Going Postal

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I was just looking at a 4" rotary table from Sherline... freight came to $200 UPS for 8 pounds shipping weight.
Got me wondering about the cost to ship the most basic lathe.... $460. Lathe costs $575.
Checked with Fedex and DHL, pretty much the same.

I've never had anything this heavy shipped internationally, so out of interest I checked the shipping from UK.
From Chronos, a Vertex HV4 Rotary Table which is the same size but twice the weight (~16.5 pounds), freight came to $73.
Next, a no-name brand 4" from Arc Eurotrade, no weight given but it looks more bulky than the Vertex, $104 freight.

California(Sherline) to me: 9,400 miles.
UK to me: 10,700 miles.

It's depressing not being able to get Sherline gear for a reasonable price. I've wanted a Sherline since I was a kid.
Now I'm a big kid and I can afford it, but the freight is freaking ridiculous.
It is almost cheaper for me to fly to the US, Visit the Craftsmanship museum, buy what I want while I'm there and bring it home as luggage!

 

[aarggh]

I bought a 25kg double vise a couple of years ago, same as the upper range one at H&F, which they were selling around $800-$900 from memory, $200 for the vise, $140 for the shipping from the States when most of the US sellers have around $800-$1000 shipping for the same weight. Really decent seller, went out of his way to pick a shipping method that wasn't a rip-off, and it shows it can be done without much hassle. I still think it's mostly just greed for a lot of sellers.

cheers, Ian

 

[AussieJimG]

Interesting! When one seller told me that US law required him to use UPS or USPS (can't remember which), I believed him and never asked any other seller. Just goes to show ...

But then there is a lot of stuff that we can't buy from the States because of government restrictions.

Jim

 

[OrangeAlpine]

People routinely blame the US Postal service to cover for their nefarious schemes. No one ever questions the story. People in this country are brainwashed to assume that private enterprise is faultless and anything connected with government is corrupt.

Bill

 

[OrangeAlpine]

Lifted the following from the Locostusa site. The writer is a highly regarded supplier of parts to the Locost community. I thought it might give some insight into the complexities of shipping within the USA. I have zero reason to doubt anything he said.

Doug, I can't quote shipping. We mostly use UPS, we have a contract with them that gives us better-than-most prices (which we pass along to builders; we charge what UPS charges us, no markup, no handling charge) but there are a couple of catches. One is, the rate is a moving target; they adjust it daily for fuel costs, weather, and phases of the moon for all I know, but we don't get a rate book and we don't know the price until we send in the shipping order. Another is, when we send in the shipping order, they deduct the funds directly from our bank account.

Bill

 

[GWRdriver]

Obviously there are more of us out there who need to vent than just me. I'm glad I could provide the opening salvo to get some of this stuff out, especially Australians. I ran a little experiment over the weekend, I priced mailing the same package (weight, etc) I've complained about in the other direction. Have any of you bothered to do that to see what your own folk charge you? I was quite surprised to find that the cost to walk to the window and mail the same parcel to Yorkshire was within $1/US of the same price I was quoted! So I suppose the lesson in this is our respective postal services/mails are getting us coming and going, equally, and there's not much we can do about it.

If it makes any of you in Australia feel any better (which I doubt) I think your paranoia is misplaced. I know of no one in the USA who feels the need to abuse Australians, in fact in general we rather like them. The thing to understand is that our shipping departments aren't always staffed with the brightest bulbs in the marquee. A good day for many of them is one in which they can do the same thing over and over again without having to give it any thought. An order from Oz (or any foreign country) requires that someone must give it considerable thought and possibly (Gasp!) learn something new in order to fill the order and complete the transaction. The result is that sometimes you are quoted a shipping cost which, roughly translated, means I don't want to have to learn how to do this! It shouldn't be like this, but it is.

 

[jack620]

Hi GWRdriver,
I don't think there's any paranoia among the Aussies here. My gripe is with sellers who quote the USPS medium flat rate box price (around $50) for an item that would fit into a box considerably smaller. When a seller lists an item for sale they should know instinctively what size box it will fit into. I mean they do this every day. To quote postage charges way above what is necessary is just "value adding" on their part. Fair enough if the size/weight of the item is marginal. I don't blame them in that case for covering themselves with a box that is the next size up. It's the extreme cases of overcharging that grate with me.

Anyway, as I said earlier- work out for yourself what size USPS box your item(s) will fit into and tell the seller you are prepared to pay that amount for postage. They usually agree to get the sale.

Happy shopping!

