Elemental Designs... Shippings Expensive.

[Anthony Collova 10+ year member]

It's the issue of they DESTROY everything.
We can send you subs, but it works out to the point of you can buy it, and assume all responsibility for what they do.

We shipped a few subs once, we got no insurance out of the deal, we had to reship the product to the customer, and he was receiving what can best be described as a pancake...or as pancake like as a subwoofer can get.

As for the handling...try coming out to the Newton Post Office. It will involve someone being out of the office for about an hour standing there doing nothing but waiting for the 99 year old postal worker to finish doing stuff. They are horribly understaffed.

I wish there was an inexpensive way to ship items out to you guys in AK/HI or APO FPO addresses, but the USPS just isn't it because they'll destroy stuff/remove someone from the office for an hour in the middle of the day.

Why not just use USPS Click N' Ship on the USPS web site.

Any time we have a customer with an APO address or overseas we just use our USPS account to print the label online. Then we pay a currier service $10 to take it to the post office. This way no employee waiting around in line at the post office. Since the package already has postage paid all they do is drop it off for us.

Seems like an easy fix to this complicated problem.

ANT

http://www.secondskinaudio.com

 

[dawgdan 10+ year member]

As for the handling...try coming out to the Newton Post Office. It will involve someone being out of the office for about an hour standing there doing nothing but waiting for the 99 year old postal worker to finish doing stuff. They are horribly understaffed.

Cry me a freakin' river. Find another post office. There are 2 post offices in Newton alone and TEN within a 12.29 mile radius.

Or do what Ant suggested, since he actually has a clue.

Another great example of that world-famous ED customer service. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Another great example of that world-famous ED customer service.

Somehow I don't see, let's say, McIntosh saying something like..."Well, yeah, we couldn't get your amplifiers out today because our delivery got stuck behind a tractor pulling hay...just have to try it again tomorrow..."

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[mandos 10+ year member]

Cry me a freakin' river. Find another post office. There are 2 post offices in Newton alone and TEN within a 12.29 mile radius.
Or do what Ant suggested, since he actually has a clue.

Another great example of that world-famous ED customer service. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif

If there was a courier service in Newton, we could do that. What's the difference though? $4 between us doing it and him having a courier.

What you are paying is for a person to go somewhere to ship $6.40($5.12 with forum discount) worth of product and be out of the office for an extended period of time. They will not be answering customer phone calls, they will not be answering customer e-mails, they will not be shipping other items, they will not talking to local people who come in, they will not be QC'ing product, and they will not be building product. They will just be sitting in line.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know many businesses that could afford sending off employees to be gone for an extended period of time to ship something a customer pays $5 for.

As for the second post office, that looks like the grocery store. I've seen a drop off for mail in their customer service section, but have never noticed full service postal options. If they can apply postage to things there and prevent people from being out of the office, it would definitely be cheaper. As it sits though, we can't afford to just have people sitting at the actual post office without being paid for it.

And before you think, oh, you've been there 2 or 3 times to do this, no, every single time we've EVER sent someone there(probably 20~30 or so since we've moved here) it's about an hour before they're back in the office.

Also, unless the other post offices are extremely quick in their service, you're still killing 1/2 hour of driving time, combined with gas which would end up at about a gallon for someone getting 30MPG on the highway and whatever time it takes in their post office. I fail to see how that's any faster.

 

[RaiN 10+ year member]

Needless to say Mandos' replies are pretty negative and I totally hear the message he's sending to us. My main concern is that I was actually considering updating my equipment with ED stuff and seeing this reaction has really moved my interest in another direction.

I do think its funny that the total amount for the product I was purchaing was brought up. Realistically it shouldnt matter if I'm buying six inches of speaker wire, 1oz of liquid deadener, or a penny signed by everyone that works there; the point is that everyone's a customer, no matter how large their purchase is. Sadly with the lack of customer service and seeing the posts here I'll be taking my business elsewhere.

 

[headless 10+ year member]

Saying that every customer is a customer and that a mail order company should treat 1 cent orders identically in every way to an order for 100$'s or 1000's$ is totally illogical. If you were walking into the store to pick up 5$ (at a discounted price!) of product, you'd have a point; you deserve entirely identical treatment as every other customer. When you're ordering, via mail, with the associated overhead, 5$ (at a discounted price!) of stock, to an address outside the continental USA, the company you are ordering from gets screwed. I hope you didn't expect to pay with a credit card on top of all this...

If i was asking a company to send me 4 sq foot of deadener i'd feel guilty and offer to pay up 10$ in handling charge. If they countered with, we need 15$ i'd consider it well worthwhile or consider ordering more stuff to get a decent sized order up to make it worthwhile for the merchant.

