It was a small order; two "bricks" weighing about one pound combined.

I withdrew the order at the last minute because the shipping was $14. The coffee only amounted to about seven dollars.

Now.............I KNOW that by using USPS Priority Mail, or even parcel post/media mail, the shipping could have been as little as HALF of that charged amount.

This happens to me quite often; and in most cases I shop around until I find a vendor who is willing to offer the most competitive shipping rate.

It is surprising to me that more suppliers don't seem to care about losing business due to excessive shipping costs.

Just sent a camera off to Nikon for a repair estimate, cost me under $3, estimate come backs for repair $134 + $ 12.95 shipping & handling.

Told them KEEP it, can purchase a new one for less.

Yes..........that is often the case. And I can live with this; especially for items that may require special care like cameras. In this case, and many, the company claimed that only actual shipping charges by weight are charged.

I think probably that small businesses are prone to chose ONE shipper; in many cases UPS. This might appeal to them because it is easier to integrate their MRP system with the tools offered by shipping companies like UPS........and more difficult to have multiple shippers which might require a human being to make a decision for which to use.

UPS night be great for shipping heavier items, but their rates absolutely SUCK for small packages. USPS flat rate is a great rate for some things, and priority mail in general seems to be reasonable for small packages. Additional savings might be offered to those who don't mind waiting a week or two for their order.

All of this adds complexity and labor I suppose; but at the end of the day the companies that don't put in this effort lose my business.

I'm with you on this one. I've cancelled a lot of orders at the last second solely based on the cost of S&H. In fact, I was doing some shopping this morning and chose not to buy because of the cost. I know they could have sent it Flat Rate Priority USPS for $4.95. Yet, they were charging almost $12.00 with no guarantee of it being sent Priority Mail.

Here's another sign of my age: Even if the item is cheaply priced, I will not buy it if they make up for the cheap price on S&H - I find it a form of "smoke and mirrors" and I refuse to play their game.

Having said that, I bought something off of Fleabay the other day that only charged $1.00 for shipping and handling. Plus, the item was only $2.99. I felt they were short changing themselves and tried to include extra money for the shipping (I want to be fair). Unfortunately, the auto-checkout program they used didn't allow me to send extra money....

Sorry for the thread-jack.......

We have used UPS, the USPS, and finally ended up with FedEx Ground for our mass mailings after negotiating for a better price based on prior annual usage. All in all, each has been increasing shipping rates by 20- 30% PER year even when shipping LARGE quantities of bulk materials NOT onesies or twosies which are prohibitively expensive & require almost the same manpower to prepare and ship.

I can not believe people fall for that either.......

I usually tell them just to ship it, skip the handling.