The bestbuy.com thread got me thinking about how much I loathe companies who pad shipping and “handling” charges. Okay, we could start with Ticketmaster, but that’s been debated.
Last year I ordered a little baby outfit for a friend from Hanna Andersson. It was knit, probably not more than 8 ounces of yarn total. The shipping charges, however, were figured by cost, not weight. So I was charged something like $7 shipping. I tried to argue with the catalog salesperson about it, and nearly cancelled my order. But then I thought about the hassle, time, and other costs association with driving to the mall to find something similar, and caved.
I also recently bought some replacement parts for a toy from the manufacturer, Neurosmith. They don’t sell them at any retailer. They cost $10, fair enough. Shipping was $5 (grumble, but okay) but when I went to “check out” I found a handling fee of $2. For what? That’s a 70% cost increase to me, all told. I told customer service they’d damn well better arrive at my house looking like they’d been well and truly handled. But no, pretty much a standard box, no padding. They paid someone $2 to type the address and heave it into a box? Get me that fucking job.
Yes, I appreciate that a human being has to put forth some effort to prepare the package. But since this is the business the seller is in, they’ve built in some efficiencies (or so I hope). And I assume that since they’ve got it all sitting around in a few warehouses instead of trucking to 2500 retail outlets, and I’m paying for the cost of shipping on top of that, the close-to-retail price I’m paying must surely mean that they’re making some extra profit thanks to the savings on distribution costs. Might that $$ go to pay the schlub who is slapping the label on the box, instead of sticking the customer for that, too?
Hands down this is what keeps me from buying just about everything online or from catalogs. I’d much rather do it that way–but the handling charges get me so peeved, I refuse to play along.