FYI,
I bought a package of 5 O-rings from Sears repair parts
The 5 rings together weigh about 1/4 ounce and fit in a small mailing envelope. The price of the rings was $3.58 but the shipping was $9.98. I live in a rural area without much shopping around, so I had no choice.
I guess I'm lucky that I could even get them. Sears won't be around in any place or form in a few years.
With that high a shipping charge it just adds another nail to the Sears coffin.
With those prices, the repair parts business piece of Sears will probably be around. I look at parts on Sears sometimes, find the part number, the new replacement part number if there is one, then I google and look on Ebay. Almost always find it somewhere cheaper. Those O rings, I bet if you new the size, you could find them for a few bucks, including shipping, on Ebay. The problem is knowing and finding the right size. I guess that's what the extra bucks at Sears are for, convenience and knowing it's the right part.
But what was the actual shipping charge? It is frustrating as we're also in rural area where must rely on such often as well but from a practical matter it probably really isn't feasible to make special dispensation for various items rather than using a standard shipping policy. Stuff like these that _could_ just go into a First Class envelope is likely not sufficient in volume to make up for the extra handling of choosing alternate methods of shipping.
It's too late for this time, of course, but I will note that at least here in farm and oil & gas country, even though there's little retail shopping or choice in appliances/repair, there are vendors for the commercial activities including a gasket/seal vendor who in all likelihood could match the o-ring from stock.
Remember to look for those kinds of local sources; may surprise you what is available in "non traditional" venues.
If that route does fail, as another noted, often if you can find a part number then there may even be a "free shipping" option on eBay from somebody with NOS or other distress merchandise.
When I order parts with higher than expected shipping I look at the whole picture.
You paid about $2.70 per O ring
If Home Depot had them you might have gotten then a bit cheaper but :
Would they be exactly right?
Plus between gas and the amount of time it would have taken...I don't think Sears exactly ripped you off.
Still recall the time I bought an non-OEM beltfor my previous wash machine and it was just a fraction too small and though I got it on, it soon broke.
The shipping and handling charges sure do vary. You can usually ship small parts for no more than $ 6 by the priority mail and that includes the box to put them in. A small padded package can be mailed for $ 2 or $ 3.
I guess that most of that shipping was for the time it takes to get the parts off the shelf and put them in the envelope. It probably cost the company $ 5 worth of the persons time fort that small order. They may even loose money on that small ammount.
What gets me,and I know why, that I have ordered a few things off ebay from China and the total cost is less than $ 2 and that includes shipping. To mail a regular letter from the US to another country cost about $ 1.25..
I did order a few small electronic parts from a US company and the fellow at the order line asked me how big I thought the parts were. I told him the 4 parts were about the size of a USB drive all total. He said good, he could use the padded envelope and the shipping was very small.
A number of years ago I purchased both SAE and metric o-ring assortments from Harbor Freight for about $8 each. I have been able to repair so many automotive, appliance and miscellaneous items with o-rings from the assortment, it is the first place I look when I need one. This has been a huge money saver for me.
Here is a link:
Sounds about right. How much does their help get paid? Wages and benefits could be $20/hr or more. They have to enter the order, print it out and give it to a packer that will go get the parts, then they get put into the shipping container, entered into either UPS or USPS. Same amount of labor for the $3.58 part or a $358.00 part.
Sucks, but if you were running the business you'd probably have to charge that too.
That's right. To mail a small padded envelope costs me $2.65. The only thing less expensive would be a truly flat regular envelope. But if there is any variation in the thickness, a bump, etc, then it's $2.65.
What I want to know, what somebody should look into, is how there are countless Chinese vendors on Ebay that sell items for $1 including free shipping to the USA. An example would be say a 3 ft extension cord for headphones. Items like that are on Ebay for $1, plenty of them and it's no fluke, not a mistake. There are even more that are $1 to $2 It arrives here via US mail. Seems like something Trump should look into. I would bet that the US Post Office is subsidizing their shipping with some incredible rate, while the rest of us pay for it. Even if it lands in the US as some bulk shipping and then gets split out, it still has to go through the US mail for final delivery, carried across most of America.
Bingo! Exactly what I want to know.
this explains it.
On Wed, 24 Jan 2018 09:12:08 -0600, philo wrote in
I didn't mean to imply that it was a rip-off. I knew the shipping before I finalized the order. There is no alternative within an hour or two drive of the rural area I live in. I was glad to get the parts; but just wanted to alert people to what might be unexpectedly high shipping from SearsPartsDirect.
Whenever I have a choice I avoid Sears. This time I didn't have a cost effective alternative.
Good point to keep in mind.
Yeah, but the underlying problem is that the manufacturers of just about any product avoid "standard" components. They feel compelled to design or spec unique ones that they feel are somehow superior.
Why, I ask you does every car take a one-off model of air filter, oil filter, tire size, and spark plug? Seems about a dozen versions of each would cover just about all common applications.
What about needlessly different drive belts on a washer or dryer, O-rings on fuacets, camera batteries, laptop chargers, furnace blower motors, etc. Do we really need hundreds and hundreds of different shapes and sizes of phone batteries?
A fuse company representative gave talk where I worked. He said in years past they wanted to brag on having a fuse for every purpose. Not really that much difference in the fuses but the package the element was in. Now they have another claim that one fuse will replace many of the older style ones.
I remember helping a friend change a water pump on a car made around
1970. There were either 5 or 7 different ones (don't recall which) that looked the same and would fit. Only problem was some had more holes drilled and tapped for bolts depending on if it had air condition, power stearing or some other factors. If it was a standard car, all would fit, but if it had any options, you had to be sure to get the correct one. We found that out after the 2nd trip and was smart enough to carry the old one with us. That taught me a lesson, to take the old part to the supply house if possiable.CRNG posted for all of us...
Could have gone to a NAPA and got them.
On Wed, 24 Jan 2018 07:29:35 -0600, CRNG wrote in
Update: part still has not shipped and searspartsdirect.com doesn't know the status. Thankfully, this water neutralizer is the last Sears product I still own. I will never buy another Sears product. Apparently a lot of other people feel the same way.
My experience is not unique
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