Another shipping beef

[Marchillo]

There's a local promoter I do a bunch of business with on autograph items. Mostly mini helmets for current player signings. He's pretty reasonably priced. Usually he's willing to wheel and deal a bit. Anyways he started this new silent bid thing over email over the past few weeks (which there's no real way to gauge the legitimacy besides him being a trustworthy promoter) and I won an autograph ball of a deceased hof baseball player. Fantastic price at $35. So I send him the $35 and he emailed me a "sorry if I didn't mention it but shipping is $9". I look back at all the silent auction emails and no mention of shipping costs anywhere. I realize shipping isn't free but adding on 25% more unexpectedly kind of stinks. I guess I'll pay the $9 but do I say something? I anticipate doing business in the future with him. He is a good guy in the dirty autograph business but it still irks me a bit. What would other people do? When buying anything I really factor in the extra costs. Even last purchase with him I arranged meeting up with him at a show to avoid the shipping. But that's not gonna be possible in this instance.

Thanks - Steve

[icollectDCsports]

I can understand that you'd want the shipping to be a bit less, but $9 doesn't seem exorbitant for properly packaging and shipping a ball.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by icollectDCsports

I can understand that you'd want the shipping to be a bit less, but $9 doesn't seem exorbitant for properly packaging and shipping a ball.

Agreed. I just shipped a ball to a fellow board member. It cost me seven dollars and some change. That didn't even include the cost of the box (which was an additional charge).

[Yankees1964]

I just paid $14 for one ball from Goldin. $120 value.

[Marchillo]

It's not necessarily the $9 price tag I'm complaining about, but the non disclosure of any type of shipping fee. The instructions were send an email with an offer by 6 pm and only winners will be notified if they are the high bidder. And even when he let me know I won and to set up payment, still no mention of shipping. The kicker is on his online store he is offering free shipping through Friday for Fathers Day gifts.

I'll pay the shipping but should I mention that he should put somewhere on the email blast that the winning bidder will pay applicable shipping costs or just let it go?

[mechanicalman]

I don't understand. Why would you NOT expect to pay shipping on a $36 baseball?

I think Amazon Prime has really desensitized us to the face that shipping hard goods from one location to another actually costs real money.

[Sean1125]

Originally Posted by Marchillo

It's not necessarily the $9 price tag I'm complaining about, but the non disclosure of any type of shipping fee. The instructions were send an email with an offer by 6 pm and only winners will be notified if they are the high bidder. And even when he let me know I won and to set up payment, still no mention of shipping. The kicker is on his online store he is offering free shipping through Friday for Fathers Day gifts.

I'll pay the shipping but should I mention that he should put somewhere on the email blast that the winning bidder will pay applicable shipping costs or just let it go?

His cost is not exorbitant, nor unwarranted. Fight for the change you want rather than fight with the promoter. You said he is a good guy, so he should have no problems making a change that gives full disclosure to those buyers involved, especially if he hears about it from more than one customer.