Additional Shipping Charges for Heavy Items

[rroselavy]

Hello-

I live in Los Angeles, so shipping charges from MD are usually pretty low and I normally receive my orders the next day. These aspects are great.

The thing I have a problem with is that I cannot buy buckets of salt from you (or most other heavy items) cheaper than from F&S in Wisconsin because of your Heavy Item fees. It seems ridiculous that I am buying a $48 bucket of salt and I have to add +$28 for heavy items and shipping.

I can literally buy the same bucket from Wisconsin for $22 dollars cheaper.

I would order from MD more if there wasn't such penalties on heavy items.

 

[MarineDepot]

Hello,


Thank you for your post, I understand your concern regarding the extra shipment charges on heavy and or oversized items. Unfortunately these special handling charges are imposed by the carrier for special handling of the heavy and or oversized items during transit.

We do offer price matching, if you find the same in stock item from one of our competitors we will be able to price match the landed price of the in stock item, which includes any shipping costs that are charged by our competitor, simply provide us a web link to the in stock item so we may verify the costs from our competitor.

We also offer will call pick up for our local customers, in which you will not be charged for the special handling fees since you will be picking the item up at our location.

Our will call pick up window is open from 10-5 Tuesday â€"œ Friday; feel free to phone in your order at 1-800-566-3474. We do not accept orders that are placed on the internet for will call pick up. Please keep in mind that California State sales tax is charged when items are picked up at our location.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us at 1-800-566-3474

Walter

Marine Depot Customer Service

 

[rroselavy]

Thanks Walter for the reply.

I still do not understand how is it possible that F&S can sell the same bucket of salt for $2 less and only charge me $10 to ship it from Wisconsin with NO special handling fees...but I will take your word that MD's heavy fees are what they are and they're not going to change.

FWIW, I really do not find much opportunities(or desire) to spend 2 hours in the car for a round trip to Anaheim, and if I did I'll would spend nearly as much in gas as your special handling fee for this item. If I can combine several orders (including my next Rod's Food order), it might make the trip worthwhile.

Alternatively, I could just buy from somewhere else...which was the point of this thread. I'd rather do my business locally, but not with those fees attached.

 

[fat-tony]

I'm willing to bet that F&S is eating some of that cost behind the scenes to get you in the door and maybe order something else as long as you "saved" on the salt. May not be the case but I think the term is loss leader. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader

 

[wolf pup]

Actually I would imagine that F&S has a bulk shipping deal with the major carriers where their volume is so high it is actually to both of their advantage to do flat rate shipping. Its all about volume.

 

[ReefDreamz]

F&S recently raised their prices for salt considerably. At least for Reef Crystals I beleive MD is much cheaper now.

 

[ds4x4]

F&S does the ol' shipping by cost deal.. remember those times you bought something tiny and weighed a few lbs for a big price and got charged the max price for shipping... well you paid for the guy ordering the heavy/big stuff but less money so he's on the cheap side of the shipping (for him anyways)

 

[knockout]

call it what you want, I will continue to buy from MD when they offer the best "to my door" price.... I just ran some numbers on both websites and the shipping charges do not compare, 1 bucket of salt from MD costs more to ship than 10 from F&S, I think you need to call in the UPS and Fedex sales reps in!

 

[ihooklow]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13526582#post13526582 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MarineDepot
We do offer price matching, if you find the same in stock item from one of our competitors we will be able to price match the landed price of the in stock item, which includes any shipping costs that are charged by our competitor, simply provide us a web link to the in stock item so we may verify the costs from our competitor.

Note he said "Landed Price". That means the price to your door. Email them the link from F&S and you will get it for the same price after all fees, etc... And sooner than F&S at that.