Windy...

[Justwannano]

...I have no regrets building a winder and winding. I have a blast making pickups.
I ordered parts for 3 singles and three clear covers for $50.00...no problems, no complaints.
Then I got hit almost $10.00 for UPS...20% of the bill was for shipping!

It pissed me off and I left without ordering. I later went back and placed it but this morning I
still felt like complaining...I know folks from that business will probably read this and maybe
consider if there is something that can be done about that.
It's a hobby so ordering bulk isn't a reasonable option for me.
Sorry...just had to vent.

[copperheadroads]

You might blow a blood vessel if you were shipping to & from Canada
Mojo Charges us pretty much $50 to get even a pretty small order & thats using USPS
& don't get me started on UPS shipping to Canada .

[kayakerca]

The cost of getting stuff here to Canada is definitely brutal! Especially if it has to come UPS as copper says. I don't place an order until I have ~ $350 worth of stuff to get so the cost of landing it here to a somewhat less intolerable percentage of the U.S. $ cost.

[big_teee]

Shipping really adds up to the expense of pickups.
That is one reason I try to buy as much as I can from one source.
$10 seems to be a minimum shipping expense these days.
T

[Mark Hammer]

An apocryphal tale...

I used to buy PC Plus magazine, back when they had cover CDs with interesting software. In the late 90's, when all of this e-commerce nonsense was just starting to get rolling, one of the regular column writers had a sort of op-ed piece about it.

It seems he had a side business, growing and selling garden plants, and specializing in harder-to-find shrubs. He gets an order from a guy in Sweden (he's based in England), who pays extra for express delivery, as well as insurance. The writer gets the plant ready and sends it out. Several weeks later, he gets an irritated note from the customer wondering why the plant hasn't arrived yet.

After much digging around, he finds out that the plant is sitting, dead, in a warehouse somewhere, undelivered. He can't find out from the delivery service why this has happened. The insurer won't make good on the claim. What the...?

After much detective work, he manages to find contact information for the president of the parcel delivery service, and corresponds with him directly. He finds out that, once parcels reach the Swedish border, they had to be delivered by the Swedish postal service. The postal service was a little slow for the private parcel delivery company's tastes, and since they didn't feel like taking the bad rap for what wasn't their fault, they decided they would not deliver anything to Sweden anymore, which is why the parcel got as far as that warehouse, and no further. But here's the thing: they never informed customers of this change in company policy. They were only too happy to take his money under what was essentially false pretenses. The shipping address clearly said SWEDEN. Moreover, it clearly identified that the contents were alive and needed special conditions. Did anybody return the parcel to the sender? Nah. They just let it sit there and die.

In the end, after much badgering, and probably aided by the fact that he was a regular contributor to a magazine with a wide circulation, he got his shipping costs and the customer's money and insurance back. His take-away message (and keep in mind this is the late 1990s) was that e-commerce would not likely take off until such time as they got the details right, including shipping.

Personally, I rarely buy anything on-line, except from a few select retailers. As others here note, crossing international boundaries can result in some hefty fees, many of them a complete surprise. The most irritating one is the "broker fee". The item gets to the border. There is a small duty to be paid on the item. fair enough. The delivery service cannot take it any further until that duty is paid, so a "broker" pays the duty and then charges you for the service. Some years back I ordered some nice cast-aluminum projects boxes at what I thought was a decent price. Once broker fee was paid, the items cost me more than if I had bought them locally and paid all the local taxes, PLUS I had to wait the 4-6 weeks for them to arrive! Was there any way to avoid this or know it was going to happen when I ordered online? No.

E-commerce within the continental USA is probably very easy, convenient, and inexpensive. SOME larger distributors like Mouser and Digikey have Canadian offices, such that the inventory comes through customs and is shipped out to canadian customers from Canada, circumventing all the broker nonsense. But if the dealer is too small to have that, and attempts to send across borders, it can often be a rather demotivatingly expensive crapshoot.

