Special SNOW sale!!!

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Ron,

I'm very sorry you feel like our shipping and handling charges are unfair. This seems like a pet peeve of yours, and I can understand and sympathize with it. But the fact is we need to charge a fee for the service of shipping products to our customers. The cost of shipping is more than the base amount of postage you need to put on the box. There is the cost of packing materials. Then there is also the man hour cost of finding your order, packaging it, producing the shipping label, and getting it into the hands of our carrier.

A lot of businesses that specialize in mail order seem like they offer a really great shipping rate, when in fact a lot of their processing and handling costs are actually built in to their profit margin for the item itself. We can't do that. We have a physical store. We want the price on the item to be the same regardless of whether you see the item in our store on the shelf, at our booth at a Highland Games, or on line in our gift shop catalog. So we have to build in all the processing costs of your order into the handing fee, not into the price of the item itself.

We also have the problem of dealing with an inventory of different items, which have different weights, require different levels of packaging, etc. And we ship to people all over the world. We simply cannot afford to pay a web developer to create a system for us that would calculate a fair and accurate shipping charge based on the specific items in your order and your exact geographical location. Yet we have to have some set means of calculating shipping and handling charges. So we have come up with a pricing scheme which covers our costs, and which we think is fair and in line with what other comparable businesses charge.

Does it sometimes mean that an individual order gets charged more for shipping and handling than it actually costs to ship them the package. Unfortunately, yes, sometimes it does. And it also means that sometimes an individual order gets charged less than what it costs to ship them their package. But most of the time, the shipping charge is pretty much in line with the actual shipping cost, so the system we have seems to be working for the moment.

Keep in mind also the fact that we always give free domestic shipping to any order over $200. And we often run "free shipping" specials over our web site. And we give a lot of free unadvertised services to folks, such as breaking multiple-item orders into more than one shipment without any additional charges, or having a package rerouted in transit because a customer has given an incorrect address. This costs us money but we have never once charged a fee for this courtesy. Then there are the behind the scenes things that no one sees or hears about, like when an order must be shipped out today but the pick-up has already occurred, I've often gotten in my car and driven to another location that I know has a later pick up time to drop off a package for a customer.

So, again, sorry if you are unhappy with the shipping charges, but we list them plainly for anyone to see before they buy. We don't want anyone to get hit with any surprises. I also want to point out, Ron, that you've been a good customer of ours for a while now, which is a fact that we very much appreciate. But we've not changed our shipping charges for a long time. There is nothing new here.

And really, this thread is supposed to be about a special deal we are offering for X Markers today and tomorrow; one in which we are saying thanks for supporting our museum with your gift shop purchases.

Fact is, we don't have to offer specials like this at all, but we do, and I think it is a good thing that we do. I'm very grateful for all of you who have chosen to take advantage of this special offer and support the museum at the same time.