Mail ordering from RMT?

I like RMT products, and when they have sales, there are some pretty good prices. When I ordered from them, I paid with a debit card, and wasn't given a quote on the shipping charges, and was UNpleasntly surprised when my order arrived and I saw the shpg chrgs on the invoice. I have shpd pkgs twice as heavy, a similar distance for half the cost. At least if you pay by mail, you will get a shipping quote and can decide, if you feel the cost is reasonable or not.

 I don't remember which shipping carrier RMT used, but I know with UPS and I believe with Fed Ex, there is a lower rate for Business to Business shipping compared to Home delivery, so if you can receive pkgs at work, there may be a lower shpg chrg, whether you will see the savings or not, I don't know.

Doug

Ordering without a solid quote for shipping charges is something I won't do, and I tell online retailers (as I did RMT) that I will not place any orders without approving the shipping first.

Living in Hawaii I have been burned before, and am constantly amazed at what some online retailers quote for shipping.  A Northern CA Train store recently quoted me $28.50 to ship one Lionel O-27 tank car via US Mail.  Not going to happen!

FYI - I like RMT as well, having ordered a Beep through a local hobby shop and an Bang though ModelTrainStuff. (and MTS will ship the same tank car for $11.55 from the East Coast).

My rule of thumb is for items under $100.00 I'll pay up to 10% for shipping.  Other than that it's a deal killer.  Anything over $100 I expect free shipping.

Walt I love your stuff but prior to you resurfacing that was the case.  No idea from the other folks as to what the shipping would be.  I ordered a bunch and thought it was reasonable.  This was around the time of the great $10 ore car madness sale and prior to the warehouse clearance time wise.  Holding out for the passenger cars!

Just filled out an online order, the form asks for your shipping and billing address, shipping method and your CC information.  And on the bottom right there is button "Send Order". 

Does "Send Order" take me to another screen that shows the order total including shipping and then provides the opportunity to Confirm or Cancel the order?

Thanks!

Walter,

 I placed a PHONE order, I did not order on line. I casually asked about the shipping charge and was told they couldn't quote me that. I LIKE your products and wanted what I ordered. This order was during the "END of the Aristocraft/RMT partnership" sale, and many items were on a "Call for availability" basis.

 If/when I order again in the future, I will order on line and view the shipping charge, or if there is again a reason to order over the phone, I will ask to be notified of the shipping charges prior to paying for the order, so there is no surprise when I get the invoice.

 It is even possible a MISTAKE was made when the shipping charges were calculated. One time at Walmart, I ended up paying for the customer ahead of me purchases. I was in a hurry, had bought quite a few items leaving town on Memorial day weekend, later I looked at the receipt and there were about $60.00 worth of items at the top of my receipt that I did not buy. I later went back to the store, they checked the security camera over the register, and confirmed what had happened. They didn't explained to me exactly HOW it had happened, but they refunded the over-charge, and said that they would develop a system to prevent that from happening again.

There may have been an Honest mistake when RMT calculated my shipping, that is very possible, maybe I should have insisted on a shipping quote, but didn't, RMT is known as a reputable company so I didn't feel it was necessary.

 I haven't ordered from RMT since, but it is NOT because of that experience, my modeling budget, is some what limited, as many of our's are, and there are more items that I want, than I can afford, the other RMT items on my list just have other higher priority items above them that are also waiting their turn in the budget.

Doug

Out of curiosity, I did an order up to the time where I'd have to press the SEND ORDER button.  No shipping charge was displayed anywhere that I saw.

Aloha Walter,

Using the Apply button worked, thank you very much for taking the time to help me get it right.   I really like the RMT products I have, and am looking forward to purchasing some of the items due this fall.

I did think the shipping rate quoted was high, $25.20 to ship one single bay hopper (RMT96733), and $35.20 to ship one Alaska #2009 Budd RDC.  You are using USPS Priority Mail 3-day service, which I'm sure is the best option for you. 

For reference I paid $18.15 Priority Mail when I ordered your BANG S4 from ModelTrainStuff in April 2014, time from order to delivery was about 7 days. 

I do hope you continue to use MTS as a reseller.

Thank you - Alan

I ordered a bunch of stuff online, and when I saw the shipping charges ($45+), I was floored.  I live in western Pa and the RMT stuff came from NJ.  As previously stated, I have shipped things to the west coast, in larger, heavier packages, for far less money.  If I order again, I will get a shipping charge from RMT before I place the order.  

If I could see the shipping charges before checkout, I would be ordering a lot more.

Bob

I had ordered about a year ago during their big blow out sale and it didn't seem to be "price wise"that bad,nor that hard at all to order.Just wished they had a little more to choose from,missed getting some of the GG1's and to this day am kicking myself for not getting any.

