posted on February 19, 2001 09:02:41 AM
Would somebody please enlighten me about some of Half.com's puzzling policies? For example, why do they have to CUT & SEND ME A CHECK (for selling) in snail mail when day-in and day-out they receive electronic payments from credit cards? I'd much rather get an immediate credit on my Visa debit card. Also--why don't they include REGULAR FIRST CLASS as an option to send an item? It's ludicrous to send a CD by Media Mail for $1.30 when it can be sent by regular first class for less than that amount! Thanks for input.
[ edited by belalug3 on Feb 19, 2001 09:03 AM ]
posted on February 19, 2001 09:18:09 AM
1) they hold on to your money because they want the 17 cents (or whatever tiny amount) of interest/float/whatever that they make by having it in their coffers longer (17 cents x millions of sellers equals a nice chunk of change).
2) they don't offer first class as an option because only some items which are now sent "media mail" would come in under the 13 ounce cutoff for 1st class when packaged, and it's not going to be obvious which ones fit that weight. I have sold CD sets in special packaging that had to go Priority rate due to weight. Many videos in old fashioned plastic boxes go over 13 ozs. They obviously don't even have the manpower to answer emailed questions in a timely manner, let alone go through and figure out which versions of which CD or Video or book is small enough to go 1st class. And if you offer first class for everything and people pay 99 cents to ship an item (because they will always choose the cheapest way except for a few people) and then the book or whatever ends up costing a lot more, say $2.00, because of packaging or whatever, you're going to have sellers screaming and unhappy and Half.com doesn't want to deal with that. Plus they make money off their shipping. So I would say keep it like it is. You can always ship first class if you want to speed things up and pocket the difference....the customer would probably be pleased to get their item faster.
