rogerstii and the modern world

[Son of Marty]

I remember ordering model cars from a business I can't remember (model world?) in King of Prussia PA, anyway I'd mail a letter with my order in and about a week later I'd be looking in the mail box for the package (it usually took about a month) but I'd be looking anyway. Mail service sure was slow in the old days.

Edited September 2, 2022 by Son of Marty

[JohnS]

OFF TOPIC:  WARNING!!!! ?

I remember waiting for boxes of HO slot car bodies and other model car parts from Auto World back in the day...   Long before I could drive (early 70's when our cars were just starting to become popular)  I clearly remember waiting for my plastic model of the new Datsun 240Z to arrive.  I was stoked!!  Testors paint... and glue...   Those were the days...  I just did a search and they (Auto World) seem to still be alive and well... 

 

About us

WWW.AUTOWORLDSTORE.COM

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Welcome to the world famous Auto World Store. We offer one stop shopping for all your hobby-related products.Oscar Koveleski founded Auto World in the basement of his home in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1958. The small mail order hobby business grew to great...

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by JohnS

[larry_in_socal]

Just my 2 cents here... predetermining the shipping costs for a "pick and pack" auto parts order is a classic chicken before the egg scenario. Most modern API based shipping platforms (the platforms that display the shipping costs to you and I) they need at minimum 3 bits of information, address, actual weight, box dimensions. With these basic parameters, a call is placed out to the API servers and a package cost is obtained.  Its not rocket science here, if it was just one box with the same weight and dimensions its a no-brainer, the shipping costs can be somewhat static.

 

Its when orders fluctuate in size, as in the case of a 10-12 piece shipment, most on-line sellers fail to take into consideration that many items can consolidate into one package. Its this one package that then needs to go out to the API to receive one cost for that one package. If the sellers are sending 12 packages out to the servers and adding up the costs individually, but sending one package to your doorstep, well they are definitely not doing the right thing here. Should they fix it? of course they should, but that would take time and money... another story for another time.

 

Some sellers get lazy and they have no regard to what they are displaying to their customers. Many of these customers receive negotiated rates from their carriers, but fail to pass this savings to their clients, and end up making money on the backs of their customers, while other sellers are more concerned with "making it right" and passing the savings to their customers. 

 

After reading the comments above, knowing that some of these sellers are "giving credits" for the shipping is a good thing, and I think that most of these sellers just do not have the time to constantly update weights dimensions of their products so they end up charging some sort of average cost to cover the shipping, its a decent strategy, but can back fire if you and I can find the product somewhere else for less.. and that is the inherit issue begins ...with our cars, there are not too many vendors selling the parts that we need, so technically speaking they have us by the "kanards" so to speak.. but it is nice to know that some of the sellers in our circle do the right thing and offer discounts after the fact...

 

When I started to work on my car, last year, I told myself that I would purchase from all the euro sellers, ecs, pelican, 2002ad, rogers, bmw of northwest, blunt.. the list goes on and on. and I conscientiously did this to test the customer experience from each one. Some were super quick, some dragged over time, with some advertising that they had the item in stock, when they in fact didn't. At the end of the day, and unfortunately we will need to purchase from each one of these sellers due to availability and costs.

 

At the end of the day, I was finding myself attempting to find the cheapest, but overall the prices ended up being the same across the board, except when we add the shipping back in, the sellers that had a tighter control of displaying their shipping costs, ended up with the majority of my business.

 

I hope this information was helpful...

Edited September 2, 2022 by larry_in_socal

[Son of Marty]

Yeah the that's the place great service. The place in King of Prussia was 

a BMW parts place.

[conkitchen]

1 hour ago, Son of Marty said:

Yeah the that's the place great service. The place in King of Prussia was 

a BMW parts place.

The other BMW supply place in PA place was Bimmer Parts in Pottstown however there was another in PA who bought Bimmer, No? Perhaps that's it.  I kinda recall a place called Greenleaf or Theatleaf or something like that. Then there always was Bav Auto.  What will we do when Jim Rowe and Metric Mechanic calls it quits?  

 

 

 

 

 

But what do I know

Edited September 3, 2022 by conkitchen

[slowbert]

@larry_in_socal Same here - ordering from as many suppliers as possible.  Key is good communication.

 

I tried contacting Ireland by hitting 'reply' to my invoice - but the email address was misspelled in their software so it bounced right away.  I tried sending with a 'correctly' spelled sales@iemotorsports.com, but that doesn't work, either.  Someone did not do much usability testing.

 

Amazon is killing these suppliers because we inherently expect free shipping and delivery in 2 days.  Truth is, shipping charges used to be a profit center - especially when they have negotiated rates for shipping.  Most of the places where I have placed repeat orders use flat rate USPS or something similar - such as Blunt.

[S762002]

I never post here, because I feel that can’t really contribute in a meaningful way to the level of expertise I see on this forum, but this thread reminded me of an independent BMW shop I used to buy parts from years ago.  I’d call and tell him what I needed, and because often I couldn’t get to his shop after work before he closed, he would tell me a car in the parking lot in which he would leave the part.  It was always the right part, and he never forgot.  Talk about customer service!

[bavariaboy]

S762002, "...used to buy parts from years ago" are the key words here. Many of us older Volk have had a similar relationship with a shop. We were the fortunate ones.

 

Don't be shy. I post probably too often(I can hear the groans when my avatar(the correct term?) appears. 

 

Steve

[cmiceli]

they did the same for me, charged for fedex shipping, came usps 

[Tdh]

14 hours ago, cmiceli said:

they did the same for me, charged for fedex shipping, came usps 

In some locations in the US, USPS does the local end delivery for FedEx. 

[esty]

i get fedx pkgs a lot that they pass off to the post office for final delivery...nothing unusual

 

[jp5Touring]

48 minutes ago, Tdh said:

In some locations in the US, USPS does the local end delivery for FedEx. 

 

20 minutes ago, esty said:

i get fedx pkgs a lot that they pass off to the post office for final delivery...nothing unusual

 

 

Fedex Smart Post,  Shipper request that service.  Fedex is transporting the package for the USPS.

Not one of there better ideas

[cmiceli]

yeah but i’m talking fedex ground, 

[bavariaboy]

I give shippers the physical address of my local post office. Everything drops there, they scan, I pick up.  The post office even bought a professional dolly for large packages. They will handld up to 75 lbs but get stuck with heavier packages.

 

Smooth and fast and efficient.

 

 

[JWT]

Two separate orders from Rogers this week...both shipped and both credited back some shipping charges. AS WELL they had a 40.00 credit on my account that I completely forgot I had so it was applied and I felt warm and fuzzy inside.........I think the world is good again.....