[Justwannano]

No doubt it could always be worse.
I've purchased many items on-line from all over the world and I've shipped my custom guitars internationally.
I've also collected on insured (expensive) packages that vanished - very glad I prepared by having the manager of the local UPS
inspect item(s) and handle final packaging.

This time 20% for such a small order- minimal size and weight - just hit me wrong. Hope I didn't jinx the order and it makes it LOL.

[Lyrebird Steve]

The cost of getting stuff here to Canada is definitely brutal!

Yeah, well its still cheaper than getting stuff down here to Australia

[big_teee]

It boils down to , "You have to Pay to Play".
Pay lot more some places than others.
Parts and shipping make Pickups expensive before you ever fire up a winder.
I'm still trying to figure out that OP Title?
I'd rather discuss the How to, and different Pickups though.

[J M Fahey]

Just for fun:
UPS: Rates for Customs Clearance into Canada

And here in Argentina?
Up to 6 months ago, there was no big problem, but now the Government is out of dollars and stopped all Mail or Courier shipments.
Now they are treated like Commercial Imports for Resale, all are sent to our International Airport (30 miles away, just to increase the fun) , to pick a parcel I *need* a very hard to get and expensive Registered Importer's Licence, fill endless paperwork, be up to date with all taxes , even if unrelated to this AND hire an IRS registered "Despachante de Aduana" (similar to Canadian Broker I guess) who charges minimum U$250 fees.
My Accountant told me it's fine for U$5000 and up orders, forget smaller ones.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Yeah, well its still cheaper than getting stuff down here to Australia

It's amazing, Australian wine's all over the place up here. Cheap too. Say $7 a bottle and up. Incredible they can ship all that plonk and charge next to nothing- markups included - but if you want to ship even something small you have to skip buying lunch for a week. OW!

[J M Fahey]

True.

BIG difference is that shipping a full 40 ft container can pack over 20000 bottles, in standard 12 bottle cases, and costs some U$6000 shipping USA/Australia.
Add, say, another U$6000 for paperwork, insurance, some tax, divide those U$12000 into the 20000 bottles, it gives some 60 cents per bottle.
Quite affordable and consistent with a U$7 bottle price.

Now Mail delivered packages are madness.

[Justwannano]

Shipping is nuts...sounds like it is everywhere.

How about this LOL;

To have a post office box (in the US) one pays a yearly fee. Now you may have to drive miles to get to the post office and get your mail or mail something. If you live out of the range (that they have determined) then you can have them deliver the mail to your house and take mail from your house for FREE.

Now the yearly fee is not much...mine is $24.00 and I have to do all the leg work...if I lived farther away from town I wouldn't have to pay or do anything..maybe that's just seems nuts to me but I'm talking US government so it's probably "normal".

[jason lollar]

shipping prices have been going up over the last few years- even postal service has increased dramatically. $10 to $12 is what we usually have to pay UPS for a one pound package shipped ground within the us. Depending the shipping location UPS will charge the shipper different amounts. We charge customers an estimate what we get charged, often its a couple dollars less than we pay. The days of $3.50 priority mail are long gone!

[Justwannano]

Our local USPS and UPS/Fedex folks do a great job.
When I think about that and how much care that goes into packageing
by the businesses I feel bad about complaining.
Sure, once in awhile something isn't packaged very good or may get lost in the shuffle but
all in all I'm sure glad I can shop and get goods from just about anywhere...and usually doesn't
take long at all.
I guess I'm a old grump and need to adjust - so any of you that work or have family that works in
the delivery/mail service...I apologize.

[big_teee]

Our local USPS and UPS/Fedex folks do a great job.
When I think about that and how much care that goes into packageing
by the businesses I feel bad about complaining.
Sure, once in awhile something isn't packaged very good or may get lost in the shuffle but
all in all I'm sure glad I can shop and get goods from just about anywhere...and usually doesn't
take long at all.
I guess I'm a old grump and need to adjust - so any of you that work or have family that works in
the delivery/mail service...I apologize.

You may want to update your profile, and include your location.
That way everyone knows where you are talking about shipping to and from.
You can do that with big spools of magnet wire?
The shipping can be as much as the cost of the wire, if not careful.
T