Shipping prices on some of these vendor sites are a blatant rip-off.

[pagrunt]

Reducing inventory is a cost reduction method. Recent retailer trends is to reduce inventory in B&M locations while carry less sale volume items on their website store which can be special ordered and sent to either the store or customer. Of course this makes it increasingly difficult to quickly acquire parts. Moreover, you are assuming that companies are making competent decisions on what to carry which is not always the case as history has shown most companies will cut costs to past the point that it backfires bad on them.

I placed an order with Jegs which (that seems like most of what they sell) was a drop ship from the vender. Most stuff I look at on thier site don't ever look like stocking items. Now the oddity with this was they were charging cheaper shipping than the vender on a direct order. Sales price was the same.

 

[Clone TIE Pilot]

I placed an order with Jegs which (that seems like most of what they sell) was a drop ship from the vender. Most stuff I look at on thier site don't ever look like stocking items. Now the oddity with this was they were charging cheaper shipping than the vender on a direct order. Sales price was the same.

Sometimes one company can get a better deal than another. One reason Walmart has cheaper prices is that they have enough pull to dictate the prices they will pay to their suppliers and service providers.

 

[Phreaktor]

They always charge a bit above retail, but $50+ for items that weigh less than a pound? I ship through USPS, UPS, FED EX and DHL daily, so I know all the pricing structures including the discounted corporate tier rates. I’m not saying they have to ship via First Class Package for $7-$8, but these items only cost about $12.50 to ship via Priotity Mail and it’s actually cheaper than the USPS PM Medium Flat Rate box they could ship in. I realize it would be difficult to structure each and every product to the optimal method, but this is ridiculous.

All too often online vendors sell sh*t parts in nice boxes, too. Also, paying the shipping to return a core almost always makes it not worth it.



I'd pay an extra $2.70 for Saturday delivery.... Also you have a business account which gives you a break on price. And UPS and USPS are separate entities that will calculate shipping costs differently.

Maybe there's something I'm missing here, but that looks pretty comparable to me....

I wasn’t comparing UPS and USPS I was comparing to the real shipping costs of either option to what the vendor quoted. Either way, I ended up getting them from Dixie Restoration Depot.

 

[Phreaktor]

Something interesting I found out- You can buy the passenger side alone for like $28, but I challenge you to find a single drivers side dust shield anywhere. GM discontinued the left side only, lol. I tried looking for S10 shields and no dice at all. The only option is the $85+ aftermarket sets all the vendors are selling. What’s weird is, the older Monte and A body shields are only like $40. I think Gbody parts are only going to continue to go up in cost as the supply of viable cars goes down.

Btw, apparently there’s a gasket or washer behind it. Should I look for them as well? I’m swapping out my upper arms/steering setup (cheaper and easier to replace with aftermarket and powdercoat than to do rust removal on the OEM parts) and going urethane almost everywhere.

 

[airboatgreg]

I used to ship a lot of stuff years ago and the shipping and handling was a wash. I had a phone service that charged for orders, info, hang ups etc. I shop to try to find the free shipping and many sites default to the higher price options but you may be able to select a lower price that just delays receiving it a couple days.

 

[gbodytoys]

If you want answers about why OPGI specifically charges more, e-mail the corporate structure at OPGI. Find out the leaderships e-mail addresses (this is available online) and ask them what makes up the cost of shipping. If you put enough people on the e-mail, someone usually will respond. You'll need data though. Screenshots of what you see the price as vs what they charge.

 

[69hurstolds]

Convenience costs. Want it fast? Pay the man. That's why many times you stop at a "gas n go" place (name your favorite brand convenience store) and pay $2 for that bottle of Iced Tea or whatever when it's $1.59 anywhere else. But you're in and out in 2 minutes and your car doesn't depreciate while it's sitting in the parking lot. Pay extra to UPS/USPS/etc., and they'll bust their butts to get it to you tomorrow. WTF? So you have to pay more for someone to do their job more efficiently, but yet the person actually doing it doesn't get paid any more money...hmm. And if you don't pay extra, USPS has already said they're going to go even slower on First Class deliveries and such. If you're not in a hurry, that's a plus for you.

Speaking of that, even if you are, more money doesn't get it to you faster. Here's a beauty- some places are so backed up with backorders, you have to wait almost a year. I think Legendary Interiors has about a 275 day waiting period for interior panel orders right now. Used to be a couple of weeks.

But I digress. Yes, there is a gasket behind the splash shield. GM p/n 3966202 superseded to 15699959. It's a thin black foam-like gasket. Seals out the dust and junk where the backing plate meets the steering knuckle. I do not know if there is an aftermarket equivalent.

I knew I should have stocked up on those GM splash shields when I had the chance. They used to be pretty cheap. I paid less than $20 per pair over the counter around 1993. Only got 3 sets left.

Splash shield junk fits pretty much all A/G-body disc brake applications 78-88. If worse comes to worse take a drill and hacksaw to an old aluminum pie plate. 🙂

 

[wskirvin]

I work in the trucking industry as a Parts Manager of a semi truck dealer and our PrePaid Freight costs have went through the roof. Most of the companies we deal with are anywhere between $1500-$3500 or more in product before they will cover the shipping. Anything below that, we can see between $35 and $300 freight if not more depending on dimensions and quantity ordered. I've been here for 16 years and unfortunately, this is the world we live in now. Makes cost of business extreme!

 

[ssn696]

In place of the foam gasket, you can try a bead of silicone. Messy, but out of sight.

 

[scoti]

The seals are available via aftermarket. I bought some within the last year or so. I was going to just silicone the shield but found the gaskets so I purchased them.
I'd have to dig up the source as I can't remember off hand. I recall they were 'corvette' pieces but the descript info was the same so I got them.