 

[lennardhme]

GWRdriver
Interesting experiment, but a flawed deduction. The handling costs between postal agencies are proportional - the US portion is proportionally high, so quotes for the same item would be about the same either way.
Purchasing from the West coast of the US is expensive, but more than doubles if the item travels across the US from the East coast. [for Oz buyers] Its obvious where the high costs are.
No paranoia in Oz, we're too laid back - I suppose thats why the Govt. makes voting compulsory here.
Still, I miss the good stuff from the US

 

[kf2qd]

Because the Post Office here has been mismanaged for so long they have decided to mismanage it some more and lower the quality of service to encourage us to use the system more. Prices on packages went up, and they charge even more if you want to have the package returned if not deliverable. And it sometimes seems that the "undeliverable" packages never are attempted to be delivered...

All part of the present administration working to serve us better and more transparently...

 

[Hopper]

I'm new to this game, what stores in the UK and China do Aussies find good to buy from? A google search doesn't show much.

Dave, I have had good luck with RDG Tools in the UK. They have a website and an eBay store. Shipping is quite reasonable and still much cheaper than buying in Oz. All good quality products too. This is now my first "go to" supplier of choice.

I have had pretty good luck too just buying tools and stuff off Australian eBay from sellers based in Hong Kong. They have free postage, but it takes 3 to 4 weeks.
I cant remember particular sellers but all the Hong Kong chaps seem to be good. (I bought a little dial test "finger" indicator and mini magnetic base for $40 all up. When it arrived the dial indicator unexpectedly was branded "Mitutoyo Made in Japan". Chances of it being genuine article? Hmmm. But a very good little unit for the money non the less.

One shop in Hong Kong with a very good reputation but a limited line of stock is CTC Tools. I think they have an eBay store too.

I always bought my stuff from the USA in the past but the shipping costs have gone stupid the past year. Post Office prices have gone up there some, but not as much as sellers are charging. With the A dollar dropping below parity it is now worse than ever.

 

[aarggh]

As Jack620 mentioned, it's not the cost of shipping that's the problem, more the inflated revenue raising schemes masquerading as "shipping costs" that is the problem. I have no qualms if I want something big and heavy sent from US to OZ, and paying the appropriate $60-$70-$90 post-pak costs, but when you routinely get envelope sized items with $60 shipping charges, (and I know what envelopes cost from the US), or medium sized parcels that are actually sent in a $50 post-pak carton, but you are being charged $80-$150 for it, that's just downright obscene whatever the country.

I recently contacted a seller, and for an estimated 23 pounds gross of kit (medium post-pak sized but possibly 0-3 pounds over), he was charging $240 shipping! That's greed, plain and simple. And he didn't even want to check for me if it was under 20 pounds, or over, just charge and be damned was the attitude.

On the other hand, I bought some Ray HasBrouck engine plans, and was rapt $10 additional postage was added for overseas to the total, not individually to each plan. As it should be.

cheers, Ian

 

[jwcnc1911]

I won't even bid on an item unless shipping is clear and up front.

 

[OrangeAlpine]

I recently purchased two resisters used in DC motor controllers. Both were for 1 hp motors, different brand of controller.

One, direct from the manufacturer, was "only" $20, plus shipping. They use UPS exclusively and my cost was $15. So $35 total. The second, from a dealer, was $5, including shipping. It was wrapped in a piece of letter paper, taped to a folded sheet of letter paper and inserted into a small manilla envelope. The shipper paid $1.69 shipping.

No, you do not always get what you pay for and it is not always the Post Offices fault.

Bill

 

[Cogsy]

I recently bought my wife a saxaphone off ebay, complete with case, it was a bulky item and had to be shipped from the west coast of the U.S. to me here in Australia. All up, it only cost me $75 postage because the seller used ebay's own transport 'network'. He spent $25 having it shipped from the west coast almost all the way to the east coast by road, then ebay reshipped it to me for $50. I thought it wasn't a bad deal considering how big a parcel it was.

I do wonder though, why everything I get via Fedex has to be shipped through Anchorage, Alsaka before it gets sent to me. I watch the tracking info as it treks around the U.S. mainland, then gets flown to Anchorage, where it usually sits for a day or two, then (with 24 hours before estimated delivery) it jets off to Singapore, then Perth and finally to my door. The estimated delivery dates are almost always spot on, but 8 days are wasted before it even leaves U.S. soil, not to mention that Alaska is almost as far away from my house as it's possible to get without actually leaving the planet...

 

[ConductorX]

The original FEDEX business model was to ship everything to a central hub in Memphis Tennessee, sort the packages and then deliver them all back out to the correct address. I believe they use the same model for international work as well. Anchorage must be the hub for the Pacific rim.

