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Sale completion policies:

The truth about shipping:

Shipping is normally done via ground service either FedEx or UPS.  

We can ship any carrier upon request, USPS, FedEx, 2nd day, UPS red label, common carrier freight these will be charged as necessary and there will be a handling fee if our personnel has to hand carry your package to a service outside our normal account.  

We do have requests to ship domestically or internationally via USPS, or USPS flat rate. We resist this option for two reasons. First is because we have had delivery problems and lost packages. The post office will not even admit a package is missing for 30 to 60 days. We have never had a successful claim on a lost package.  They put up so many hurdles that it is just not worth the effort.  Secondly, we have to hand carry packages to the post office and this is a forty to over an hour operation, so we have to charge $6 to $10 handling fee to cover labor and we don't make the trip till we have at least two packages to go.  

We are committed to using the best method of shipping that we can, shipping is a key element of our business and we will always attempt to do the make the best choices we can. Know this: You are protected by us and our guarantee, if your package is lost we will replace or refund. If the worst happens we ask for your patience, it usually takes a week or so for FedEx or UPS Ground to do their search and admit that they can not find the package.  At which point if we can replace, we will. If we can not, then we will refund your total, including shipping. 

Shipping delays: We normally ship twice a week .   Tuesday and Friday, if we receive payment on Monday you package could go out on Tuesday. If we receive payment on Friday it will be Tuesday. If we get payment late Monday it could be Friday. So the delay between receiving payment and shipping will be one to five days.  If you are in a panic then we can expedite your shipping, just as you can send payment via next day.  We now accept paypal as payment and this can speed shipment dramatically. 

Shipping charges: The database has the weight of the material, and we add a pound to this and it becomes our shipping weight.  This is looked up in the UPS Ground tables to give us a cost and that is what is added to the purchase for shipping.  There is no set shipping cost, bundling benefits the customer, there are no add on charges for more than one lot, it is all based on shipping weight and what the table says the cost will be.   Shipping is via Ground Service, we have three different shipping locations, one is FedEx the other two are UPS, but we still only use the UPS tables.  Some times we can not bundle lots due to them being from different locations or they are so different in dimensions that they would be too difficult to ship together. 

Our customers should understand that when we set the shipping charges, we do not really KNOW what they are going to be. The shipper will adjust, discount, surcharge as they see fit and we get a bill a week or so after the package is sent.  So it is imperative that we have an accurate estimate of shipping. 

We do a survey of shipping charged verses actually shipping cost twice a year.  This study covers more than 500 consecutive packages.   The difference between what we charged the customer for shipping and what the common carrier charged us for shipping is on average  $0.11234 per package. Or put another way, after five hundred packages we made approximately $45 on shipping.    The most we lost was $8.21 on a package and the most we made was $7.84. On average we are within $.24 on shipping.   If during our auditing we found that the customer has been overcharged by more than $6 we issue a credit to that customer.   We have done this since 2001 to thirty-eight customers.

We would like to assure our customers that we are not here to make a profit on shipping. We are also not going to lose money on shipping. We do not normally charge for handling or packaging. Packaging is our cost and is paid for out of our basic profit structure. If you desire a carrier other than UPS or FedEx Ground, our normal procedures, this means we have to hand carry, stand in line and pay cash for the shipping. This is an extra service and we will charge for that service.

Many customers request the bundling of Lots in a single shipping. We are more than happy to do this within certain parameters.  Bundling is a normal procedure, your lots may go into HH status, which is "Hold" status. This means that the lot is waiting for further instructions or lots.  

Emails: The computer handles lots as individual entities. Even if the lots are being bundled and shipping adjusted you will still receive individual emails, one per each lot. 

Some basic shipping parameters, First: Any package that is more than sixty inches will incur a shipping surcharge, remember this in on the package size and not the material size.  This is why we usually request cutting to 48" for most lots.

Second: Lot dimensions and characteristics: If your lots are twenty pounds of short rod ends and a large sheet of UHMW it is easier for the packers to send one in a box and wrap the other in cardboard. If you have purchased a 1/4" diameter x 60" long piece of material and know that you are going to cut it to six inch pieces then help us and yourself, by sharing that information. Many items can be packaged easier if we can cut them. 

Making life better for us, means that we don't have to charge for packaging. This is an important consideration. Many small lot sellers add $3 to $6 per item for packaging and handling. As a purchaser this looks like a rip, so with your help we can continue with our policy of NO HANDLING OR PACKAGING CHARGES.

The most cost effective package weight is twenty pounds plus. There is a minimum charge of $8 for any package, going anywhere. 

We hope this information is useful and will help raise the level of understanding between us and our customers.  

