Misleading Amazon price cuts on tools

[John Thomas]

Dave Hinz wrote in news: [e-mail]:

It depends .. some companies (LV comes to mind ;-) ) charge either a flat rate, or an incremental rate based on order total rather than by zip.

Others I've seen (and don't remember off the top of my head) will allow you to get to the shipping rates prior to entering any *financial* information -- which is how I interpreted the OP's post (yeah, I know, not *exactly* what the OP said ...)

Regardless, I won't do business with anyone I have to give information to, to find s/h data (other than at most, zip code) ... It's just not needed.

Personally, I generally don't use mail/web/phone orders to get a "deal"

-- usually, by the time you factor in the s/h, any savings are lost. The real benefit to me for m/w/p is better selection. LV doesn't have a store in PDX, so I'm happy to do business with them - and I've used all three modes. I've done other business with, eg, Amazon, because they had something I couldn't find locally either at all, or easily enough.

But I won't do business with companies that make finding s/h a chore.

[Mortimer Schnerd, RN]

But then you won't get the special Amazon cardboard box. They put a lot of work into making it look so beat up.

[foggytown]

CAVEAT EMPTOR! Shipping AND handling/postage AND packaging. Apparently these places use real high quality, space-age cardboard boxes and the "handlers/packers" earn about $45/hour.

FoggyTown

[foggytown]

There's this twonk on ebay who sells nothing but electronic vernier calipers. He starts the bidding at .01 with no reserve and you may be tempted to bid - until you note that his p&p is £10! - this for an item which may weigh 3 or 4 oz soaking wet. This suggests that the item isn't worth more than a fiver to begin with. So (and he may be counting on this) if you don't read carefully you may bid over ,01 for the item and end up paying even MORE.

Have to admire his chutzpah

FoggyTown

[Mortimer Schnerd, RN]

Uh... I think you miss the point. I know these conversations will certainly have a bearing on where I buy my next tool. Complaining to the company will do no good. Complaining to the newsgroup will help *someone*. Hopefully before they get screwed.

[foggytown]

Let's face it. The ONLY info required to get a quote for the TOTAL price of anything should be a zip code. (Your name and address is hardly likely to influence the price, is it.) BUT once you enter even some basic personal info the seller can add it to his growing list of names which he can onsell to some oter enterprise and THAT, children, is why you get half a forest of junk crap dropped through your mailbox every day.

FoggyTown

[blueman]

I think you totally missed my point. I am not holding them responsible for anything -- they can say what they want and charge what they want (as long as they are not violating some law).

I was just pointing out that their marketing was misleading if not deceptive (though almost certainly not illegal) -- goal was to inform others and perhaps indirectly influence Amazon to avoid such misleading statements.

Jeff

[blueman]

I think you missed the point -- I did figure it out. However, I wanted to achieve two goals with this post:

1. Inform others who might be misled
2. Indirectly influence Amazon if such posts cause enough potential buyers to either look otherwise or to speak up themselves.

As you say, "Life is too short" to argue about this... If you disagree with my thinking, the as you say "Move on. Next" post "please".

[terphenyl]

Thanks for the warning.

For the "life is too short," "buy somewhere else" guys, please try to take a step back, and look at your own advice. If "life is too short," why must consumers have to waste such valuable time *the first time* ferreting out information purposely made as obscure and misleading as possible in order to determine that you should "buy somewhere else" the next time? OK, now we know what Amazon.com is doing. That's one out of how many more to go?

[Lobby Dosser]

They are deceptive in other ways. If you sell a book through them they charge the customer ~$3.50 for shipping, but only pass along ~$2.60 to you to cover shipping costs. This is in addition to their listing fee and percentage of the sale. Unless you have sold through them And bought from private sellers through them, this 'fee' is completely hidden. I complained about this to them and did get a response, but it was of the humma, humma variety.

[William Brown]

If they are using actual shipping charges, it would seem they would need to know your address to calculate them!

[John Flatley]

Thanks for your response. I think we probably agree, but I may not have made my point clear. Clearly any decision on where to buy a tool or anything, should be based on the total cost to you at the location where you want it and that total cost is not just on the price of the product.

When we consumers consider a purchasing decision, we must weigh Internet purchasing tax-free with shipping and handling and local delivery charges added versus local purchase without shipping and handling to sales tax added. Then we factor in connivance, after sales service and other key but sometimes forgotten charges. Then we can determine the total cost. If we elect not to do these things, then Pogo may have been right when he said, "we have met the enemy and they is us."

The central point you make, that we should all be astute consumers is very valuable. I was afraid that some of the responses were just Amazon/Tool Crib bashing.

Local impact: Our refrigerator is on its way out. We are shopping for a new one. Surprise! The sell price does not include delivery and installation. No dealer has yet told me about those charges until I asked.

Jack

[Chris]

Actually they charge you for that service. Than claim it was like that when they got it.

[Chris]

Zip code is all that is required. If you look at the rate charts that UPS, FedEx and others distribute for web type shopping carts, all they require is the zip.

If you really need to use a particular vendor that pulls this crap, just put in bogus info and make sure the zip is correct.

[John McCoy]

"BillyBob" wrote in news:rRjWe.10516$ [e-mail]:

And then order from Lee Valley? After all, they are the one doing the consumer-friendly thing of alerting you in advance, should they not get the benefit of your patronage in return?

John

[Dave Hinz]

The weight determines value?

Sounds like a classic case of padding the S&H to evade auction costs paid to eBay. Have you notified them of the guy's activities? If not, why complain about it without doing something about it?

Why, so the rest of us eBayers can subsidize his scam? Sorry, no admiration here.

[Bruce Barnett]

I wonder if this is part of the plan to get everyone purchase Amazon Prime memberships. Not only are tools taking longer to ship, so are books. I just placed an order for books with free shipping, and it will take 3 weeks for them to arrive.

Step 1) Offer Amazon Prime Step 2) Delay Shipping

Add *) Remove rebates *) Increase prices and that's a sure way to increase profits.

This increase in tool prices aren't done in a vacuum. The current Amazon policy is that if you find a brick & mortar store or catalog with a lower price, they will match it plus 10%. (i.e. this does not apply to a web site).

I'm wondering if they are beefing up their quarter's profits, so 'round Christmas time, they can drop prices again.

I was surprised that those books I ordered weren't as low cost as they used to be.

I ordered 3 PB books w/$7 list price, and they only knocked the price done a total of $1.40 off list.

[Jay Pique]

It's frustrating when you get charged $13 to ship something via UPS and then it doesn't make it to your door for nearly 2 weeks. Is there anywhere in the continental US that should take a 3 pound package that long to get to you?

JP

[maradcliff]

Amazon.com is a company I would not go near with someone elses wallet, unless I hated the person !!!!

I even set a web filter in my HOSTS file to block them because too many sites link to them.

Just my opinion....

[Andy Asberry]

Many years ago, the FTC really frowned on misleading ads. I worked for Goodyear in one of their Service Stores. In addition to tires and auto service, we also sold electronics and appliances.

The rule then was that to call anything on sale, the price had to be at least 10% lower than the average selling price the previous 30 days. You also had to have on hand enough inventory to cover expected sales. For tires, it was two sets in each size.

Standing rule for store managers: if Sears had an ad for a low ball appliance, go to the Sears store and buy it. They only had one and it was a piece of crap. They really didn't want to sell it. It was just a draw so they could sell you up. It was no big secret though. We had them load it in the Goodyear truck.

We would then place it on our floor to compare the quality of our brand (whatever it was) against Sears. Sears also got a lot of complaints for not having the advertised special in stock.