The watch arrived in good working order and the recipient has declared herself pleased! It was all worth it.
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The price of things.
My French granddaughter wanted a watch she saw online at an outfit that doesn't ship to la Belle, so she asked if I would order it, have it sent here and then forward it to her. Never wanting to miss an opportunity to play the doting grandma, I was delighted to do so. It arrived promptly and in good working order, so I went off with it to the local PostNPak.
I was stunned that something weighing less than a quarter of a pound including packing cost $83.39 to ship via DHL. FedEx wanted an additional $15.00.
Is this where we geezers get to say, "What is this world coming to"?
6 comments:
I just sent two small parcels to Toronto and Greece via the post office and almost had to call my banker.
There seem to be three near-universal signs of the advent of what we will euphemistically call "middle age". The first is struggling with names, even of folks you see regularly. The second is coming to see a solid night's sleep as a rare and precious gift from the gods. The third is being repeatedly discombobulated by the price of things.
Actually, there is a fourth--having to spend the next day sleeping off one drink.
I just cancelled an online book order, e, when the postage came to three times the value of the book.
Peter, I recognise all those signs! My kids want to know how long I'm intending to be a burden, though, when I insist I'm still middle-aged!
Actually Peter there's a fifth, a sixth, a ... , but I'll let you find out about them for yourself.
I wonder if it's the cost of jet fuel that makes sending things so expensive? We need to hear from the Skipper for an expert explanation.
m. I've take to ordering used books from Amazon. Some less than one dollar, but the postage is always $3.98. I assumed this was a bit of additional income, but perhaps it's just the basic cost of sending a small package via the post office even eithin the US.
We need to hear from the Skipper for an expert explanation.
Supply. Demand.
Regarding jet fuel:
My flight last night from Anchorage to Chicago (which ended up in Newark; maybe guys really do need to get better at asking directions ...) was to burn 94,300 pounds of fuel. At roughly 6.7 pounds per gallon, that equates to just over 14,000 gallons.
Jet fuel is going for about $2.70 per gallon these days, putting the fuel cost for the flight close as darnnit to $38,000.
Our payload last night was 137,686 pounds, so the fuel cost per pound works out to about twenty eight cents, or just over 1/10th of a gallon.
So, presuming my maths aren't deficient, the jet fuel part of the cost isn't particularly large. Keep in mind, though, that there are a lot of other fuel costs involved: all the energy the company uses has to be included, and the airplane end of it may well not be a particularly large part of the total fuel bill.
FWIW, yesterday I ordered all the bits and pieces for a new computer (thereby making myself a liar, since I said my next IT purchase would be a 12-gauge shotgun), shipping via FedEx 2-day to Alaska for $102. 7 items, with a total weight of about 20 pounds. No employee discount.
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BTW, for a passenger airline get to that fuel cost per payload pound, my MD-11 would have to carry 685 people, presuming 200 lbs average per person, including luggage. To drag this out a bit further, for a normal MD-11 passenger load -- 300 -- that would work out to 40 gallons per person. If each person was to drive their own car instead of flying, the cars would each have to get 62 miles per gallon to use the same amount of gas, presuming they could follow a great circle path to their destination.
Skipper, hi.
I've been reading about and empathizing with your computer travail. Thank God we didn't have them when our kids were small. It was hard enough putting regular toys together for Santa. I hope your latest effort proves the charm.
You’re right about supply and demand, but with shipping what are our options. USPS going abroad, at least to France, proved disastrous. On two separate occasions presents for our granddaughter got lost/stolen costing us about $700 to replace including shipping costs.
Okay, something doesn’t compute here. 20 lbs = $102 or $5.10 per lb. At those rates, it would have cost us $1.28 to send our package and at our rates of ¼ lb = $83 or $332 per lb, it would have cost you $6,640 for the 20 lb. package.
It appears we were ripped off.
hey skipper,
I'll remember the next time I go from anchorage to chicago that I should fly instead of drive. :-)
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