when you want an engine half way around the world, by air.......

How expensive you ask... how about $2600