Herbert Graf wrote:

A great recent example was a set of fog lights for my car (why aren't
> fog lights standard on cars these days?). 
Global Warming??? ;)

> The "local" price was the
> price at my dealership, very expensive (I wanted OEM, no third party for
> me).
You likely didn't get OEM parts if you bought them online.  I bought a 
replacement taillight assembly
for my Chevrolet Silverado online.  It was advertised as OEM and was a 
very, very, very good
attempt to duplicate the OEM part.  But, you can clearly see the 
difference when the lights are on and you compare the
diffusion patterns of the new and old assemblies.

> LOTS of places online that sold them for about half the price, but
> all of them gave ZERO indication of shipping before placing the order.
>
> I tried perhaps 4 or 5 retailers, none gave a shipping price. Since I
> had no local option, I emailed them for their shipping prices. ONE, out
> of the 5, responded. Their s/h price was insane (something like $40 for
> regular postal mail), but even with the insane s/h price the total price
> was still substantially cheaper then the local price, so I went with
> them.
>
> When I received the package it had a post mark price of $12, and it was
> clear the postage label was printed in house, so at most it took them
> probably 5 minutes to package it, and then it was put in a truck. So, I
> ended up paying $28 for a box and 5 minutes of a person's time, THAT is
> a rip off.
>
>   
>> All in all, it really sounds as if you were choosing your online vendors
>> poorly. There are many around for which your complaints are not valid.
>>     
>
> Well, when you have no other choice but online due to price, and all the
> online vendors you've found act the same way, what else can you do?
>   
Maybe you get what you pay for?

Large companies like Amazon have contracts with the carriers, have well 
developed processes so they
know exactly what shipping costs are.

Smaller companies don't usually have these advantages so I give most of 
them the benefit of the doubt
and assume they're not trying to rip me off.  Just trying to run a 
business as best they can.  Like me and
my partner are doing.
>
>   
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