Whats with shipping?

[RCBH928]

Hello,

Any one here with experience with shipping please enlighten me.
Why does shipping has to be so complicated and expensive?
the postage system is one of the oldest things in human history, its very very basic. Its used by millions and millions on a daily basis. How hard can this be?

as you know I did the goldeneye draw, I went to send the shipment today. After having hard time finding an envelope with bubble wrap from the inside, and by a stroke of luck i found bubble wrap , well to wrap the game, and inventing a cardboard box out of materials around the house because amazingly there is no place that sells cardboard boxes(local issues, might not suffer in other countries) I went to the post office.

I had to fill 4 forms exactly the same with each of them containing my address, the recipients address , and list the items including my signature and phone number. This is what they call "Parcel" and it costs $8 or so. They have something called SUPER which costs over double the price, you fill 1 form, and its just 3 days or so faster.
This is of course my local shipping office. Something like FedEx or DHL will cost $100 for sending ANYTHING.
WTF!!!!!!

How in the hell do people start a business shipping? even if you sell something like 100 items per month you probably need your own shipping office to complete the procedures. How come those big companies give free shipping? How many people do Amazon staff just to do the shipping?

Then there are all those rules, what to ship, what not to ship, different items ship in different ways. Thank god, here we don't have to deal with taxes(we don't have any really).

I look at the back of form, and it says that you either have to fill this in FRENCH or the language of the country being sent to. Why do the French get the special treatment? Its not a local thing, I would be impressed if 1% of the population speaks french here.

I really think there is a secret to this shipping thing and how to do it, and they are not telling us about it. It can't be this complicated at this price. Ever think how much does it cost Sony or Del to manufacture laptops in Taiwan or China then ship it all the way back to America?(And for us, shipping it all the way here from America)

and by the way, there is nothing made local here, hardly. Everything shipped in, even bottled water is from countries near by.

[Anapan]

When I was at the post-office sending the auction items, some guy came in with a small envelope, asking to send it to Japan - registered mail (needs a signature upon receipt is all). The lady said "you don't want to do that." he said "I have to.". $118

[Crabmaster2000]

We only have to fill out one form here for shipping so that part isnt to bad, but I totally agree with the crazy prices. I can somewhat understand the crazy prices for parcels going over seas, but from Canada to the US its just stupid. I've missed out on quite a few sales recently because when I give the person a shipping quote that is 3-4 times the price of the items they want it scares them off. I cant blame them.

[Luke]

To add to the frustration, after paying high international shipping rates things still manage to get lost in the mail.

Shipping inside the States = Cheap, reliable, efficient

International shipping is the exact opposite.

[Frag Mortuus]

Yeah, I just sent 2 games to Canada and it cost me $25. Another user on this site sent me 2 games from Canada and it cost him $8 (both US prices). The only difference: Mine was in a box his was in a bubble mailer. Ridiculous.

[Scooter]

I recently priced what it would cost to send a PS1 to the UK and it was over $25! I can recall buying things from Hong Kong and only paying $4-$6 for shipping. I once got some very rare Game Gear games from Australia for around $6 shipping.

King, I think part of the reason for so many forms for you to send a package may be more political than business related but any form of international shipping requires forms. The number of forms depends on the source and destination.

Bottom line: I really appreciate all you've done for the Goldeneye project and am looking forward to getting the package and "paying it forward" in some way. Still thinking over what I'd like to do for the community.

[MrPopo]

How in the hell do people start a business shipping? even if you sell something like 100 items per month you probably need your own shipping office to complete the procedures. How come those big companies give free shipping? How many people do Amazon staff just to do the shipping?

The way it works at Amazon is we contract with the various shipping companies; USPS, UPS, Fedex, and several smaller carriers. After an item is boxed we weigh it and slap a label on it. This information is sent to the appropriate company so they can bill us. Then one of their trucks pull up and we fill it full.

Because we ship such large quantites we can negotiate lower rates. We can also get a lower rate because our packages require a minimum of processing. We pack all of them in easy-to-handle boxes and folders and we have everything prelabeled and ready to go. All they need to do is scan it and take it where it tells them. As for free shipping, we offer that to get people to buy stuff from us. It cuts into our profits to offer free shipping but this is balanced by getting more customers.

[DerekG52]

It's a 2 pronged attack, a government run operation (mostly) as well as a oligopoly (UPS, Fedex etc). All cases, you lose!

Aside: I had to send something back to China, not only did it cost $70 for the cheapest method and there was no sort of delivery confirmation available. Naturally it never got there, should have just bit the bullet and not wasted my time. A clash of 2 separately run government organizations will never result in anything good.

[emwearz]

Come live in Australia sometime, you can get eaten alive by shipping.

[MrPopo]

Come live in Australia sometime, you can get eaten alive by shipping.

Or dingos.