UPDATE: August 11, 2008

It was brought to our attention that a customer John Poole posted a message about his dealings with us back in June of 2006.  There are some points that should be clarified, we apologize to Mr. Poole if his transaction with us was anything less than 100% positive.  We did a search on our email, which we keep a record of and could not find anything except the ebay end of auction notices and our invoice to Mr. Poole. Everything we we sell comes with a 100% guarantee, if you don't like it, can't use it, don't want it, just send it back.  If the problem was something that we did then we will refund the shipping or negotiate some settlement.  We have been in business a decade now, have sold more than twenty-two thousand lots.  We have over 9500 feedbacks on ebay, which represents about 60% of our total sales.  Our feedback rating, which they have changed the way they calculate a couple of times over the recent past, but still our rating is 99.8%.   I think this shows that we do care, and try to make our customers happy. 

From rec.woodworking newsgroup 2006 archive

John Poole: 

If we had had an email from Mr. Poole, we would have responded.  There is a possibility that Mr. Poole communicated via a different method, but we have no record, and in the database there is no note about him having a problem with shipping costs?  So lets go point by point, this is a GOOD exercise because Mr. Poole raises some good points, and the more our customers understand, the better the transaction and the better and longer term our relationship. 

I purchased 2 lots thinking that I would benefit from a consolidation of the order into one shipment based on a cursory review of their shipping policies. I was charged and paid $20.20 for Fedex delivery. When the parcel arrived, I measured and weighed it before opening and then visited Fedex's site which quoted me $14.43 -- that's withough any discount a regular shipper may enjoy. I was under the impression I would only be charged actual cost of shipping.

The shipping cost to the customer is actually an estimate, we nor anyone knows the actual cost till we pay the bill at the end of the month.  We have, over the years tried a number of different methods to calculate an accurate shipping cost.  We have three different location where shipping may come from and use both FedEx and UPS, and on occasion the post office.   What we do is survey our costs vs the amount we take in for shipping. This is done every six to eight months, we just take 500 consecutive shipments and compare the two.  Last time we did this was February 2008, the difference between what we charged and what we took in as revenue was less than a half a buck per shipment.  It is a simple calculation and averaged out to $0.476 per shipment.    A couple of years ago we changed our procedure, we used to have this proprietary table, based on RPS shipping, and we added an amount each time we did the survey to adjust, we have always tried to remain in the positive, at times it was as low as $.05 per package, in our favor.   But a couple of years ago we just started using an amount directly from the UPS ground table.   

If Mr. Poole had contacted us, we would have gone back in our records and found the actual cost and if it was appreciably different, more than a two or three dollars, we would have issued a refund.  We get this kind of request every couple of months or so and find that some of them are correct, and that the price we quoted was out of line.  But most of the time it is pretty accurate. 

We have Mr. Poole's two lots 19119 UHMW virgin natural 3 sides sawn, 1 5/16" x 5 7/8" x 28 3/4" long and lot 19160 UHMW-PE, Tivar 1000 uniblend regrind green: 3/8" x 5 5/8" x 47" x 2 pcs with a stated shipping weight of 18 pounds.   We normally add a pound per package to the actual weight for our shipping weight, and shipping weight is usually listed in the listing.  

If these were shipped separately the cost would have been 

UPS Ground

By End of Day, Monday August 18, 2008

14.48 USD*

Each, or $28.96, now this is 2008 number, which are probably not the same, as cost does go up as fuel prices go up.   This is shipping to a commercial address, right off the table with no adding for packing materials or handling. 

Together a total of 18 pounds: 

UPS Ground

By End of Day, Monday August 18, 2008

24.71 USD

So I am assuming in the intervening two years UPS shipping tables have increased the cost by $2.51. 

Back to our costs, we do not charge for packing material, but I am not sure how long we can hold that line.  Our packing materials have increased in the past two years by almost 25%, over the past five years by more than 38%, and being that much of what we use is a petroleum product, we expect our cost to go up even more.  

We also do not charge a handling fee, another common charge by most of our competitors. We also do encourage bundling, and this helps in cost to the customer but also helps us.  If a bunch of lots are bundled, the handling is the same as with a single lot and the packing materials also does not increase proportionally, so it is a cost savings to us and the customer.  Optimal package weight is above thirty pounds or more, this is the BEST possible rate per pound for shipping. 

Still no mater what the price, the final accounting shows that we are within a dollar of actual costs on average.   Mr. Poole is correct, the cost estimate does not include discounts, and savings that we get from the shipper, and the packages that are shipped from a FedEx location but the estimate also does not include the extra fee for an address that was incorrect by the customer, a customer claiming a business address and it is actually a residence, or packages that get returned or overages by the shipper for a variety of reason that we have no control over and did not account for in our estimate.  So the most fair assessment of shipping cost remains the survey. 

