I ordered a bunch of stuff 2 months ago from one of the usual vendors
Some of it was sent causing 4 items to be back ordered and I was charged freight on the items sent.
In the interim I ordered four small rubber items and asked them to ship them with the back orders once everything arrived and was ready to ship.
I presumed THEY would be paying for the freight on the back order and they would gladly toss these items in for FREE shipping.
I received the four small rubber items today and they charged me $15 for freight! There was some miscommunication as to holding back the four extra products. More obscure is that I ordered those extra tidbits weeks ago and someone must have seen them in limbo and decided they needed to be shipped at my expense.
I called and asked what the deal was and they said I would ALSO have to pay the freight again on the items that were in back order once they were shipped. So now I will be paying freight three times for one order!
So in theory all of my items which may be back ordered could be shipped individually and I would be charged freight each time the items came into their inventory. I am told that they are waiting to send all of the parts together, yet I will still have to pay freight again.
This is really unfair!! I believe they should cover the freight as they have made the customer wait, in this case over 2 months, and they get a cut rate on shipping anyway.
Of course I won’t mention the vendor but I wanted your thoughts.
I just stopped dealing with suppliers who ignored the “HOLD UNTIL THE ENTIRE ORDER CAN BE SHIPPED AS A SINGLE UNIT, IF THE DELAY WILL BE MORE THAN 2 WEEKS THEN CONTACT ME BY EMAIL.”
Swiss customs do random inspections on packages to assess declared value, AND they charge a handling fee of 30$ on everything over 60GBP. Partial shipments were killing me.
I had this not too long ago too. One of the usual, main US vendors backorder kept slipping. They were at least apologetic and when I gave up and revised the order to work around it (had to split up the order between a couple of vendors), they were pretty good about getting that modified order out the door quickly at least.
TJM;
It has been my experience when ordering parts for a shipping/handling charge to be generated whenever a package leaves their hands. If the request is made to send all the order together and hold for ‘back orders’ then only one charge should be made. If the request is to ship when parts are available and not wait for back orders then a ‘shipping/handling charge’ will be generated each time a package leaves their hands.
The only time I have had the shipping charge ‘waved’ has been because they have had to correct a mistake on their part which does happen but not often.
Shipping charges are a fact of life in the mail order parts business, after all this is not "Amazon Prime’.
I think postage and handling “per item” is expected and not unfair, (unless the vendors follow your email instructions, or offer personal service via phone, which is only true of small vendors in general)
I find some vendors tell you the have so many items in stock and then send a backorder notice. One vendor took 3 months to get a part, that they said they had 5. Now, since I am in US, I order direct from manufacturer in UK and they ship in bulk. Not cheaper just quicker and complete. You really have to ask and look around for alternatives.
Have noticed that one of the big suppliers, that is on both shores has a similar problem.
Seems like I’m continually waiting for one or two parts that from what I’m told are “popular”. This results in a partial order which tends to screw up timing of schedule. Interesting as many a time, have been told that the shipment has arrived but the container that it arrived in needs to be emptied and inventoried before it ships. Not uncommon for a wait of 4-6 weeks…to empty and inventory a container. Mind you, some times another container that was ordered previously but arrived afterward, bumps that container out of the queue from being unloaded. Tired of this rubbish.
Have noticed that some vendors discourage shipping only complete orders, I try not to use them.
Loved the fact that a couple of vendors like assigning the same person to their customers, now if only I could get the same person after a year? Noticed one vendor I did have the same named person, but have had three totally different people by that same name, oddly suspicious.
The discouragement of complete orders leads me to believe the shipping and handling fees are revenue enhancers.