Good evening. Thanksgiving dinner is eaten, dishes are cleaned, and now it's time to get the fall decorations out of the way, and start with the Christmas look. Some of the houses in our neighborhood already have their decorations up. I applaud their initiative, but that's just a tad too early for our house. I enjoy seeing the decorations, but after about a week, I'm ready to reclaim the space for the 'normal' look. Not sure how much we'll put out this year..
Thanks for all the lovely comments on the Thanksgiving card. What wonderful people my visitors are! This is a 2nd post for today, as I didn't want this one to be part of the gratitude feeling of this morning.
Recently I saw Heather Telford (
bits & pieces) use a tool (Kemper Spatter brush) in this
tutorial on her blog. Checked Dick Blick, and they didn't have it. Found one at Amazon and it was around $5, and since I'm a bit spatter challenged, and since I was getting 2 other items, I added the spatter brush to the order. The brush was coming from another vendor. I was surprised at the shipping charges. The brush came Tuesday. Here's the brush:
Here's the packaging it was shipped in:
Hopefully this indicates the size of the large box this tiny brush was mailed in. Absolutely ridiculous, as it would have fit very nicely in one of the small padded mailing envelopes and not cost the whopping ship charges. It was packed with the plastic air filled fillers. (not the peanuts...the picture below shows the stuff I hope). The brush was on the top of the bubble wrap, under the 2 layers of air filling stuff. I nearly missed finding it.
The bubble wrap in the bottom was ok...there were 2 of the air filled thing-a-majigs to fill the box so the tiny brush didn't roll around. I couldn't believe the stupidity of mailing something this small in a box this huge, and charging such fees to ship. I don't usually name a business but I will on this one, as I don't think it was an Amazon problem. The contract vendor who sent me the brush was Jerry's Artarama. This is my first experience at buying from this site...you can bet it will be my last. And I'm giving some thought to complaining to Amazon about this. In future Amazon orders, I will be very careful to see where something is shipped from - if it's not directly shipped from Amazon.
Just felt I wanted to share this so that everyone else knows to watch out for this. Maybe there was a reason the huge box was used, but I sure can't think of it!!! Can't wait to try this brush though, and see if I can get spatters instead of blobs. If you aren't familiar with Heather's fantastic work, you are in for a REAL treat!
Big hugs. G'nite. (I'm behind on visiting again, so will take a blog post break while I try to catch up. Got a commitment for Sunday, and am looking for a stamp I want to use.) So bye again....
WOw - what a farce!! I can understand your frustration Mary.
ReplyDeleteBlessings
Maxine
Oh MARY you were ripped off!!! It's getting worse with the cost of P&P. I had to pay £1.99 the other day for basically 2 sheets of paper, it was instruction for a game.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was going to be a book and that's why it was so exspensive, no two A 4 sheet of copy paper.
Loved your Thanks Giving card. I have spending lots of time on this iPad trying to sort out a problem. That I end up not having time to comment. Hazel x
Oh my golly gosh - that's absolutely ridiculous Mary!! What a waste of packaging and also your money. Let's hope that little brush truns out to do a good job - make it earn its keep I say :) I just use cheap as chips supermarket toothbrushes - you get four for about one English pound (at most) and they're great for crafting as well as scrubbing in hard to reach places when doing the dreaded housework!
ReplyDeleteIt's been on the news here - Black Friday is in flow here in the UK, for about the first time I'm aware of anyhow. And already there have been fights over bargains, sigh :(
Hugs
Di xx
I would certainly pass on your comments in the feedback option at Amazon - it's ridiculous to inflate shipping costs to cover buying only one size box to pack stuff in - a padded jiffy bag would probably have sufficed and gone in regular mail!!! Honestly!!!!
ReplyDeleteKathyk
Glad you had a nice Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteMakes me wonder if something very fragile has been put into the small jiffy bag.
Hope you have a fab Friday. Sue
Good morning Mary, had to click to see what the "thing" was ... nosey or what!!
ReplyDeleteAmazon are the same here in the UK it is a shocking waste of packaging and leads to expensive shipping charges.
Enjoy playing, look forward to seeing the results of the "splattering". I just use an old toothbrush.
