Dennis,
You said</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>
Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I guess if you want the animal bad enough the extra cost doesn't matter.</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'> Cost does matter to me and that is why I buy at shows or over the net. Reptile Specialty Store prices are usually way to high for me. Even with shipping costs added onto net prices I do better than Reptile Store pricing. People over the net often sell at less expensive prices and even the addition of shipping charges does not add up to store prices that have to include the cost of: paying rent and shipping to their store.
As was said by Daniel - you pay for the cost of shipping no matter what. Any seller who is splitting the cost or paying all shipping charges is either charging you for it in the price or reducing their profit margin ridiculously. Just think if I, hypothetically speaking, sold you a run of the mill corn snake for $25.00, and then split the cost of overnight shipping to you. The shipping alone would cost about $25 to $30. That is without the: box, tape to seal the box, deli cup to hold the snake, packing material to insulate the box, heat or cool pack is necessary, magic marker or ink to write the label, time it took me to do all of this! So lets say it cost $30 to ship the snake, and I pay half. I just paid $15 to ship you a snake I sold to you for $25. Add on the other shipping costs: box $2.00 (check the prices of good corrugated cardboard boxes), deli cup .05 cents, tape .05 to .10 cents approximately (good package tape wrapped around box twice), insulation for box in the form of bubble wrap (.25 to .50 cents maybe more), heat pack $1 to $1.50 (same for a cool pack). That is another $3.35 using the low end prices I gave. Now remember that the snake over the course of a the two months I had it before it was sold ate 10 pinkies @ .25 cents each for a total of $2.50. Let's see where are we now: Shipping fee: $15.00, plus handling fees: $3.35, plus feeding: $2.50 and so far I have spent $20.85 - leaving me a whopping profit of: $4.15.
Wait did I say a profit? I should be horse whipped for saying it was a profit. I forgot about the cost of electricity for heating, the cost of the enclosure while I kept the snake, the cost of water for it to drink, and the sales tax I have to pay to my state after selling you an animal. And what about the cost of maintaining the breeders who produced the egg that this baby was hatched from? Lets see they each ate about 50 - 75 mice over the course of one year, I used electricity for their heat and light, they drank water for which I paid the bill, I also used plenty of water to wash out the tanks, they needed a tank or two, needed vitamins, and so on. Sure the female laid 15 eggs, so you can divide the cost by 15 over the course of the year, but it ads up to quite a bit. By the way, did I forget to mention web site charges I paid to advertise these critters on a site like kingsnake.com, or the fees I paid to maintain my own web site. Of course I am not figuring in my time - how much per hour do you think that is worth?
Well after you add it all up, I think you can see why a seller charges the buyer the shipping costs. If he/she did not there would be no profit in it at all, and maybe even a loss. Now that I think of it, hypothetically speaking of course, I will have to raise my corn snake prices and charge the buyer for all shipping cost cause I am going broke doing this!
Best regards,
Glenn
<img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='
'>
