Shopsmith Forums

I know we've been down this road recently, but thought I would report my complete confusion. I purchased a SS speed increaser during the sale they held last week. The freight/handling charge with Fedex was $20.49 for 16.9 pounds. In January when I purchased a SS planer dust chute the charge was $8.49 (they like the number .49, I guess) for a part that weighed a half pound at best. Figuring the ratios based on the Fedex charge, the dust chute should have been 60 cents for shipping. Figuring the ratio the other way the speed increaser shipping and handling should have been $173. 49. I just added the .49 cents for the fun of it.

Some one help be understand shipping. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm happy about the cost on the speed increaser, I just don't understand it.

May be some minimum charges involved. Just a thought, I am no shipping expert.

My wife says I don't understand it and it isn't based on weight, probably more based on box size or other categories, but not weight unless it's really heavy. I don't know how she knows what she knows, but I don't argue with her, the wisdom of 41 years of marriage.

The charges are not limited to actual shipping. There be 'handling' charges that include packing(labor and materials and the shipping container).

I don't know exactly how charges are determined but could find out as a good fiend owns and runs a local shipping center that primarily uses FedEx. I do know when I go there to mail stuff, they weigh the box and then they enter the dimensions and the shipping rate options are generated. I think both parameters do factor in, as they care how big it is in terms of how much space it takes up and they care about the weight in terms of cummulative weight of all packages on a given truck or plane. How all this factors into generated shipping costs I'm not sure. Shipping costs can be downright scary these days...the primary reason I'm an Amazon Prime member - something nice about getting stuff 2-day air with no added shipping costs. I can usually hunt around and find a given item for somewhat cheaper elsewhere than the Amazon Prime price (although their prices are usually rather competitive), but when shipping is tacked on to a non-Amazon Prime vendor, it's rare that it doesn't exceed the Amazon Prime price. It wasn't all that long ago that Amazon didn't charge sales tax, which was an additional bonus. Of course, none of that does much good in this case as SS items can't be bought via Amazon...

WmZiggy wrote:I know we've been down this road recently, but thought I would report my complete confusion. I purchased a SS speed increaser during the sale they held last week. The freight/handling charge with Fedex was $20.49 for 16.9 pounds. In January when I purchased a SS planer dust chute the charge was $8.49 (they like the number .49, I guess) for a part that weighed a half pound at best. Figuring the ratios based on the Fedex charge, the dust chute should have been 60 cents for shipping. Figuring the ratio the other way the speed increaser shipping and handling should have been $173. 49. I just added the .49 cents for the fun of it.

Some one help be understand shipping. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm happy about the cost on the speed increaser, I just don't understand it.

Shopsmith's shipping charges are based on the total price of your order. There is no correlation to the weight of the order. 0-$20 is $6.99 the shipping rate goes up $2-3 every $20 until you get to $100, next step is over $200.

SDSSmith wrote:Shopsmith's shipping charges are based on the total price of your order. There is no correlation to the weight of the order. 0-$20 is $6.99 the shipping rate goes up $2-3 every $20 until you get to $100, next step is over $200.

That's it! WmZiggy tried to apply a linear ratio to the shipping/handling charges. Even the USPS, UPS and FedEx rates aren't a straight linear ratio.

SDSSmith wrote:Shopsmith's shipping charges are based on the total price of your order. There is no correlation to the weight of the order. 0-$20 is $6.99 the shipping rate goes up $2-3 every $20 until you get to $100, next step is over $200.

You see this a lot with online vendors and it is completely senseless…at the point you relate shipping charge to price with no regard to weight or size, it essentially is just a "shipping tax". I realize they can't readily calculate shipping for a random array of items you buy when placing an order online but I'd prefer they just give an estimate and then correct the total later when they make a real calculation based on the size and weight of the package(s) being shipped. In some cases their current scenario could work in your favor (think heavy/bulky items that are not particularly expensive), while the converse would be small and/or light items that are quite expensive. I imagine you could find lots of items they sell that are similar size and weight as the speed increaser but much less expensive…shipping charges should be the same yet you will get "taxed" extra for the more expensive item.

One year I was ordering some jewelry for my wife as an 11th hour X-Mas present and I needed it shipped 2-day air - basically a couple of pair of earrings or a bracelet or something to that effect - all was going to fit in a small jewelry gift box and 2-day air should have been no more than ~$15 for such a small and light package, yet they tried the ol' base it on total purchase price, which was something like $300, so they wanted to charge something like $40-$50 for shipping. Because it was a web order, there was no way to debate it, so I cancelled out of the order, called customer service instead and explained how absurd that was…they totally agreed and being a good customer service dept, they said they'd ship it free 2-day air. Next time I got one of their catalogs around the holidays, I noticed they had changed their policy to be free 2-day shipping for jewelry-only purchases..someone there got wise and realize the profit margin was probably pretty good on such items and competition is probably stiff for customers around the holidays, so they got wise and decided to wave a carrot for jewelry shoppers instead of pissing us off and making us go elsewhere.

I buy lots of stuff on line and I find Shopsmith shipping charges to be way out of line with everybody else I do business with. I seldom pay more than $7 shipping. However, I also understand that you can hide the cost of the shipping can easily be hidden in the price of the item. I wish they would just include the shipping cost in the price and be done with it.

JPG40504 wrote:The charges are not limited to actual shipping. There be 'handling' charges that include packing(labor and materials and the shipping container).

I factored that into the ratios I ran on the two shipping charges I had from SS this year. I know there are handling charges and they appear as mysterious as shipping now.