Originally Posted by
Domush 
Hoye is a great place for yanmar parts, but their $13 minimum shipping fee leaves a bit to be desired.
Ive brought this up before. Arron says that they dont use USPS for smaller orders because they have had orders lost. I still dont understand though, because there is like a $5.99 or 7.99 small box that many of those seals and orings will fit in and still use UPS? But personally i would give the post office a try. for $0.44 can send a letter that has an oring in it. And they could charge us say $1.99 for the envelope stamp and their time and id be happy.
Listen... I hate shipping fees just as much as everyone else. I pay them on every single thing that I buy too. I gripe about them myself but I know that they are usually offset by the sales tax savings. Shipping fees are unavoidable. Places that have lower shipping prices or free shipping are usually just adding that fee to the cost of the part. We have ZERO markup in our shipping costs. We usually even eat the cost of the box which is usually $1 up to a few dollars each. Our shipping prices come directly from UPS.com based on the weight & location being shipped to. Most locations cost around $9 for a 1lb box. Some are less, some are more.
Arron says that they dont use USPS for smaller orders
Actually, we ONLY use USPS on smaller orders. Basically... we only ship USPS on orders that we feel comfortable reshipping for a complete loss when the item does not arrive after 15 days and the customer is screaming mad (trust me... it happens ). The package almost always arrives a few days after the replacement arrives and then we get to figure out how or if we try to get the first shipment back or just cut our losses.
Just last month we had a guy
BEG me to ship his water pump by postal priority to save him $2 in shipping fees- the USPS priority flat rate box for that size was $11 and UPS was $13. I finally gave in and told him I can not track it and it is not insured. He agreed. Guess what... FIVE stinkin' days later he called and was FURIOUS that he had not received his part yet. He demanded that I send another pump. That was over a $100 part- gone. We lost a customer and a water pump. With UPS it is automatically insured and I can tell you within 30 seconds where the package is.
Had another customer last week talk us into sending a small part in an envelope. I think it was a snap ring. We found out that USPS rejected it because it would not run through the machines when it was sent back to us
2 weeks later.
We sell a few things on ebay in another business and ship some stuff by postal priority. I would say 1 out of every 10 orders gets at least one "where is my order" email or call. 1 in probably 75 or so get lost or the customer says they did not get the item. If we carried that over to our parts business we would need to employ a full time person just to answer postal calls & emails.
The moral of my long, drawn out, soapbox of a story... If USPS worked the way everyone wished that it would- I would use them in a HEARTBEAT. The FACT is that they do not and they are not really all that much cheaper on most items that wont fit into their smallest flat rate box. I have done this for around 15 years now and we have tried USPS off & on over the years. We just do not have the manpower to deal with all of the angry "where is my stuff" calls and, frankly, I just do not like to make customers mad. I figure if you ordered it then you must need it so we will do our best to be sure you get it - even if that means listening to you complain a little about the shipping cost
I know some areas have poor UPS service but that is pretty rare and is usually caused by a careless delivery driver. UPS overall works
very well and their accuracy is off the charts.
I just like for my customers to be happy and get the stuff that they need in a timely manner. If I have a choice of a customer that complains a little about a shipping cost vs a customer angry because they did not get a part that they needed- I'm going to pick the first one.
