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Why does shipping a $19.99 kit cost almost $17 in the US?

Funny thing is I would have ordered the kit had it been $30 with $5 shipping. It is clear they are putting a substantial part of their operating margin into the shipping. The strategy rubs me the wrong way. I won't be ordering, sorry.

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Why does shipping a $19.99 parts kit cost almost $17 in Canada also? Obviously ifixit is in the repair business and not the shipping business, but, when i live close to the Canadian ifixit office then the $17 charge is annoying. A store counter for prepaid small items pickup should be an option then clients dont have to wait a week for expensive deliveries. How about a 1-hour item pickup once a week option rather than the mandatory shipping requirement?

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@grenbrady

Thanks for your feedback!

We utilize a third-party shipping and fulfillment center in Canada so our products on the Canada store are shipped from that warehouse. Obviously, our offerings on our Canada store are limited, and this is because we aren't the only vendor utilizing this same warehouse to ship products out of. This third-party shipping partner does not allow a pickup service, I'm afraid, and that is something we have asked them about in the past, though we understand their reasons for not providing such a service.

As far as their shipping costs go, these are set by the third-party shipping partner and is not something we can control or negotiate on, sadly. We don't make a profit on shipping in any case, though we'd obviously love to offer cheaper shipping solutions for all customers all over the world.

You can try a Freight Forwarder to ship products from our US store to you in Canada, but that would likely be about the same cost overall.

Sorry for any inconvenience here!

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Hi Robin,

Thank you for your question!

If you're ordering a battery, the reason for the higher than normal shipping charge for Standard is due to a myriad of issues related to shipping batteries via the United States Postal Service. In response to these issues, we're only able to ship your order out using UPS Ground if it contains a battery by default. Unfortunately, that means a higher shipping charge as UPS Ground is 3 to 5 times more expensive depending on the location.

While we understand the burden, we feel that it is a worthy tradeoff if it means ensuring customer packages arrive in a timely manner.

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Additional background information:

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About 10% of customers ordering batteries since January 2017 have reported extreme delivery delays via USPS First-Class Mail (or Standard shipping). Many delayed shipments took up to two months for delivery. Often these shipments would not even display tracking updates until the day they were delivered.

Lithium-ion battery shipping regulations changed on January 1st of this year, and ever since then, we started seeing a great number of battery delays caused as a result. Learn more here: http://help.ifixit.com/article/195-batte...

UPS Ground is the fastest ground shipping option we have for batteries at this time. While this method costs a bit more, it guarantees that you receive your battery within 5 business days without an extreme transit time (and includes reliable tracking).

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That being said, if you prefer our $5 USPS shipping option and you don't mind risking a long delay for a battery:

  1. Go to your Order History and click "Request Change" on the order within 30 minutes of the order being placed.
  2. Call us or send us an email (support@ifixit.com) letting us know you want us to change the shipping method to USPS.
  3. We will modify the order and refund the shipping cost difference.

I hope this help explain things! Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. I'm happy to help.

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7 Comments:

These shipping problems probably never would have happened if it weren't for the Galaxy note 7... And shipping paranoia.

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@pccheese you are probably right. Now what? Are we truly stuck with waiting for weeks on batteries? Any chance @kyle has some insight about this dilemma?

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Someone should call Jeff Bezos ask him how Amazon does it.

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Not fulfilled through amazon but using the same method of shipping. Lithium or no-lithium it gets here on time.

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I tried submitting the support ticket right after I placed order, but got full refund for some reason...

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Robin Stuart will be eternally grateful.