On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 20:04:59 -0700, "Sal" wrote:
Imagine my surprise when I got an email a few hours later (still Saturday)
saying thar the switches were scheduled to go out but may not have been
shipped. If I receceived them, I could just keep them! So apparently they
weren't even going to invoice for them! A gift!
Nice people, nice company, and great service. However, the
justification may not be so altruistic. For small parts, the cost of
the parts may be insignificant compared to the handling. That
especially applies to returns. It would cost LDG far more than the
cost of the switches and postage to inspect the customer returned
parts, return them to stock, and deal with the paperwork. With
electrical parts, it's assumed that anything that has been in the
hands of the customer, has a good chance of being fried. Try
returning electrical parts to a hardware store or automotive supply
house, and watch the fun.
I had something similar happen with Digikey a few years ago. They
shipped me some parts, but the USPS(?) delivered the parts to the
wrong mailbox. After about 2 weeks, I was getting desperate and
called Digikey, asking for a duplicate shipment, which I indicated I
would pay for, and return the original package should it ever
magically appear. Digikey sent me the replacement parts at no cost.
Two weeks later, the original package appeared. I called Digikey
asking how to pay for the parts, or for return instructions. They
indicated that it was cheaper for them to just forget about the parts
and the added charges or to deal with the returns. So, I accidentally
received $70 in spare parts from Digikey for free. I like Digikey.
While I'm ranting on the subject, at a former employer, I once
calculated that the cost of shipping an empty box was $75. That's a
product with zero cost, but which still needs all the paperwork,
inspection, packaging, handling, billing, and overhead of any other
product. That means to ship a single transistor, the minimum the
company should have charged was $75. As a result of my calculations,
it became common for the company to provide massive quantity discounts
simply to reduce the number of orders by a given dealer. Pricing such
as:
1 xsistor $30
10 xsistors $35
100 xsistors $40
was common. There was also a trend to sell production extras by the
hand full or by the paper bag full as it was cheaper to do this than
to sort, separate, test, and re-file the random parts. Since all of
them were used in various radios sold and repaired by the dealers,
everything in the grab bag was probably useful.
--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558
#
http://802.11junk.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS