So I've received a very expensive item

I guess he would not have put bubble wrap if you hadn't paid an extra...

 

What is this item?

 

You sure have bad luck when it comes to receiving items. That or you just buy an ridiculously amount of stuff online each year, which would rise your percentage of receiving items packed in a really shitty way.

 

have had people recently be really light on the bubble wrap for some reason, that sucks. was it insured?

 

reminds me of the C2D cpu I bought for my laptop on ebay that got sent in a paper envelope sandwich between 2 pieces of cardboard....

 

I don't get why people are so cheap when it comes to packing things properly? When I send something it's always well protected knowing that it will likely get picked, dropped, banged about etc.

My mega drive/mega CD came with one thin layer of bubble wrap and some brown paper. No box, no protection. I wasn't happy when I received it but thankfully it was working.

Hope you get a full refund Assembler. In future for expensive items located abroad, maybe consider using local forum resources to ensure safe packing/delivery.

 

In the UK, postage prices have gone through the roof because our government wants to whore one of our few remaining nationalised services out to the highest bidder but everyone on ebay still expects dirt cheap or even free postage. It costs £3.50 to send a single atari lynx, packaged nicely by the cheapest postage but two of them taped together with pretty scarce packaging cost £9, it doesn't make sense anymore and something has got to give, obviously in assembler's case he just got a cheap seller but cheap buyers and ebay pushing "you should offer free postage on everything!" are to blame. I'm trying to sell something on ebay at the moment for £10 and that's cheap for what it is. I got some guy sending me an offer of £4.50 just because the postage was 5.50 (which is probably less than it will cost to post) and after I declined he sent me a pissy message about how cheap and unreasonable I am for not letting him have the item for £10 total. It often seems like buyers believe that sellers pocket the postage and frisbee their time to them.... rant over.

Back on topic, I hope you get a refund assembler

 

it seems like sellers often skimp as much as possible in order to make more money off of the shipping. I know on amazon I'll order something that's like $4 with $3.99 shipping, and it'll arrive in a bubble mailer with a shipping cost clearly printed in the top right corner of $1.39 or whatever it is depending on weight.
It's annoying getting your item with a cracked case or something knowing that you paid for the proper and safer shipping.

There's really no way to solve this issue unless sellers start to actually care about their customers.

 

What's the item? Glass?

 

Bubble mailers are like £1.20 in some post offices here (which is like $2) - which makes your shipping $3.39, not including the persons time or fuel to get to the post office.

There is more to shipping costs than just the postage price in the corner.

 

Ouch thats some bad luck there, But for $129.00 postage you would at least expect the item to be in about 20 layers of bubble wrap in side a decent and sturdy box and packing peanuts (i.e not a shoe box).

 

It's sad that some people don't think of that...

 

Sorry to hear, but I swear I feel you post one of these every month?

 

Time and/or fuel? Why not just have the mailman come to your house and pick up the package? You don't even really need to get dressed to mail a package these days.

 

What was it? If you buy any more stuff like that from the UK then I don't mind acting as a middle man. Rare PlayStation stuff is worth protecting.

 

You'd be surprised how many times I've had wrong shipping cost quotes.
Nothing beats heading over there yourself, even if they have these horrendous leaflets containing price updates every year...

 

Why not assume the whole world is like the USA?

Also, that might work for some types of parcels, but not all. I have to drive to post all the chips I sell. Larger packages will be collected - but still need to factor in packaging costs (which is why its called P&P postage AND packaging which includes my time to pack/send it).

 

Yeah Bad-Ad makes a good point,

I often sell DVD's on eBay and postage second class in a bubble mailer (I give them an extra layer of bubble wrap) comes to £1.60.

Let me break that down.

£1.10 post office cost for second class

35p for my bubble mailer, and it would be more expensive but I bought in bulk

~15p for extra bubble wrap.

and yet people still have the audacity to claim I'm trying to stiff them on postage and packaging because "the stamp didn't say £1.60" one caused a real stink but promptly shut the fuck up after elevating it to PayPal and getting told.

All this before I have to worry about gas prices because I can walk to the post office. Some people can't though and that is a real ballache for them.