I think you'll save money. But maybe not as much as you'd hoped.
Some parts the junkyard won't have available. My son's car could use a new headrest for one of the seats, but that's not available. Same with some rear seat stuff.
Speaking as a cheapskate and 30+ year habitue' of local junkyards in search of cheap car parts, I can tell you that interior parts, particularly anything upholstered, are very hard to find in good condition at most junkyards. This is because cars get into junkyards in two ways: they wear out, or they get wrecked.
If the car is worn out mechanically, the upholstery will be heavily worn too.
And most cars that are wrecked badly enough to be junked have one or more windows broken in the collision, which leaves the upholstery exposed to the weather.
Speaking of junkyards... one of our local yards has a large sign behind the counter: N F C R . Anyone care to speculate on the meaning?
I agree, to a limit. To me, shipping seems like a license to steal. Shipping charges do appear to be out of line. I've heard the defense
- the cost of picking the item, the box, packing materials, etc, etc, but IMO, that's the cost of doing business. That it's not reflected in the item cost makes that item actually too cheap. You can't
*really* get the blurfl for $20, it's actually $30.As a point of reference, I ordered a pair of gloves from
An option was available to send it on my nickel. That's what I did. I cost about $3.50 at my local post office.
It's going to take them just as much effort on their end to open the box and restock with either option. It just cost me less to pay the postage up front.
BTW, I was credited the full amount of my purchase. Moosejaw is a class organization. I'll be happy to do business with them at some future time.
This is what the shipping apologists miss - giving the appearance of using shipping as a profit center just turns the customer off. But I suppose those organizations have more business than they need so they can afford to make some percentage of their customers look elsewhere the next time they need something.
Typically the junk yards sell entire interiors to a customer. They cannot sell a complete set of seats with parts missing. Having been in the automotive business for many many years, the insurance companies go to the junk yards first for automotive seats. Stolen cars most always need new wheels, tires, seats, and radios. There was a time in the early 80's when I saw on a daily basis stolen cars being brought to our dealership to have those listed items replaced. Then and I suspect now, you cannot buy a complete seat assembly from an American automobile manufacturer unless a car is wrapped around it. The insurance companies in the early 80's created a market for stolen seats. They only bought used seats to replace stolen ones and the demand for used seats was pretty high. Very often we installed the same seats that were stolen out of the vehicle and the seats were delivered by the insurance company. Strange... It tool them years to finally stop the cycle and start buying individual seat parts from us and let us assemble the seats. Costly but the stolen seat market dropped.
I understand. The bottom line for Son's car is that it's 11 years old and doesn't have a head rest on one side.
If I were able to get one, I don't give a lick about the upholstered (sp?) portion. I'd like the internal parts. What's happened is that the metal rods are actually a U shaped metal rod attached to a blow molded plastic ballon with some kind of clips and screws. It's those screws that have pulled out of the plastic. Where I to get one in working mechanical condition, I could swap the cloth and foam portion.
Wow. I obviously touched a nerve when I complained about my $3.00 part and the annoyance from the high shipping cost. Many of you are fair in suggesting that Delta's part's and order fullfillment process is a costly exercise for them. But what bugs me is that:
There is no match between the cost of the item and the cost assigned to shipping There is no match between the weight of the item and the cost assigned to shipping There is not match whether the part required is really poor Delta quality (which in this case is true) There is no match between the method of shipping based on the nature of the part
Rod & Betty Jo wrote: ...
Owing in large part to the fact that they're restocking items in bulk so that the freight charges are amortized over a large number of individual items. Walk in and ask for a special order item and the cost model changes drastically and, more than likely, so will the pricing.
Goodwill only goes so far...for a smaller business or an occasional lowcost item it may well be wise to "eat" the shipping costs. For a large-volume organization, a few bucks over thousands of transcactions adds up to real costs. Should they be amortized in a hidden manner or apportioned to the actual user is then the question? There are justifiable arguments on both ends of the spectrum, certainly. PC has a particular business model--is it the best? Who knows(?), but it _is_ open, known and certainly not unique nor particularly onerous imo.
(Aside regarding earlier complaints about USPS for large volume, I've certainly not tried that end of it, but it would seem as a user/receiver a great benefit for small-ticket/light iitems that would probably increase volume by the reduction of the "buyers' reluctance" syndrome of "Man! I'm not paying _that_ for shipping!")
They certainly are cheaper, I never said they were not. I can see why a lot of eBay sellers would us USPS. But for higher volumes, the process is too cumbersome to be efficient.