Also I had ordered UHMW virgin 1 5/16" x 5 7/8" x 28 3/4" natural, and it arrived in a bowed condition: 1/4" at the center over the 28" span -- this bowing/warpage was not disclosed in the offering material. Fortunately my application did not need the entire length, so the bowing was not a defect rendering the piece unsuable for my intended application. Basically, if I had seen the piece live I would have concluded it was defective -- though, in this case, it did not matter since I was going to cut it into smaller pieces.

UHMW is a mastic material, with a little heat and not being supported it will bend and twist, anyone who has ever used this material knows this.  We have had dozens of woodworkers wanting to use UHMW sheet as a table top for a router with no other structure and we explain to them all that even at thicknesses of 1 to 2 inches, a fifteen pound router in the middle of a 24" square sheet will end up sagging to the point where it will no longer be useful.   At least until they flipped over the table, hang the router from the other side and wait a week for it to sag in the other direction.  We have had piece of our stock 6" in diameter sag like wet spaghetti on the rack, because they were only supporter in two places over a ten foot length.  It is just the nature of the material.  And UHMW is not alone, polypro, HDPE, LDPE, nylon almost every plastic will bend and twist looking for a stress equilibrium.  

Our response, to Mr. Poole saying that the material was not useable, would have been an explanation about the properties of the material first, and then an offer for him to return the material for a full refund.  And if he was adamant about the feeling that we had sent him a defective piece, we would have offered to cover the cost of shipping.   Why would it be worth it to us, to "cheat" a customer, when the only thing we have is our reputation, it is not worth more than $20?

I inquired about an adjustment for the shipping overage and basically was ignored. I don't have a problem with people stating a minimum shipping charge, here I had concluded they only charge what they, in turn, are charged and that any savings as a result of consolidating multiple orders would accrue to my benefit. This misunderstanding coupled with the bowed UHMW causes me to post this. The other item I bought was as advertised. I'd probably buy from them again, but nail down details of shipping cost and condition.

We checked all of our email, and even went back and checked our feed back, Mr. Poole posted a negative for use, one of only nine we have had in ten years. We responded stating that we felt it was unfair that if you have a problem, to not contact us before posting feedback.  This is in our policies and procedures, it is listed on our website, it is in the listings including our direct email address, every sale comes with our toll free phone number, there really is not excuse to feel like your are being ignored, there are many avenues and we process emails, one of our strengths, all day, every day.  If you don't believe it, give us a try sales@machinist-materials.com

We went back and checked Mr. Poole's ebay feedback rating:  it stands at 11, with no purchases since November of 2006.  Well maybe he just was new to online shopping, and found it not to his liking and we were one of his less fortunate transactions, that's too bad, we wish we had had a chance to make Mr. Poole happy.  Looking at the date of his submission, it corresponds to our transaction, his posting of a negative feedback to us and our responding in kind, may it was just that he was looking for some retribution. 

Still I hope that the readers take away from this what we intend;

One: We will always try, to do the best we possibly can for our customers, we sincerely want you to be happy and come back again and again.  Currently our database has over seven thousand customers, and on average, about half our sales every month are repeat sales.

Two: Communicate, if you have a problem, contact us, give us a chance to make things right.

Three: All of our listings are as accurate as we can make them including photos of the actual item being offered.  If there are questions, please ask. Communication, especially in this world of one's and zero's, without being able to shake a hand or look one in the eye, is difficult enough, communication is key to success, more than ever before.

Four: Most of our shipping is Ground service, we pull the shipping cost directly from the UPS Ground tables, this is what we have done for the past two years and it is what we will be doing in the foreseeable future, unless another, better method happens to avail itself.  We understand that the cost of shipping is a great concern, we share that concern. We understand that shipping can be a considerable cost and will affect the customer's willingness to make a purchase, but you should know that we don't have any control over the cost of shipping.  

On every sale we post a note:

We would like to suggest that there are ways to save on shipping cost. One method is to use a non-residential shipping address. If this is a possible alternative it will save you one to nearly three dollars per package depending whether or not you are rural. Another and  BEST METHOD is the bundling of lots. The most effective package weight, per pound cost for shipping is greater than twenty pounds. Less package weight and you are paying more per pound to get your purchases. For more information please read: http://www.machinistmaterials.com/shipping-truth.htm

Bundling is good for you and it is good for us.

Currently we are listing a number of lots using USPS flat rate shipping.  We are not that comfortable using the post office, but this can be very cost effective for those living far away, or out of the way. So on a limited basis we offer this option to our customers and they can save a fair bit on shipping.

Five: Our business plan does not include making a profit on shipping.  It does include NOT losing money on shipping. We are trying to be fair.  If you have questions... ask!  If you want to save on shipping... bundle.