Quote Originally Posted by webracin View Post
Right, just look at Ebay.....

99 cents for a laptop and 799.00 for shipping and handling

(I know that exagerated, but you get the idea)

Shipping and handling is a real pain sometimes and you have to really be careful. It can turn a good deal into a real quick. That is one thing that I really look for when I am buying online, and just my thoughts are if you are charging reasonable shipping and handling, then I will buy (as long as the price and shipping/handling is cheaper than I can buy it locally). But if your shipping and handling are way out there, I view it as a shaddy tactic and wont buy the item, but that is just me.

webracin
FWIW, the ebay shipping is a scam to not pay so much ebay the company so much. The seller is charged by ebay for the actual price that the item sold for. If they sell a laptop for $.99, then they only pay a fee for a percentage of that $.99. They are not charged a fee on shipping. So it is in the sellers best interest to inflate shipping costs.

As for online stores that charge inflated shipping costs. They do this so people will just look for the lowest price and buy it, not always considering the shipping. Sometimes it works.

Then there is the other case of advertising free shipping, and charging a handling fee. Are you going to hold that against Summit Racing, or Jegs, or Pace?

As you said, I mostly consider the lowest total price for me to get my product. If that is online with $.99 price tag and $300 shipping, then so be it. If it is the little guy down the road, then I will go there. It's my hard earned money and I need to stretch it as far as I can. While there are places I won't take my money any more because of shady business practices or bad prior experiences, these places are far and few between. But in the end, price usually dominates.