Same here. I was going to buy one of the depressed center flats the other day but when it came up with $16+ for shipping a $50 item four states away, I canceled.  I would love to support RMT more but their shipping is far higher than any of the other businesses that I deal with. 

Yes Walter, I did hit APPLY.  I picked USPS Priority Mail, which seemed to be the most logical from the dropdown, here were my choices.  I don't see anything that tells me I can only use UPS, and I suspect you should simply let the web site only display the correct selections.  The fact that this thread exists should tell you that the web site is confusing as to shipping charges.

If you contact your local Post Office, they will tell you Priority Mail is not recognized for international shipments.  It makes no sense to pay extra for Priority mail if shipping out of the country.

The shipping rates that I've seen here seem way out of line. For comparison I just ordered a large shipment of jack stands and other workshop  items from Northern Tool. The box was shipped from SC to NJ was over three feet long and weighed 40 lbs. The shipping cost was $24.50 via UPS.

From my experience selling items on eBay the lowest shipping cost is for the USPS flat rate price priority mail boxes (if they fit) . For Canada Int'l First Class is pretty reasonable. Shipping can be expensive if you don't calculate what you have, the size weight and where it is going.

You can get a USPS Priority Mail flat rate box  11" x 8.5" x 5 1/2" for $12.65.

Sorry Walter, but by forcing me to use the more expensive shipper (UPS), you won't get any orders from me. I just checked your site, and when I chose "priority mail" and hit apply, I got a message that "priority mail was not an option for my shipping area", and I still was not shown the charge for shipping via UPS (from previous experience, I know that UPS is consistently more expensive than USPS Priority Mail).

Why would I want to deal with UPS? They are considerably more expensive, take days longer than priority mail, don't deliver on Saturdays (except for a ridiculous surcharge), and if I'm not home to receive the package, they leave a pickup notice, which means I must drive to the other side of town during business hours to pick it up.

I will not order from a site that can't show me shipping charges before completing the order, and if the shipping charge is too high, I will simply not order. I also will not deal with vendors who pad their shipping charges in order to increase their profit margin, like so many sellers on eBay.

Bill in FtL

Walter, I'd just like to know why you settled on UPS as your only choice.  Why not offer USPS as an alternate choice?  Like others, I have found that for most shipments, USPS is far cheaper than UPS.  When I ship, I ship almost everything by USPS, it's just way cheaper as a rule.

Alan, I think that by 1 bay hopper you are referring to the ore car, at $25.20 you are getting a COMPARETIVELY good price, 3 day service to Hawaii, the same car I calculated my shipping cost at $20.49 to near Portland, OR, and that is UPS Ground, which is typically 5-7 Day service.

 Granted, IMO both rates seem high to me, but considering the much greater distance shpd by air, with about half the transit time, in COMPARISON, you are getting a better deal, even if it is not a good deal.

Doug

Walter, if RMT can change USA/48 shipping method to USPS Priority when RMT manually processes the order, how does a customer request that change to get the cheaper USPS rate? Also, how is the difference in cost between the previously paid more costly UPS option compared to the less expensive USPS option handled? For a charge purchase, do you do a credit refund? What about prepaid mail order purchases - do you issue a credit towards future RMT purchases or enclose a check with the order for the difference between the two shipping amounts?

I can ship a 4 pound package 15x8x6 to Orlando via USPS for $10.66, and via UPS for $16.81.  Needless to say, I normally choose USPS.

If this is a Yahoo store restriction, they need to get with the times!   I can't imagine why, except that they got in bed with UPS and get kickbacks, that they'd restrict shipping for customers.  Whatever happened to the old saying... "The customer is always right"?

Oh, the USPS was Priority Mail and the UPS was ground.  You don't even want to know the 2nd day UPS rate!

I think the philosophy of "The Customer is Always Right" followed "common Sense" and "Common Courtesy", they were right behind the DoDo Bird, on the path to Mythology.

 It also might be Wise for a vendor to ask a question or two before telling a customer that "He is not correct".

Doug

Walter said:

"Otherwise UPS Ground is the ONLY default shipping method allowed other than UPS Next Day Air. This is a YAHOO web hosting rule, not RMT."

Sorry to hear that, I didn't know you were operating as a Yahoo store under their rules, since your website address only shows as a .com without indicating Yahoo. After seeing what Yahoo has done with their Yahoo Groups, this is just another example of Yahoo ruining a good thing. Another reason why I want nothing to do with anything connected to Yahoo. No offence, but perhaps you should consider changing your web hosting service...

Bill in FtL

Expensive shipping charges or not having a choice for shipping off sets any sale or special offered on an item.