What happened to free shipping?

It is new, even BG adds shipping now. Annoying, prices are not transparant anymore which makes me want to buy less.

Now I understand

S’cuse me.

Look at YOUR country’s/Local prices for the items you are buying.
IF they available.
Usually 300%ish more than China for same items.

Somebody has to pay freight. Plus in Aust here we also now. get slugged with 10% import tax. plus freight. plus cost of.
and still. Usually waaay cheaper than local prices.

Don’t knock your slightly higher costs. You’re still way ahead.

Just think to yourself. Could we even build the items we buying at the current quality they seem to achieve (10 yrs ago a bit different. 99% shit)
I’ve got 2 x $3 to 400 Puma knives here.
My Chinese folders and one fixed.ARE, as much as I can see/feel.
of equal build quality, basically.
This ENLAN Mo9 is as good as, to look at and feel.
with similar quality steel in blade. (440c) For $8.75AUD del.

Like Japanese and Korean cars. They ALL started at same place
Bottom of pile. Prices are only going to go UPwards.

Don’t knock it mate. Just buy and be thankful.
I’ve bought 9 knives in last 3 weeks. 4 in freight still.
To replace with full price named blades. Probably 6 times more.
440c. D2. and VG10 only.
VG10 laminate only, Kitchen. they chip if wrongly heat treated.

Hmm. This a little longer than intended.

It amazes me how we can get really cool items from China and Hong Kong, the equivalent flashlight is not even remotely available in the box stores, and you pay zero tax and zero shipping.
I’ve spent more on cookies for a school fundraiser than I have on some of these flashlights, and I didn’t even care for the cookies.

Yo Mate, LOL, you rock :beer:

See, on some large low priced items, you can’t get free shipping.

Seems perfectly logical, especially if the shipping included is tracked.

Shipping costs money.

Even if you are a company with hundreds of thousands of shipments per month, it can cost quite a bit.

I do not understand the arguments above.

This new development is not about free shipping or not about shipping at all, shipping is not free of course if it says free shipping, it is all paid for in the item prices. And I prefer it that way because it makes perfectly clear what you are going to pay.

Now what happens is that after you have spend your effort and time on ordering an item that you think is a good deal, at the end of the process a quite random amount is added that they call shipping fees.

So the process got fuzzier and you spend more time on orders that will be cancelled if the shipping fee lottery is not in your favor.

Already did that for a while in general. Flash deals, etc., have been lacking, shipping prices have been going up, things just aren’t as attractive as they’ve been back a ways.

Had plenty of things all lined up to go… saw the shipping cost… nope, delete.

My last 3 orders got canceled by BG. They were single items that with a coupon code were real cheap. I assume that those prices were only going to be honored if I had added more items to make it a larger order. They were surely not going to make much money on that one single item shipped at the price I ordered it at.

I got the, what seems normal now, email that stated the item was back ordered and it only gave me 24 hours to request a refund. Glad I was paying attention to my email on a regular basis. I honestly don’t think they ever planned to sell a single one of that item at the coupon price.

Since I have a nice selection of lights now. I really don’t NEED any others. So I have become quite patient. I usually end up finding them on Ebay or elsewhere for just a few dollars more and get it shipped from the US. I have even managed to stay off Amazon as well. Different story all together with those idiots.

I got a code for a couple things and then the shipping was tacked on.
I used “Make an Offer” with Andrew & Amanda and they matched the shipping added price and it came in days rather than weeks.

What’d happen if you missed that 24hr window?

I dunno, I just happened to be on the internet box when it showed up in my email.

While I am also disappointed free shipping has disappeared on many items, there are also a few positive aspects:

- all Gearbest packages I received with the cheapest shipping option were with tracking - even though it said “no tracking”. This tracking had fairly good details and identified various airports, warehouses and steps in between and also customs clearing processes

- pretty much all ebay auctions from Asia have some form of tracking, I guess this is how the sellers are trying to protect themselves from false PP claims

  • the new AliExpress app randomly adds shipping fees while it appears free on the AE website; I found out about this when I accidentally ordered the same item from my phone and the web. But, the tracking feature on the AE app is now vastly better.

Overall, shipping from Asia has improved for me despite the fees and shipping time seems much quicker than before.

The reason you get free shipping to the US is because the US Postal service (ie, US taxpayers) pick up the tab. I had wondered why the Chinese didn’t seem to give a crap about consolidating shipments to save money, and I had assumed that the Chinese Government picked up the tab so that they could boost exports.

I researched it, it’s the United States Government that picks up the tab. Shocking but true and who else would be so dumb to pay $150 in airfare for a $1.00 item? Don’t expect this unfairness to continue. Until then, let the amazement continue:-)

Good times, good times…

That already changed, as I indicated earlier:

Hmmm…. works for me. Nothing in life is ever “free” anyway…. somebody or some thing has to pay. :wink: . That…… is just a simple fact. :slight_smile:

i thought the ‘’post office subsidizes chinese shipping’’ thing was going to expire or be terminated this year
i have not really seen evidence though
all i know is, aliexpress still has lots of cheap stuff still with free shipping from china

wle

That american thing with China should not affect the rest of the world and still the ‘free’ shipping stops for all of us. I doubt that it has much to do with it.