RANT: Summit "Free" shipping deal

mfp4073

Founding Member
Mar 14, 2001
387
0
38
Hells Ditch, FL
Well I ordered myself a flex fan...cost $31. The guy says your total is $39. I say I thought there was free standard shipping...he says yes, but there is packaging and handling...ok so I am a little ticked but whatever. So the box arrives and its in the factory box, no outer packaging, no nothing....just the shipping label stuck to the outside of the fan box....I could have shipped it for $6 by the same carrier. I think I am going to call them up and give them a piece of my mind about this. Talk about a scam.
 
mfp4073 said:
Well I ordered myself a flex fan...cost $31. The guy says your total is $39. I say I thought there was free standard shipping...he says yes, but there is packaging and handling...ok so I am a little ticked but whatever. So the box arrives and its in the factory box, no outer packaging, no nothing....just the shipping label stuck to the outside of the fan box....I could have shipped it for $6 by the same carrier. I think I am going to call them up and give them a piece of my mind about this. Talk about a scam.


You need to learn the trick....you buy a $1000 worth of stuff when they offer frees hipping and pay that $6 handling fee once, yeah that will show them, you get something for nothing then, ohh wait....did I just buy $1000 worth of crap again...sheeesh. :bang:
 
They put that $7 handling charge on every order, separate from shipping charges. The good news is that they only charge the $7 per order, not per item. So if you order 20 things at once, its still only one $7 handling fee (at least I think thats right... thats how they charged me when I ordered a bunch of stuff).

I know the handling fee sounds like bs, but considering their prices, I understand the need. I actually kinda look at it as a good thing... I believe in buying local, as long as the local price is within 20% (including tax). When you start comparing mail/internet ordering with buying local, and you factor in shipping, handling, time, etc... local often seems a fair deal really. Ultimately, I personally think there is a benefit in having local speed shops around... Where else you gonna get a Holley jet kit on a Saturday afternoon so you can make it to the track that night, right?
 
I cant complain, even though they sent me my heads in the Trick Flow box....but shipping on heads for only $5.00!!!...thats a deal and a half.

Like DarkBuddha said, the key is to order a bunch of things at once.
 
I cant believe they didnt put it in another box. I dont think you could ship a fan for $5 either?

I can understand the handling and packaging charge. I got my B&M shifter and it had a bunch of those shipping airbags stuffed in a box and the shifter was in aSUMMIT box too. So, I guess thats where that charge went. You really cantbeat their 'deal' onshipping and handling though.
 
dude, theres no big deal here. whenyou buy car parts they come in mulitple boxes when you but multiple items. like if you ordered your fan and cam... well it would be in one big box with two little boxes...

And a scam?!?! its like 2 bucks dude... They have to charge a creating fee - like ANY other company does. plus i mean could u have bought that fan anywhere else for that price?

Man i don't get how you guys in the states can even complain about this stuff, how about me way up in canada - i gotta pay extra shipping, duty, the cdn and usd diffrence, AND sometimes a broker fee... and this is all IF they will ship here. I sitll don't see why some people woni't ship here.. its not like were over an ocean :rolleyes:
 
mfp4073 said:
Well I ordered myself a flex fan...cost $31. The guy says your total is $39. I say I thought there was free standard shipping...he says yes, but there is packaging and handling...ok so I am a little ticked but whatever. So the box arrives and its in the factory box, no outer packaging, no nothing....just the shipping label stuck to the outside of the fan box....I could have shipped it for $6 by the same carrier. I think I am going to call them up and give them a piece of my mind about this. Talk about a scam.
There's no scam, if you had read the shipping details before ordering, you wouldn't have ordered it would you? You people think that you should get something for nothing. nothing's free, you pay for it somewhere, sometime.I prefer ordering from Summit ( and any other catalog company) just for the simple reason that their prices are less than my local speed shop, and I don't have to keep going back over and over again to see if "my stuff came in" . It's left on my door step by the UPS guy. All the effort I have to expend is ordering it ( which is how the local speed shop does it after I tell them what I want, this guy keeps very little stuff in stock and the stuff he does have has years of dust on the packaging) , and stooping to pick it up to bring it in the house.
 
Consider the "Handling" fee the price of education. You ordered something and it showed up like you asked. Now go the the local NAPA or Schucks/Kragen and they will laugh because you don't have a 350 Chebby motor like everyone else, you have an "exotic" Ford powerplant and they have to order the parts for you. Summit can get you the parts and they are good quality, the local place, well you hope it isn't "remanufactured". It was only $7. And I think you still got FREE SHIPPING, they didn't say FREE HANDLING...someone still had to put that label on with your address and that person gets a paycheck and you just helped pay their bills....you get the point. Quit crying.
 
D.Hearne said:
There's no scam, if you had read the shipping details before ordering, you wouldn't have ordered it would you? You people think that you should get something for nothing. nothing's free, you pay for it somewhere, sometime.I prefer ordering from Summit ( and any other catalog company) just for the simple reason that their prices are less than my local speed shop, and I don't have to keep going back over and over again to see if "my stuff came in" . It's left on my door step by the UPS guy. All the effort I have to expend is ordering it ( which is how the local speed shop does it after I tell them what I want, this guy keeps very little stuff in stock and the stuff he does have has years of dust on the packaging) , and stooping to pick it up to bring it in the house.

The scam is the big letter print that says free shipping thats not really free. Whatever..I guess I am just a whiny jackalope that expects everything in the world for free. All I know is that it cost me $9 to ship a flywheel from FL to CA once and this fan that weighs about 1/10 the amount cost me $8 for "free". Guess yall should be thanking me for covering the "free" shipping on all your great orders. My bad what was I thinking......
 
That fan may not have weighed the same as the flywheel but it took up the same amount of space in the truck that could have been used to ship someone elses parts. I know this is true, cause thats what I do for a living. Sure they advertise "free shipping" but that's not illegal even though you end up paying for it anyway. No matter where you shop, you're still paying for the transport of the product to your door. The cost is either built into the price or added on after the fact. :nice:
 
The last thing I ordered from Summit was some plug wires a couple of years ago.They told me there was free shipping.I said, I live in Canada what about the brokerage fee?They assured me it would be free and I would pay nothing.When the UPS guy showed up I was handed a $28 brokerage fee,which was more than the plug wires.When I called Summit and asked about my $28 free shipping I was told that if I didn't pay it that I could never order from them again.I paid the fee, got my plug wires and have never ordered from them since.Afterwards I wrote a letter to their customer service department explaining what had happeened and they have never responded.
 
If you're so averse to paying freight, why didn't you buy the fan locally? Probably because it was cheaper to mailorder it. And why did you mailorder from Summit? Probably because they were the cheapest and/or had it in stock. What else do you want?
 
joncash said:
If you're so averse to paying freight, why didn't you buy the fan locally? Probably because it was cheaper to mailorder it. And why did you mailorder from Summit? Probably because they were the cheapest and/or had it in stock. What else do you want?


Dude, you gotta remember when comes to car parts in Canada were robbed from the states. everything seems to be over there, and its 10 times cheaper thats why we order form the their.
But sadly it works both ways sometimes, can't we all just get along?