I ship stuff on our corporate account probably once a week and with a discounted corporate rate it doesn't cost anywhere close to $10.99 to ship one oil filter ground. You can't compare to small retailers on e-bay because when you hit $millions annually in shipping UPS and Fedex compete for your business, and I am sure RockAuto is there. 70% off their list price for shipping is normal for UPS for very large customers, so simply run a UPS list price check and multiply by 0.3. Thats what they pay.No, Rock Auto just charges the actual shipping cost for the selected service from whatever warehouse it's coming from, if the wholesaler who's running the closeout deal is far away from you the shipping will cost more, shipping costs have increased substantially over the past few years, Since Rock Auto charges the real shipping price it'll be more noticeable just like buying things from small businesses or individuals on eBay, not every retailer is Amazon or Walmart where they just charge a flat fee for shipping that isn't representative of the real cost.
Rock Auto is not one very large customer, they are just a catalog the interfaces to a bunch of different smaller distributors.I ship stuff on our corporate account probably once a week and with a discounted corporate rate it doesn't cost anywhere close to $10.99 to ship one oil filter ground. You can't compare to small retailers on e-bay because when you hit $millions annually in shipping UPS and Fedex compete for your business, and I am sure RockAuto is there. 70% off their list price for shipping is normal for UPS for very large customers, so simply run a UPS list price check and multiply by 0.3. Thats what they pay.
My guess is their profit model is on shipping, not auto parts.
At the end of the day its cost to my door that matters, so its irrelevant in the end. But closeout parts almost always ship separate, so unless its a high dollar item it likely isn't worth it.
Be careful; I got come clearance brake hoses a few years ago that were already over ten years old.
This.It has been discussed countless times here the "whack-a-mole" game of filling your cart from the same warehouse to avoid getting lit up over shipping charges.
When RA ships it hits their shipping account irrelevant of where or who ships it. They transfer the shipping info including the label to the warehouse electronically and the warehouse puts it in a box. So it’s the same shipper account every time.Rock Auto is not one very large customer, they are just a catalog the interfaces to a bunch of different smaller distributors.