On Amazon you can buy 2 neck plates with screws and pads for about ten bucks, shipped, IF you have an Amazon Prime membership. This is from a company that ships millions of items every day. For a relatively small-time shipper like Warmoth, their fee is not out of line. Like others have said, see how much it would cost you to ship this item through with a trackable shipper, including packing materials (no, not a business envelope) and your time to make this happen.
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So it seems Warmoth has gotten the same price gouging as StewMac
- Thread starter Guiseppe
- Start date
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- shipping fees warmoth
https://www.usps.com/ship/priority-mail.htm
If it makes you feel better, I just paid 10 bucks shipping for 4 tuner bushing spacers from Hipshot.
If it makes you feel better, I just paid 10 bucks shipping for 4 tuner bushing spacers from Hipshot.
How? That is a couple gallons of gas.. the 70s are long gone
It’s the shipping companies.
1) They’ve given eBay, Amazon, and others way, way too good of deals, they have to charge others at a different higher rate to make up for it
2) cost of living has gone way up and they have to pay way more to entice people to show up to work on a reliable level.
1) They’ve given eBay, Amazon, and others way, way too good of deals, they have to charge others at a different higher rate to make up for it
2) cost of living has gone way up and they have to pay way more to entice people to show up to work on a reliable level.
Turnaround
Commercial User
I wonder. It cost me $9 to ship a very small package about 200 miles recently. Shipping costs have increased dramatically over the past couple of years.
We’ve all been spoiled by free shipping for so long.
Go to usps.com to see what it costs to ship something. They won’t give you a discount because what you're shipping is only worth $2.
Go to usps.com to see what it costs to ship something. They won’t give you a discount because what you're shipping is only worth $2.
And then it would take ten days to arrive at your house, during which time you would have called customer service -- demanding first a tracking number, and then a refund, burning a half-hour of someone's labor for a two-dollar part.
Eventually it would have shown up; they would have mailed you the part at their expense, and written the whole thing off as a loss to both the bottom line and for a customer experience.
Just saying, friend, that maybe it's more complicated than you make it out to be.
Warmoth is not going to buy a private island with your shipping. They are giving it to the postal service and that thieving envelope supplier.
it sucks- totally. I’d probably buy a neck I don’t need and feel like I won when they shoved the neck pad in the box.
I hate shipping. I just sent a 20 pond box to California for 75 bucks. Grrrrr
it sucks- totally. I’d probably buy a neck I don’t need and feel like I won when they shoved the neck pad in the box.
I hate shipping. I just sent a 20 pond box to California for 75 bucks. Grrrrr
Yup.
There's this guy named Bezos who created his own shipping network.
Once UPS/FedEx lost approximately 50% of their shipping volume, they cranked their prices.
Try and find the same product on Amazon if you're a prime member.
There's this guy named Bezos who created his own shipping network.
Once UPS/FedEx lost approximately 50% of their shipping volume, they cranked their prices.
Try and find the same product on Amazon if you're a prime member.
Do you guys understand the difference between the Shipping & Handling model vs the Free Shipping model?
For at least 100 years companies that do mail-order business have always used the Shipping & Handling model. From Sears Roebuck to McMasters to Stew-Mac, they've always traditionally used the Shipping & Handling model.
The Shipping & Handling charge is the entire cost of processing the order by mail. It includes logging in the order, printing the receipt and shipping label, the cost of the box and packing material, the labor to pack it, and...the shipping charge to USPS or UPS. It's the complete cost to them, of logging, packing and shipping your order.
The cost of the part, in their mail-order catalog, is the same as the cost of the same part over the counter in their brick & mortar store. And that's why they use the Shipping & Handling model. So the customer knows that the part is the same price in the store or by mail. But ordering by mail has the additional charge for the cost of packing and shipping it.
The important thing is that the Shipping & Handling charge is a single charge per order. It's not added per part or multiplied for multiple items. The charge only increases if the total weight or physical size of the box increases significantly.
