No matter if I click on the "Choose for me to minimize cost" it changes ship locations every time that I add or delete.
Why does Rockauto keep changing its ship location????
- Thread starter daves66nova
- Start date
Look for that truck symbol next to the Info button of each part. That part will ship from the same location as the other item(s) in your cart.
He clearly has zero understanding of Rockauto's business model or on how product sourcing for drop ship works. They just dropship from various independent warehouses around the country. There's a few things that appened in this video, which I'm sure he also has no understanding of. I have an understanding of this exact business model because I am responsible for managing exactly that. We ship from multiple of our own warehouses along with dropship from multiple vendors across the country.
Rockauto uses more than a single warehouse. As you're adding the items to the cart, it's doing a caluclation of MANY warehouses to see which items are shared at a warehouse. There's probably 15 total warehouses that could have the combination of "A" and 20 that could have the combination of "b". A and B are probably selected based on a criterion - likely cost to Rockauto or Inventory levels because at this point we do not know the users' zip code.
Then he enters his zip code to estimate shipping based on the originally selected warehouses. Which may be on the wrong side of the country. I've determined in my own use in Rockauto (I have observed this behavior, it's not Rockauto trying to screw customers) that rockauto will reorganize after you give them your zipcode.
When he eliminates the options at warehouse "B", it recalculates now with an additional criterion added in - the customer zip code. It costs more to ship a package from California (highest stock or lowest cost to RA warehouse) to New York. Instead, it will recalculate taking into consideration the customer zip code.
Once entering the zip code you'll see that a lot of times that products may no longer be on the same truck. Because now that it has your zip code it can use that in calculating what's in stock at the warehouses closest to you.
Easiest way to avoid this?
Add in your zip code as soon as possible.
With that said I'm sure that rockauto does make some money on shipping. All large organizations like that overcharge on shipping and make at least something off of it. However, it's been proven, that the additional transaction costs, more overhead of having more POs and SOs and shipments going out, just isn't worth it. The best for RA is to have a single, consolidated shipment going out anyway.
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Which companies take shipping costs out of their profit?
So you believe in the shipping fairy? That everything advertised with free shipping doesn't have the price adjusted to cover the shipping costs?
Transmission filter from Carid, https://www.carid.com/vaico/automatic-transmission-filter-kit-mpn-v38-0556.html $8.49 + 11.84 shipping 20.33 total. On Ebay with free shipping https://www.ebay.com/itm/114882586027?epid=28048214767&hash=item1abf8925ab:g:2icAAOSwpsFg5jdk $22.99. Yep, shipping is free.
The customer always pays shipping.
Sometimes explicitly and sometimes wrapped into the cost of the product.
We get people coming in a lot wanting us to price match the online Ford dealers selling at cost or below. I tell the customer to make the next step and include the shipping. 9 times out of 10 their part price with the obscene shipping is more than either the 20% off list I am willing to give or even over list.
If the online dealer is local, you can pick up and save the shipping. Done that a few times.
There are some who require shipping when buying online. We just don't have the manpower in my department to do it.
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