Business Stupidity

I needed a cable for my solar install and hit the wall three times. The cable is about $20 and the cheapest any company would send me one is about $55. This is a cable you can put into a padded envelope (maybe 5″ by 5″) and put in the mail for under $10. These companys regularly send out heavy equipment so I understand that most of their shipments are by freight, but a simle wire that fits in your pocket does not have to be sent to California where it is put on a container ship (minimum cost $50) to spend up to 5 days on the open seas, go t oHonolulu, be transfered to Kona by boat and end up at a freight forwarders office for pickup. There are a number of electronic stores I stopped doing business when they woudl not use something like USPS’s flat rate shipping boxes or as I said here, just an padded envelope.

When I was Georgia and moving to Hawaii I asked the water company to change my address for the last bill to my new address in Hawaii. The clerk refused because Hawaii is OVERSEAS and they don’t do overseas mailings. I remonded her that Hawaii was one of the 50 states and that the same stamp that they use to mail across the street also works to Hawaii. Still the refusal, so I just filed a change of address with the Post Office and waited for them to send it from Georgia to Hawaii with the stamt that already got it the 20 miles from the mailing point to my old P.O..

Yes, packages might cost more to mail because of distance, but envelopes don’t unless the weight exceeds the rate for that service tier.