So, yeah, if you order a single neck plate gasket for $5, the S & H charge may be $11. Which seems excessive, but that's what it actually costs them to process, pack and ship your order. But if you order 10 gaskets, the S & H charge will still be $11. If you order 100 it will probably still be $11. If you place an order for a bunch of different larger items, including the one gasket, the total S & H charge may be $13.
The Shipping & Handling charge is based on the size and weight of the box, not the number of items inside. Because that's how the shipping companies charge. For a small package, a S & H charge of $11 breaks down approximately as $4 for the shipping cost, $1 for the box & packing materials, and $6 for the labor to process the order, pick the stock, print the label & receipt, and pack the box. About 10 minutes labor. Which is what most small businesses will spend processing a mail order. That's fair and reasonable.
Then there's Free Shipping! I don't remember when it started, but Ebay went into it big back in the mid-'90's. Ebay started out as an auction site, basically doing the selling for tens of thousands of individuals and small businesses. Ebay was brokering the sale, but the individuals were doing their own shipping & handling of the stuff they sold. And, in the early days, most of the auctions listed the winning bid and the shipping & handling charge. And, yeah, you could win an auction for $5 and have to pay a $25 Shipping & Handling fee on it. The S & H fee depended on how big and heavy the item was and how far away it was. And it was understood that the S & H fee included the seller's cost to box it up, too.
Then Ebay suggested that the Sellers set their auction prices to include the Shipping & Handling. Then advertise the price as Free Shipping!!! And it worked. People tended to go for the auctions with Free Shipping!!! It wasn't really dishonest, but it was a marketing trick. You obviously were paying for the shipping in the auction price.
Then along came Amazon.....who took the idea several steps farther. Instead of brokering auctions of junk by individuals, they were listing and selling quantities of new products from tens of thousands of small businesses. Some of those businesses used the Shipping & Handling model, listing the Shipping cost separate from the product price. But Amazon convinced many of them to do Free Shipping!!!; that is, set their product price to include the Shipping & Handling cost. Because advertising Free Shipping!!! brought in more sales.
But this is where it starts getting shady. Because the S & H cost is built into the price of every single item, if you buy 10 things from one company, you are paying the S & H charge 10 times. Even if they ship them in one box.
The companies play around with their pricing, often barely making any profit on a single item sale, and betting on making big profits on bigger orders to a single customer. Because of that multiplication of the built-in S & H cost.
Amazon collects their money as a percentage of the selling price. That percentage varies by factors like quantity sold, price range, etc.
Amazon also offers their own Warehousing, Order Picking, and Shipping service. Companies can, if they choose, ship their pre-packaged products to Amazon, in bulk. Amazon then acts as the whole retail operation, storing the products, taking the orders, processing the money, packing the boxes, and shipping them in their own trucks. For providing this service, Amazon keeps a percentage of the money before sending it to the company.
It's a huge scale operation, so there's some efficiency in size. Their cost to Ship & Handle an order is lower than what a small business can do at home. But they are still applying that S & H fee to every single item. Even multiple of the same item in one box.
Is that more "fair" than the classic Shipping & Handling fee?
And then they introduced Prime with Free Shipping!!! You pay an annual fee for a license to be charged an averaged-out S & H fee on every item.
This all gets very confusing for a company like Stew-Mac. They sell their products over the counter in a store, online through their own web site, online through Amazon (with Stew-Mac doing the S & H) and also with some products stocked in Amazon's warehouse. All those have different pricing structures, but they try to line up their product prices to make sense. I don't see anything that Stew-Mac does as being outrageous or a rip-off. They are an old-fashioned company who sets their prices on what things cost and what they need to stay in business.
So many companies, particularly on Amazon, get into price wars trying to squeeze out market share. And then they go broke.
With all that said, I love Amazon, and I do about 70% of my annual purchasing on there. Mostly because it's just so convenient.