Wikipedia.org: "The concept for what became Federal Express came to Fred Smith while he was studying at Yale University. For a class there, he submitted a paper which argued that in modern technological society time meant money more than ever before and with the advent of miniaturized electronic circuitry, very small components had become extremely valuable. He argued that the consumer society was becoming increasingly hungry for mass-produced electronic items, but the decentralizing effect induced by these very devices gave manufacturers tremendous logistic problems in delivering the items. Smith felt that the necessary delivery speed could only be achieved by using air transport. But, he believed that the U.S. air cargo system was so inflexible and bound by regulations at that time that it was completely incapable of making sufficiently fast deliveries. Plus, the U.S. air cargo industry was highly unsuited to the role. Its system depended on cooperation between companies, as interlining was often necessary to get a consignment from point A to point B, and the industry relied heavily on cargo forwarders to fill hold space and perform doorstep deliveries.
In his paper, Smith proposed a new concept - have one carrier be responsible for a piece of cargo from local pick-up right through to ultimate delivery, operating its own aircraft, depots, posting stations and delivery vans. To ensure accurate sorting and dispatching of every item of freight, the carrier would fly it from all of its pickup stations to a central clearinghouse, from where the entire operation would be controlled. He submitted the paper to the professor teaching the course, who gave the paper the grade of "C". Despite the professor's opinion, Smith held on to the idea."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedEx_Express#cite_note-flightglobal1981-5

 

[Cogsy]

I do recall seeing my shipments go through Memphis first, now that you mention it. I like Fedex for their tracking and for sticking to their delivery dates, but the delivery time to Australia is virtually exactly the same as USPS.

I used to import a bit from Egypt and my supplier used an arab company I'd never heard of, but I'd place an order Tuesday morning and have it in my hand sometime Friday. That was good service (rates were cheap too).

 

[ConductorX]

It wasn't my intention to promote or defend FEDEX. I have problems with them myself. I just wanted to share some history of the company and why they do the things they do.

"G"

 

[aarggh]

I was looking for some very small barrel hinges for a project I'm working on, and found a couple of Chinese ones for a pittance, but several US ones, with the ludicrous shipping we've discussed before. This is a good example of the weird attitude some sellers have:

2 x barrel hinges, shipping $44 (there are several listed around that figure)!!!!
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ROCKLER-14mm-BARREL-HINGE-SET-NEW-IN-PACKAGING-/330932138803?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d0d17 b333

And yet another US seller has an auction for a lot of 10 (they're slightly smaller but there's 10 of them!) barrel hinges, postage? A mere $4, far more in line with reality, and proving shipping ISN'T that expensive!
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/10-5mm-Mini-Barrel-Hinges-for-Pen-Jewelry-and-other-Small-Boxes-/181042437043?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a26f8 5bb3

These are tiny items that would fit in an envelope and require no special protection.

I not entirely sure if it's just greed plain and simple, or they think they are somehow special, but it's just garbage ripping people off IMHO.

cheers, Ian

 

[Tin Falcon]

A couple years ago a summer thunder lightning storm damaged the control board of my mini lathe and my mini mill.
the mini mill had a little box with a rectifier bridge and I found one at the radio shack for 6 bucks or something like that, the Lathe board had a single blown diode . so I go one line . I fines an electronics place with a Brooklyn NY address. they have the part I need IIRC $0.69 each and flat rate $3 shipping. OK no big deal I can drive to NYC in a couple hours so I order the item on line and figure I will see in in two maybe 3 days via snail mail.
A week goes buy no package. Then my wife comes in the shop. Honey what did buy from Sidney Australia? It was the diodes apparently the Brooklyn office was only a branch and the home office where the billing is done is in Sydney. So another week goes by. What I expected to get in Two days has now taken 14. I get the package look at the return address and just have to laugh. My two little diodes were shipped from the manufacturer in Bannock Thailand . that is why it took two weeks to arrive. You just have to love the global economy.

I had a similar experience with my 115pc set of screw machine drill bits made in USA by Michigan drill. I order from a guy in California USA. expected delivery 1 week shipped directly from the manufacturer. It took two weeks because the drill bits were coming out of Michigan drills Florida USA plant and Florida had been hit with a hurricane and I had to wait for the last few sizes of drill bit be made to fill out the set.
My only compliant is the seller could have explained better why there was a delay.
Tin

 

[jack620]

Yeah, I recently bought my son a basketball top on eBay. The item location was listed as New Zealand, the seller's account was in Sydney and the item shipped from China.