Charging for Shipping?!?!?

[o.pwuaioc]

I usually ask whether refills are free or not, even if the answer is usually "yes". Why? Because I don't think I am entitled to free refills, even if lots of places offer it.

There's a difference between entitlement and expectation.

[Frag Mortuus]

I usually ask whether refills are free or not, even if the answer is usually "yes". Why? Because I don't think I am entitled to free refills, even if lots of places offer it.

There's a difference between entitlement and expectation.

Exactly. o.pwuaioc is FAAAAR more concise than I am.

[dsheinem]

I usually ask whether refills are free or not, even if the answer is usually "yes". Why? Because I don't think I am entitled to free refills, even if lots of places offer it.

There's a difference between entitlement and expectation.

that's 100% right...I was just riffing off the example in FM's wall of text, but that is an important distinction.

[oxymoron]

I think if you spend $100 or more you should receive free shipping. At that point amount of money you're making outweighs the cost of shipping. I spent $570 at Target (before taxes) when I bought my PS4 and they still charged me $11.35 for shipping. Call it entitlement all you want but I don't think throwing in shipping would have hurt them.

@Frag

What's the alternative? I always here people saying that but I've never heard the alternative. I'm speaking about the college thing.

[Frag Mortuus]

I usually ask whether refills are free or not, even if the answer is usually "yes". Why? Because I don't think I am entitled to free refills, even if lots of places offer it.

There's a difference between entitlement and expectation.

that's 100% right...I was just riffing off the example in FM's wall of text, but that is an important distinction.

I honestly don't know why I even posted this thread. I was irritated after a long day at work. Saw a seemingly great deal on FFIII and was irritated by the shipping amount and that it caught me off guard. While shipping will play a major role in my purchasing decisions, I have no problem paying for it. A minor irritation at the end of a long day, got blown up way out of proportion.

[Frag Mortuus]

What's the alternative? I always here people saying that but I've never heard the alternative. I'm speaking about the college thing.

I think it was the price of shipping vs the price of the item. Game = 9.99 the shipping was 6.75. I think that was a little crazy.

Someone mentioned earlier that the courier they used was terrible. So maybe switch to a better courier that gives better discounts to them based on the amount of volume they ship. Then pass those savings along to the customer. I would have gladly paid 2 or 3 dollars for shipping. Or maybe offer free shipping above $25? I didn't necessarily want another game they offered, but I would be willing to put that extra 6.75 plus a few more dollars towards another game if it got me free shipping. This way they get an extra sale and probably don't spend any more money shipping the items to me.

But, like I mentioned. I made it out to be a much, much bigger issue that it really was.

[oxymoron]

What's the alternative? I always here people saying that but I've never heard the alternative. I'm speaking about the college thing.

I think it was the price of shipping vs the price of the item. Game = 9.99 the shipping was 6.75. I think that was a little crazy.

Someone mentioned earlier that the courier they used was terrible. So maybe switch to a better courier that gives better discounts to them based on the amount of volume they ship. Then pass those savings along to the customer. I would have gladly paid 2 or 3 dollars for shipping. Or maybe offer free shipping above $25? I didn't necessarily want another game they offered, but I would be willing to put that extra 6.75 plus a few more dollars towards another game if it got me free shipping. This way they get an extra sale and probably don't spend any more money shipping the items to me.

But, like I mentioned. I made it out to be a much, much bigger issue that it really was.

I was inquiring about your comment about college not being the golden ticket.

[mjmjr25]

I buy components from digikey and console 5. In many cases, the part is >$1 and shipping is $2-3. Your logic is that you'd rather have it say $4 instead of $1 plus $3 shipping.

That doesn't make sense in many cases, likely with the enix store, and definitely with the 2 stores I just mentioned. Applying your logic, they are going to charge me $8 and free shipping for 2 AV jacks. Or, the way it works now, I buy 2 jacks for $2, and shipping is still $3, so it's only $5. Doesn't that make a lot more sense?

I bet if you put 2 or 3 copies of that game in your cart, the shipping wouldn't be $13.50 or $20.25, it would probably be the same, maybe $1 or so more.

I don't know what you think the discount for retailers is - but I assure it isn't as high as you are assuming. My employer has 2,500 employees and they send i'd guess 40-50 mailings a year to each employee (26 paystubs mailed, plus random events, notices, etc), and probably another 3-4,000 bills to patients each month. That's a rough guesstimate of 140,000 letters a year. Our discounted rate on first class mail is $0.09/per. I understand amazon is much larger - but we're talking about the enix shop, if they get a discount, it isn't what you had assumed.

[the King]

So if the game was priced at $16.74 with free shipping you would of bought it?

No. As I said in my original post, I think the amount of shipping vs the price of the game is ridiculous. If it were a couple of bucks, then I would have paid it.

So, if the price was $11.99 with free shipping, then absolutely.

I guess my point was if you had no idea how much the shipping cost was and the game was listed for $16, would you buy it? It's only 6 bucks more. I deal with this on a daily basis, so just interested. If I give a client a landed priced vs a price with freight it's a totally different story, like everyone expects freight companies not to make any money.

[Frag Mortuus]

I was inquiring about your comment about college not being the golden ticket.

HAHAHA. Gotcha.

Two things:

1) I think there needs to be a major shift in the US's economic climate. Right now, companies are not forced to do any production in the US. They are allowed all of the benefits of doing business in our country without bringing in any real, tangible jobs.

Right now, China has one of the fastest growing and strongest middle classes in the world. Their economy is thriving more and more every year (which is evident by the amount of money the US owes them). One of the reason's why is that they are completely self sufficient. They can produce everything their people need for everyday life and more. The Chinese Government know's the potential value of doing business in their country and in turn has very strict rules companies must follow in order to do get their products into the country. You may have read that China had a console ban on video games until recently. They lifted the ban, but insisted that the consoles sold in China be produced in China. This would have multiple benefits for the country. A) It would create a large stream of income for the company that the government could tax and B) They could tax the consoles sold. Also, C) It would create a bunch of jobs for the Chinese people. Now, I'm not saying China has got it's self together. In fact, they really need to change a lot of aspects of their country. But, they seem to know economics.

If you think back to some of the most profitable times for America it was well before companies started sending their manufacturing plants over seas. I think the US should mandate that in order to do business here, you have to produce your products here. This will give us more jobs (a lot of which won't require a college degree, so people will get a good job without having to go into a ridiculous amount of debt). This will lower our dependence on foreign countries goods, and will create a bigger revenue stream for the government to tax.

2) To ensure the jobs pay well, they could offer tax credits based on how well you pay your employees on average. The higher the pay, the lower the companies taxes. This would NOT include CEO's and the like. This would be from say, plant managers on down. That way they couldn't pay their CEO's an exorbitant amount of money and raise the average to get tax incentives.

Overall, though, I think a major shift needs to happen. We need to figure out how to create more and better paying jobs. We need to quit making companies wealthier while we make the people poorer.