For at least 100 years companies that do mail-order business have always used the Shipping & Handling model. From Sears Roebuck to McMasters to Stew-Mac, they've always traditionally used the Shipping & Handling model.
The Shipping & Handling charge is the entire cost of processing the order by mail. It includes logging in the order, printing the receipt and shipping label, the cost of the box and packing material, the labor to pack it, and...the shipping charge to USPS or UPS. It's the complete cost to them, of logging, packing and shipping your order.
The cost of the part, in their mail-order catalog, is the same as the cost of the same part over the counter in their brick & mortar store. And that's why they use the Shipping & Handling model. So the customer knows that the part is the same price in the store or by mail. But ordering by mail has the additional charge for the cost of packing and shipping it.
The important thing is that the Shipping & Handling charge is a single charge per order. It's not added per part or multiplied for multiple items. The charge only increases if the total weight or physical size of the box increases significantly.
So, yeah, if you order a single neck plate gasket for $5, the S & H charge may be $11. Which seems excessive, but that's what it actually costs them to process, pack and ship your order. But if you order 10 gaskets, the S & H charge will still be $11. If you order 100 it will probably still be $11. If you place an order for a bunch of different larger items, including the one gasket, the total S & H charge may be $13.
The Shipping & Handling charge is based on the size and weight of the box, not the number of items inside. Because that's how the shipping companies charge. For a small package, a S & H charge of $11 breaks down approximately as $4 for the shipping cost, $1 for the box & packing materials, and $6 for the labor to process the order, pick the stock, print the label & receipt, and pack the box. About 10 minutes labor. Which is what most small businesses will spend processing a mail order. That's fair and reasonable.
Then there's Free Shipping! I don't remember when it started, but Ebay went into it big back in the mid-'90's. Ebay started out as an auction site, basically doing the selling for tens of thousands of individuals and small businesses. Ebay was brokering the sale, but the individuals were doing their own shipping & handling of the stuff they sold. And, in the early days, most of the auctions listed the winning bid and the shipping & handling charge. And, yeah, you could win an auction for $5 and have to pay a $25 Shipping & Handling fee on it. The S & H fee depended on how big and heavy the item was and how far away it was. And it was understood that the S & H fee included the seller's cost to box it up, too.
Then Ebay suggested that the Sellers set their auction prices to include the Shipping & Handling. Then advertise the price as Free Shipping!!! And it worked. People tended to go for the auctions with Free Shipping!!! It wasn't really dishonest, but it was a marketing trick. You obviously were paying for the shipping in the auction price.
Then along came Amazon.....who took the idea several steps farther. Instead of brokering auctions of junk by individuals, they were listing and selling quantities of new products from tens of thousands of small businesses. Some of those businesses used the Shipping & Handling model, listing the Shipping cost separate from the product price. But Amazon convinced many of them to do Free Shipping!!!; that is, set their product price to include the Shipping & Handling cost. Because advertising Free Shipping!!! brought in more sales.
But this is where it starts getting shady. Because the S & H cost is built into the price of every single item, if you buy 10 things from one company, you are paying the S & H charge 10 times. Even if they ship them in one box.
The companies play around with their pricing, often barely making any profit on a single item sale, and betting on making big profits on bigger orders to a single customer. Because of that multiplication of the built-in S & H cost.
Amazon collects their money as a percentage of the selling price. That percentage varies by factors like quantity sold, price range, etc.
Amazon also offers their own Warehousing, Order Picking, and Shipping service. Companies can, if they choose, ship their pre-packaged products to Amazon, in bulk. Amazon then acts as the whole retail operation, storing the products, taking the orders, processing the money, packing the boxes, and shipping them in their own trucks. For providing this service, Amazon keeps a percentage of the money before sending it to the company.
It's a huge scale operation, so there's some efficiency in size. Their cost to Ship & Handle an order is lower than what a small business can do at home. But they are still applying that S & H fee to every single item. Even multiple of the same item in one box.
