Amos Shipping Charges

They charge 10%, no matter how much you order. OK on orders up to $200 or so. Order something for several hundred and you pay an appalling charge.

I paid nearly $30 shipping on an album and binder. The shipping label on the box bore no info on what they paid to ship it. And the box was poorly sealed, I am seeing that on shipments from them lately.

Anybody else notice this?

stamps, have you complained to them about this?

Peter

I plan to, Monday. Got the package yesterday and was just wondering if this is a common thing. It's sort of bothersome that no shipping amount appears on the label.

I received an order from them around first of July that had totaled $260 and change. Shipping was $26. Box was heavy as it contained 4 catalogs; and lighter stuff like a jumbo Big Blue International binder plus end sheets. I have recycled the box, so it's not around to check. But, since it came, I think, Fed Ex, the shipping charge was probably reasonable. The box was intact upon arrival.

One can always order from Subway Stamps if unhappy with Amos. I've ordered blank quadrilled Big Blue pages from Subway, in the past, as their product is/was on a stronger paper stock than the Scott pages.

For my orders (usually mounts and stock pages), I have often priced Subway and Amosadvantage and Amos usually was the better deal when including shipping.

I checked some prior orders and Amosadvantage charges 10% and Subway charges 12% but over $75 they charge $9.50 to $100 then down to 10%.

I would also like actual shipping cost pricing and none have adopted the free shipping over a certain amount. This requires better ordering software.

I like Subway a lot & also NOLA Stamp Shop. I find both companies have similar consistently good service and fair shipping charges.
Dan

I like Subway. I'm also lucky as it is 40 mins from home. I was just there on Friday. I needed some Vario stock pages. While I was there I picked p two leather stock books with 36 pages for 10 dollars each. I also bought two packages of glassines for $1.50 for 200. I bought the first and the guy said just give me a dollar. Then I said that I mint as well take two and he said make it a $1.50. Darn great price for a size 7.

Some justify it as both shipping and handling.

It's easy enough to take the package when received and go weigh it (you and the package on the bathroom scale minus you equals the weight of the package to the nearest quarter pound). For USPS (the cheapest way), you can cut to the chase by going to pricing>price charts. Boxes are around $2 up around here so add that. You must never mail packages(?) if you think amounts charged for shipping are out of line.

Not putting the shipping charge on the package holds off complaints. In my old mail order selling days, I got complaints when $50 shipments were sent insured privately and I tried to ship below actual cost. Woe when the shipping and handling charged was on the order of 25c over the cost of just the postage.

We're typically ordering bulky heavy stuff like albums from stamp suppliers so free shipping doesn't work for that. If you demand free shipping, then the cost will just be buried in the item prices. Inflate the item price even more and a "big discount" can be given (like department stores did and do).

Apparently it's 10% across the board, for dealers as well. A local dealer had a customer order a set of hingeless Scott National Schaubek pages and binders, which he had to special order. One large box and they charged him over $120 shipping. He contacted them and they wouldn't budge. He wound up making a pittance on the order.

I am not pushing them on this, I need to stay on good terms with them as I like to order some of the custom reprints of out of print albums they offer.

I would expect Subway and Amosadvantage to have contracts with UPS, etc. They get reduced rates for guaranteed volumes. My only take is that some smaller items can be shipped cheaper than what they charge and obviously very heavy items can be expensive.

Reply today from a manager at Amos:

'Our shipping on all US orders over $10.00 is 10% of the order total. This is for shipping and handling.

I have no way of knowing the what the actual cost charged by Fed Ex was, nor would we share that. '

So that is that. It seems to me this discourages large orders, or orders of higher priced items. They have a right to set their own rules. I perhaps will not be ordering some things from them in the future. I will still need to go to them for things like the Minkus reprints, etc. If I wanted to order a set of albums or something similar I think Id come out ahead using Subway.