Patricia x
OMG!! That is terrible. I think that is how some companies get you.Something so small like that and cheap, shipping cost almost as much or more. When I shop Amazon I always look to see if it is prime since I am a prime customer. Very seldom I will buy something from them that is not prime.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you Mary, how ridiculous to send something so small in a box like that! I would say this definitely seems like a ploy to up the shipping charges. x
ReplyDeleteIs that just plain stupid?! It gets my goat when vendors to this kind of thing and to me there ought to be a law against shipping something so small in such a large box so they can charge more for shipping. No I would buy from them again eithet. I do w as tch for those non Amazon shippers and if the shipping us outrageous then I delete it. I mostly do the prime ordering but sometimes something you want isn't on prime. I will check out the link once I'm back at my computer. I hope it gives you nice splatters Momma Mary. Hugs, Brenda
ReplyDeleteHi Mary, we had a similar experience recently, when hubby ordered wires for the garden strimmer, they measured 6 inches by 4 inches and were in a box 18 24 inches with lots of paper to keep them from moving about, they could have come in a padded envelope!
ReplyDeleteAmazon sent an email asking what we thought of the packing, so I told them!!!!!!!!!!!
I admit to ordering quite a few things from Amazon over the years (including this week). They do from time to time send out these huge boxes filled with air bags and yet the books come flat packed so it does not really make sense. This week I ordered something, was told 2 hours later it had been dispatched so I could no longer cancel the order - two days later I was told the item was out of stock.... then there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing over the refund....... I think I may stop buying from them now! Hugs, Anne xx
ReplyDeleteWow, that's totally ridiculous. What a waste of materials and shipping charges. Sheesh. Can't wait to see what you do with the brush!!
ReplyDeleteLisa
A Mermaid's Crafts
That's amazing! There's a Jerry's in Raleigh. I may have to try to find it as I'd seen this brush at Heather's and thought it would be handy to have. Don't like to pay lots for shipping though.
ReplyDeleteHi Mary,
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving for yesterday.
I was going to send a e card, but DH was in my craft room putting me up a new brighter light for me, and nowadays it takes him so long to do anything as he has to stop quite often to rest.
Well what about that box.
We have had similar boxes delivered from Amazon with very small items in there.
Talk about ridiculous, and such a waste of materials, not to mention the cost, to the customer.
My hubby quite often complains to them as they never put clearly where the item is being shipped from, and gets very frustrated when he realizes it's from Hong Kong or such places.
I do hope you enjoy using the brush, and I look forward to some of your lovely creations done with it.
Lots of crafty love. Jenny L.
Hi Mary, what a piece of nonsense, a real rip off, and to think that Amazon don't even pay their taxes here, hugs Kate x
ReplyDeleteWhat a rip off, Mary. You're right to let people know about the outrageous and unnecessary postage charges. I'm sorry you had a bad experience.
ReplyDeleteTotally ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteKath x
I agree, Mary, that is total stupidity! It has happened to me, too, with packages I ordered via Amazon, but did not come directly from them. After every Amazon order, I get an email from Amazon asking me to rate my order. Receiving a package like this is the ONLY time I have filled out a survey. I hope it makes a difference. That's a thought for you as an easy way to let them know. In addition to the ridiculous shipping charges, it is so NON-green in this day and age when we are all trying to be more conscious of waste! Thank you for sharing and giving the name! Hugs, Darnell
ReplyDeleteBravo for revealing the business that made this ridiculous decision to inflate shipping rates for one small item and waste all of this landfill material! I once received a single calendar in the mail that was in a box large enough to house a small television! I didn't complain because it was free shipping, but OH MY GOSH, where has common sense gone in this day and age?!! Such a total waste!!
ReplyDeleteI can also relate to this...I also received a small item in a box that was so big and had the fillers, etc, and I almost didn't see the item...Doesn't make much sense at all.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the lovely note, and thank you for all the good thoughts and prayers you have been sending our way. As you can imagine, I am over the moon the way things have turned out. Hope you have a great weekend...Special Blessings to you.
This is crazy! They need to be more realistic in their packaging and shipping costs. Be sure and mention this on your review and they are sure to pay attention - make sure to take their rating down a bunch. Let me know how it works - I may want one too (minus the crazy shipping costs) - Hugz
ReplyDeleteSo true about the packaging! We've experienced that before too, Mary. Then yesterday, I received a package from Scrapyland that was no more than the size of a padded CD. It had six dies in there and the shipping was free. When I took it out of the mailbox I thought to myself, they can't all be in there, but they were!
ReplyDeleteThat must have been so annoying. I read the post above where they offered you a credit...thank goodness!
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