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?). The "local" price was the price at
> my dealership, very expensive (I wanted OEM, no third party for me).
> 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.

The price of a single order (which itself consists of one or more items)
consists of many cost factors, plus vendor profit. There are many
reasonable ways to calculate the final price. One that's very common due to
its simplicity is to have fixed prices for all items. That's the department
store. Another one is to give volume credits when you buy certain
quantities of the same item. Still another one is to charge a base value
per order (which itself may depend on certain characteristics of the order)
and add item prices.

In the end, it doesn't matter. What you pay is what matters. To go with a
variation of Olin's earlier example (adapted to your situation), why do
call a total of $100 ($60 item price + $40 per-order price) insane and a
rip-off, but a total of $150 (the dealership) not?

You said it yourself: you bought from the one who charged you $100, but you
complain. Just because you don't like their way of reaching their price.
Now if you /really/ liked it better the way the others reached their price
of $150, you definitely should have voted with your dollars and bought from
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.

See, I think it's here where you make an essential error in judgment. It's
customary called "s+h", but it is essentially a per-order price (that may
vary with certain characteristics of the order, like weight, total amount,
number of items, etc). And it seems strangely contradictory that you
complain about their way to calculate the price they charge you, don't
complain about the way the dealership calculates the price they charge you,
but still buy from the company who does the "wrong thing" (IYO).

If you felt their price a rip-off, you should have bought elsewhere. 


> Well, when you have no other choice but online due to price, 

Come on... "have no other choice"? Gimme a break. I have seen situations
where one could say "no choice", but choosing a vendor for a fog light is
not among these. You can always buy somewhere else. You also can not buy
one at all. 

Given what you told us, I would understand if you said that the
dealership's price was a rip-off. 


> A GREAT example of a company doing it the RIGHT way was the Scangauge I
> bought: http://www.scangauge.com/

There are many others. Try the sites I've mentioned sometime. 


> What their margin is? No idea, don't care, to me the price of the item
> with shipping was reasonable, so I'm happy. When I received the package
> I didn't even look at the postmarked price.

So, why don't you apply the same thought to the fog light retailer you
bought from? From what I understand, they had the best price/service combo
you found, you found the total price (including per-order price) reasonable
-- but you are not happy. What's the difference? Why did you look here at
the postmarked price (which really has not much to do with the per-order
price)?

Gerhard

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