 

[mandos 10+ year member]

Saying that every customer is a customer and that a mail order company should treat 1 cent orders identically in every way to an order for 100$'s or 1000's$ is totally illogical. If you were walking into the store to pick up 5$ (at a discounted price!) of product, you'd have a point; you deserve entirely identical treatment as every other customer. When you're ordering, via mail, with the associated overhead, 5$ (at a discounted price!) of stock, to an address outside the continental USA, the company you are ordering from gets screwed. I hope you didn't expect to pay with a credit card on top of all this...If i was asking a company to send me 4 sq foot of deadener i'd feel guilty and offer to pay up 10$ in handling charge. If they countered with, we need 15$ i'd consider it well worthwhile or consider ordering more stuff to get a decent sized order up to make it worthwhile for the merchant.

EXACTLY.

RaiN, Every customer IS a customer. If you were ok with the cost of shipping the item via UPS or FedEx(2 methods that leave from our facility costing nothing more than us packaging and letting it get picked up), it would have been done. Unfortunately, that was not the situation, and understandably so, I wouldn't want to give UPS/FedEx $30~$50 to get a sample of a product. Unfortunately, we as a business, can not simply eat a loss like that to get a product to a customer. Shipping is inherent in mail/internet ordering and living in AK/HI comes with it's price when ordering via the mail/internet.

Please understand, we CAN NOT ship an item via a method that loses money. Wages come from somewhere, and $5 worth of product does not pay over an hour in wages waiting at a post office. THAT is where the handling fee comes in, you'd simply be paying for an hour out of the office. If someone in the lower 48 asked the same thing, they'd pay the same. Everyone that wants USPS on deadener does.

I'm sorry if it came across as we don't want your business, it's more the fact of we can not sell products at a loss and REMAIN in business.

If you would like to e-mail/call to discuss other possible shipping options to AK, please do. Understand though, there are costs associated with living there and ordering via the internet. You were quoted for both UPS and FedEx, then given the option of the much lower USPS rate with a handling fee due to time we'd have to spend there. If you know of yet another method, please, let us know. It's not that we don't want to send you items, it's just that do that while taking a loss on the overall sale.

 

[RaiN 10+ year member]

Headless, nice reply but I have quite a bit of experience purchasing and having items sent to me. In the past ten years I've built several vehicles, ordered parts for friends and family, and sent items world wide. Several companies like CDT, Gruppe-S, World One Performance, LMC, Andrewtech Automotive and The Amp Repair Center have been more than helpful with shipping items to me without the added costs of "Handling". Its companies like these that will continue to get my business. Just as a side note, I received a set of automotive carpet samples from a business down in the states... I offered to pay the shipping costs, but they insisted it was complimentary.

As for Madros, who's paying your wages right now while posting up?

Either way fellas’, bashing me or my knowledge of shipping “to an address outside the continental USA” doesn’t really matter anymore. I, as the customer, know what happened and I will not be doing any business with ED ever. The products look fantastic, I just read too many posts about the lacking customer service issues.

 

[02parkave 5,000+ posts]

They will not be answering customer phone calls, they will not be answering customer e-mails, they will not be shipping other items, they will not talking to local people who come in, they will not be QC'ing product, and they will not be building product. They will just be sitting in line.

you guys qc product? coulda fooled me... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif and yes, ive had ed products... im not just bandwagon bashing.

 

[headless 10+ year member]

If you shafted all the companies you listed with 5$ of product after a discount orders shipped to alaska via a carrier that company doesn't normally ship with, i'm truly surprised some of them didn't point out that it was totally giving them the shaft. I suspect that the more likely scenario is that you didn't try and stick them with the same situation as ED - ordered more items, larger quantity, used their normal shipping service, etc. so it wasn't such a total waste of time.

For the record, i've never tried an ED product, probably never will as it doesn't seem to stack up to the second skin stuff...

but asking a company to lose money selling you a sample of their product is just plain dense, regardless as to what you've heard about their customer support. Shit yo, i'm gonna hop in amazon.com right now and order something for 2.95, then demand they ship it USPS instead of Fedex even though that's not how they ship...and ima insist they do it all for free. THEN i'm going to have it send to a non-continental US address too, just cuz. And i'm gonna use my credit card to pay.

I wonder how far i'll get. Wagers anybody?

Edit: ****! FOILED AGAIN!

How are items shipped? We use a variety of carriers for each shipping option. It is not possible to specify a preferred carrier when placing your order. When you select One-Day or Two-Day Shipping, we may use air or ground shipping as necessary to get your items to you within the promised time frame.

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif oh well, i didn't even get to the rest of the deal; they won't even let me consider a shipping option other than theirs.

 

[RaiN 10+ year member]

No sense in even replying, since headless knows what I bought and who I've bought from.

**** it up and move on, seems everyone else has, friend.

 

[headless 10+ year member]

No sense in even replying, since headless knows what I bought and who I've bought from.
**** it up and move on, seems everyone else has, friend.

LOL.