Is that more "fair" than the classic Shipping & Handling fee?
And then they introduced Prime with Free Shipping!!! You pay an annual fee for a license to be charged an averaged-out S & H fee on every item.
This all gets very confusing for a company like Stew-Mac. They sell their products over the counter in a store, online through their own web site, online through Amazon (with Stew-Mac doing the S & H) and also with some products stocked in Amazon's warehouse. All those have different pricing structures, but they try to line up their product prices to make sense. I don't see anything that Stew-Mac does as being outrageous or a rip-off. They are an old-fashioned company who sets their prices on what things cost and what they need to stay in business.
So many companies, particularly on Amazon, get into price wars trying to squeeze out market share. And then they go broke.
With all that said, I love Amazon, and I do about 70% of my annual purchasing on there. Mostly because it's just so convenient.
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just putting this out there but you could just skip the plastic pad entirely
the last thing i want on my bolt-on guitars is any extra "squish" in the bolting of the neck to the body
Agree that as described it is fair.
Sadly, I have seen companies that always charge S&H per item, though that is rare. The other thing I've seen is S&H charges that are clearly a profit center and don't reflect the true cost of shipping and handling.
I've also seen companies that had per-item shipping but DID refund all but the largest shipping charge when multiple items were ordered at once.
I am talking about a soft plastic pad the size of the neck plate. I know that this part would take next to no storage space and would easily fit into a normal mailing envelope. After taking my order, the shipping address is in their system and the labor involved to address a shipping envelope would be limited to clicking 'Print', sticking said label on an envelope and affixing it to the envelope...so I don't personally feel there is that much labor necessary. Finally, shipping? I live 2 hours away. This is a piece of rubber. I don't live in Bangladesh.
Most companies will only ship with a contracted shipping company. Yes, they could have made an exception, put it in a bubble mailer, print the postage from their office printer instead of from the Shipping company software, and walked to the mailbox.
This however, is not how efficient companies run. Your order is populated in their sales system, the picker grabs it from their wharehouse shelving, probably the same person then visually inspects the part and puts it in a shippers envelope or a box, the label is then printed out from their thermal printer where the picker/boxer/label attacher then walks your part over to their dock where UPS/FedEx/DHL etc. show up one or two times a day.
Honestly, this is not 1981 where folks are doing business with NCR paper, Book ledgers and the USPS mail.
Did a search and found this. Just under $8.00 with “free shipping”.
Have you tried sourcing locally? My local GC has ordered genuine Fender parts for me and all I paid was the listed price of the part.
Black Plastic Neck Plate Cushion for 4-bolt Fender® Strat/Tele® Bass AP-0604-023 | eBay
Have you tried sourcing locally? My local GC has ordered genuine Fender parts for me and all I paid was the listed price of the part.
Black Plastic Neck Plate Cushion for 4-bolt Fender® Strat/Tele® Bass AP-0604-023 | eBay
As an eBay Associate, TalkBass may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.
Though good stuff I thought they were high enough anyhow. That’s why I’ve never bought off of them
lol, you should try living in Hawaii, shipping is insane from the mainland to Hawaii. I buy as much as I can from Amazon, but you don’t get 2 Day for your Prime membership to Hawaii, just regular mail. I’ve paid $20 or more for small items from non-Amazon suppliers. $11? I’d LOVE that price. Count your blessings. I’ve paid $20 for $2 items many times.
I’m a Prime member and not every low priced product that still ships free overnight is made in an Asian sweatshop. I’d be more worried about Amazon’s workers
Lip balm, $6
Dental picks $7
Ernie Ball slide $7
If you shipped the neck plate, you'd probably stick it in a regular envelope with some stamps. Companies are using padded mailers/envelopes, with tracking, and insurance. It's asinine to expect a professional establishment to send you something the most unreliable method possible.
