another mikes rant

FLEA

FLEA

XS650 Guru
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just been ordering a few parts from mikes but out of curiosity just got estimate for 4 tank rubbers cost for shipping $42.20 to Australia.which means have to save up a big order to make it worth while which brings me to a 2nd bitch.. if you order $150 or more in the states you get free shipping which is good for you guys but if we order o/seas we get no discounts at all,we pay the full wack plus more... grumble grumble..I think the cold weathers got to me this morning
 
yep as a NZer i can tell you mikes shipping rates are horrendous. I don't often order stuff from them unless i need a few things otherwise its just a joke.
 
Mikes isn't producing these parts. You are closer to Japan, China, Thailand...etc.

As popular as the XS is down there, there has to be better sources.
 
Yeah I can't imagine Japan and China not wanting to sell you something, and in the states china always ships for free, might include fingernails the local newspaper and some nasty smelling varnish fumes. It's cheap, and the parts usually work.
 
Heres my history with Mikes.
Spend 100 dollars to get my parts
Find something broken / needed.
Spend 85 dollars to get my parts.
Find something broken / needed.
Spend 135 dollars to get my parts.
Repeat. His 12 dollar shipping for a gasket is ridiculous.
 
I agree, its horrendously expensive to ship here to NZ, but last time I ordered from Mike he offered a 10% NZ/AUS order discount!
 
crazyorigin said:
The postal service dictates shipping, not the retailer. I have shipped to Australia and no carrier does it cheap so this rant should be directed at shipping carriers not MikesXS.
Click to expand...
Last I knew Mikes would not ship USPS not even as a choice. UPS only.
And yes they(UPS) do dictate pricing. To smaller business and individuals, but the contracts to Amazon is negotiated and we make up the difference. Small business is being hit hard by this.
 
crazyorigin said:
The postal service dictates shipping, not the retailer. I have shipped to Australia and no carrier does it cheap so this rant should be directed at shipping carriers not MikesXS.
Click to expand...
sorry...but if you order something small that can fit into a letter you still get charged huge amounts
 
Ebay is your friend. Im from NZ and I've generally stopped buying from Mikes unless i REALLY have too. The shipping is just nuts. Usually you can find parts on ebay anyway. Also dont forget to try a local Yamaha dealer. I got a brake pedal return spring from my local store the other week. Didn't have any in NZ, had to come from Japan, but didn't charge me anything extra. Whole thing came to like $5.00. Prob would have cost me $50 from Mikes!
 
Year ago you were able to ship by boat threw USPS but that took a lot of time. There are company's here in the US that still ship that way. I sell to a guy off ebay that is overseas but his parts go to a company here in the us first so there is where he may be saving money. I use to sell bulk parts to a guy in NE and pack the flat rate boxes as much as I could to save him money. It sucks for you guys overseas .
 
just to let every one know mikessxs is a small co. it cost $$$ to stock pull ship,he ships like he does cause he can track it that way he had a lot of people say they didn't get the parts they ordered and he had no way to know and to get tracking with the usps you have to take it to the PO to ship(that takes man hours = cost more $$$$$) and a lot of the parts they sell are custom ordered and or made for him from cina japan you can get cheeper shipping but there is no tracking so you take a risk of not getting it,I have ordered alot from mikes and gotted the wrong part a time or to (its been a wile) but he has made it wright every time!!! and no I'm not a paid spokes person for mikes xs lol
 
Yup sounds like the Greater SW Asia co-prosperity sphere needs it's own MikesXS shop.

Mikes is foolish to not use the PO for overseas shipping. Hard to beat the flat rate pricing, but as a business, the time to find, count, invoice, pack do a bill of lading,customs form etc is the nearly the same for one gasket or $200 worth of parts. That's why nearly all businesses have a minimum ship policy.
 
Mikes may have the USPS shipper program just like I had and it goes to the cheapest way to ship with the program. But I found out that it wasn't 100% customer friendly. There were times that I got complaints about cost and when I looked into it they were right. The program had the box going buy straight mail and 5 cents more it went faster. Overseas prices are crazy and a lot of the time when I go now to post office the price can go either way. The price on line is never the price???? They also have a bulk rate because you ship so many packages in a week and that could be his $12.00 rate on a part that can go into a envelope . UPS had offered me that back when I shipped a lot . So you cannot put all the blame on Mikes there are programs for shipping out there that benefit both .
 
FLEA, it's still going the same distance. You can't just stick a stamp on a letter and mail it to Australia from the US. How much stuff have you shipped or had shipped to you? I have shipped to over a dozen countries and unless it's Europe, nothing else has been cheap, Australia was the most expensive place I have ever shipped to by a large margin.

International packages do not get to use Flat Rate USPS boxes, unless they have International Flat Rate boxes I have not seen.
 

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