Because you think a lot of people do this? :)
They should also keep one or two of every other misc part then as well... for every make and model they sell. And the variations for each model year... before you know it they are sitting on thousands of dollars worth of inventory that has very little demand. Not a good business decision.
You don't think that you, the customers, pays for ALL costs of doing business?
Obviously. :)
Companies like Delta might actually WANT you to try an "authorized repair depot" before you go directly to them. They are using B2B type policies simply because they aren't interested in setting up a true retail operation. Try calling them to buy a complete tool.
I went through this just yesterday with a Bosch router part. I was able to walk into a busy tool repair shop in Hartford, CT and buy the $15 part, saving the $10 that Bosch wants to ship it from the Norwood, MA warehouse.
The same shop also repairs and stocks spare parts for Makita, DeWalt, Porter Cable, Delta, toasters, vacuum cleaners, etc...
No reason why there should be. To illustrate with extreme examples, a $10K diamond could be shipped coast-to-coast in a padded mailer or small box for less than a dollar via first-class mail -- but a dollar's worth of scrap steel might cost twenty bucks to ship from one side of town to the other. Shipping cost is a function of weight, bulk, and difficulty in packaging, none of which have any particular relationship to the value of the item being shipped.
I doubt that's actually the case. Do you seriously mean that the costs to ship a 1/2-ounce gasket and a ten-pound motor are similar?
?? What does the quality of the parts have to do with the cost of shipping? I confess I'm at a loss to understand why you think there should be any relationship here.
It's probably less expensive for Delta to have a contract with a single shipper, and ship everything that way.
"Leon" snip
Leon, Boy do I remember that. Honda prelude seats were a hot commodity for a long time. For two or three years, the insurance companies only paid for used seats and we were installing two or three sets a week. Once the insurance companies started to pay for new seats, the cars quit getting their seats stolen. I believe they created the market to run up the claims and subsequently the rates. Did they lower the rates after they changed the replacement policy? No way, but they did dry up their claims.
Dave
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Yet another reason to keep the damn car out of the shop...errr garage ;-)
Sure there is. It is shipping and "handling". Delta lost money on this sale. It takes almost as much "handling" to process, pick, pack, and load this part on a $3.00 sale as it does to on the $300.00 dollar sale. However, there is not enough margin money in the $3.00 sale to cover the labor and overhead to have it on the shelf and get it to you.
Go back and purchase a 150Lb. part and see if that is true. The PMF (parts master file) has weights for every item that is picked and will match it to the carriers contract. But your still going to get to pay for the handling. However, on the 150# part it may look like a bargain.
Irrelevant and subjective.
I can assure you, that if it cost the company less money to ship by a different method, i.e. to have a less costly, dual method with tracking and reliability available, they would do so, reducing your cost but at the same time increasing their profit (or in this case limiting the loss on the sale).
Frank
No. honest is what HF does ... a 5.99 "transaction fee" then shipping is shipping.
Maybe they should tell you what they actually paid for the part as well?
I have received about 50 shipments by UPS this summer for a project and I don't recall any being crushed or unreasonably dirty. The vast majority were just as clean and new as they where when the shipper handed them off to UPS.
Brian Elfert
I'm going to guess here that Delta shipped the part via UPS. If so, UPS doesn't care about the value of the part (if it's under $100), the quality of the part, the nature of the part, or the weight except in 1 pound increments.
A 1 oz. package costs just as much to ship as a 1 lb. package. If the item in the box is worth $.30 or $100, UPS does not care. The charge is based on your zip code, the shipper's zip code, and the weight in whole pounds rounded up - that's it. Over $100, they add cost for insurance. Plus, they charge you a weekly fee just for showing up and picking up your packages.
To your point of shipping method - a company the size of Delta is not going to pick and choose between shipping methods based on what is being shipped. They will have a contract carrier and they will likely use them for all parcels. It would cost them even more in labor costs for their shipping department to evaluate the different methods and pick the cheapest one for the purpose, fill out the necessary paperwork, etc. They can't just drop it in an envelope and put a stamp on it - they probably don't even have access to stamps or envelopes.
Even if they used the USPS, it would be more likely that they would use the pre-paid Priority Mail boxes, which I think are $4.95 regardless of weight.
I guess people who don't do this every day don't realize that it's just as much of a PITA to ship a tiny little item as it is to ship a big one. Sometimes more.
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