[thechris]

I know I whine and complain a lot about the price gouging we Canadians suffer at the hands of America but by golly, it sucks! I finally found something reasonably priced on Toywiz of all places, the figure is only $16.00. I went through the checkout and when it came time to sort out shipping, they want $39.48 to ship the item!! It's a small 3.75 action figure!! What the hell, toy shops? It doesn't cost that much to ship here! You're losing customers with this B.S. Do you realize that the volume of your sales are going down the tubes? How is it some people on eBay can afford to ship out 4 or 5 MOC action figures to Canada from the US for say $9.99 at most, registered, insured, includes tracking ID, I don't pay a cent of duty when it comes through, where as a company like Toywiz charges nearly $40 on the shipping of ONE 3.75 action figure, when it arrives, I STILL get charged duty??

How is it it only costs BigBadToyStore 25% of what you're charging to ship the same thing?? It just doesn't make sense. It's like some companies are doing everything they can to prevent Canada from buying from them. You've got to assume that the profits from ripping off 1 or 2 Canadians who are actually crazy enough to pay their inflated shipping costs is significantly lower than the profits they could make from charging ACTUAL shipping costs and a fair handling cost. It just seems like bad business to me. Am I wrong? It's bad enough that the prices suck, it's worse when the shipping is insane on top of it. And how about those psychos on eBay? How can they even afford to relist the item each time it doesn't sell?

I know the first relisting is free but then you've got to pay again if it doesn't sell. I worked at a shop that had an online eBay component and the fees were insane. How is it worth it to them to keep listing an item for $40 that everyone else is listing for $9.99 or less? And it doesn't sell and they keep relisting it. And it's NOT cheap to list at such a high price to begin with. You'd think it'd just be cheaper to just list the damn thing at $9.99 and sell it the first time than paying fees and trimming profit off the top each time. By the time some idiot forks over $40, the seller already spent $50 in fees. Is it worth it? Are they making so much that they can afford to use it as a write off? And if so, aren't there less tedious and more productive ways to lose money and use it as a write off other than giving it to eBay? For example, giving to a charity??