this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
630 points (98.5% liked)

Funny

10282 readers
1405 users here now

General rules:

Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the mods.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
all 28 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 72 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I ordered a few t shirts from overseas. Shipping was $3 and it took two weeks. If I in Canada try to buy a few t shirts from hot topic website, the shipping is roughly $50 and it takes 3-4 weeks, and it's all shipped from inside the country.

I have no idea how shipping works, cause that shit makes no sense to me.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Postal services have agreements about delivering mail for each other. Some countries mail services, like China for example, heavily subsidize shipping.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago

It is not China that subsidizes the shipping - we are who does that. Because China is a developing country. And they make sure as hell that it stays that way for exactly such reasons, while also trying to look like a world leading nation.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Tell me about it. Hawaii has its own obstacles with various things on a regular basis.

I need a replacement laptop battery that costs $50.

But you cannot get an individual battery not already inside a laptop shipped to you by the usual options, because hazmat shipping restrictions make it prohibited or too expensive for the seller to pay the fees.

I can have it delivered to a freight company and have them forward it to me via sea for $270+, or have it delivered to a friend on the mainland, and have them send it by USPS Ground (also comes by sea in a few weeks) for about $15.

I ordered a portable power station from Amazon from the one and only company that would deliver here, and while I did get it for the usual free shipping to everywhere else in the US, I looked later in the day after making the order, and they had changed their allowed shipping areas to exclude Hawaii like everyone else.

Someone fucked up… and a big mahalo to them!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (3 children)

So are you saying I could buy like, a dozen laptop batteries, take them on a trip to Hawaii with me, and then sell them to pay for my vacation?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Im sure trying to smuggle a dozen lithium based batteries onto a passenger plane would go over super well with the TSA. They would probably even pull you into the nice private Polite Conversation Room.

I'm pretty sure the phrase the TSA would use to describe a dozen laptop batteries in a suitcase is "an incendiary device".

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

With the right connections maybe.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So... hey Mateo. What are you doing next July?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

I hope my new battery gets here before then…

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

Nice battery related joke!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

They don’t want that, for the same reasons

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 years ago

I had something like this where they wanted an extra $140 for shipping so I can get it in two weeks instead of two months.

I opted for the linger wait, still got them in 2 weeks.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Uh that's nothing. I bought in one site that sold imported foods from USA. And they are bastards. Until you go to pay it doesn't tell you shipping price until last minute, which then you discover is kind of expensive, and add that to the products that aren't usually cheap.

But that's nothing the worse is that when there a season event, Halloween, Christmas, etc where usually people are going to buy USA exclusive stuff, like some types of candy etc.

They have a logic that plays around with the dates so the cheapest shipping says is always after that date, so after Halloween or after Christmas, etc. Unless of course you buy it like 2 months in advance. And the "express" or whatever is called the shipping option is even more expensive. Thank God I have found other alternative pages but man. .. they are bastards.

You could try the cheap option but I am pretty sure I did once and they actually hold up until the dates would match to actually send it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

Yeah when "express shipping" means "were not even gonna process your order" that's almost straight up extortion

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I once had a $100 shipping option that was one day faster for something that cost like $30

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I mean the cost of the item itself doesn't really have much to do with the shipping cost (unless you're also paying for insurance on the item). Weight and the size of the box are far more relevant.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

yes, but these were pants that weigh maybe a pound and are a little 12" x12" plastic bag

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I want to hear the story behind people who click the massively expensive shipping

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Guess either rich or its for a company, most expensive shipping I have had to chose at work was $5000 same day air freight and I know that easily gets dwarfed by other companies when they really need something fast.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

Ford once made my company pay 100k usd for same day international air freight of about four pallets. The reason was a mistake of theirs, in the end I managed to recover the money but yeah, there's companies out there that can an do spend crazy amounts of money to not stop a production line. Especially if it's not their money.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

Link the item you coward.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

Got to love these blatant money laundering schemes

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

They want you to upgrade to Prime.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have prime and this is how it looks to me.

I live in the middle of nowhere, 7 miles from work. Amazon will ship to my work address in 1 or 2 days, but it's 7-10 days to my house. Same UPS Dist center, same FedEx dist center, same number of post office hops.

Shipping is witchcraft.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

I used to work in a distro centre booking 3rd party deliveries for out of metro stuff and I would often run into places where they would delivery to one suburb and not right next door, like literally driving down the highway and will delivery to the houses on the right hand side but not the left hand side..