What parts frustrate you because they are hard to find?

[RandallNeighbour]

In Todd (and Equip's) defense, I will say that sending a small, non-flat part through UPS going to a residential address about half way across the country is going to cost him $5.50 at a minimum. Fuel charges for UPS and postage hikes have made s/h rates for just about everything skyrocket. I get complaints at my mail order publishing house all the time... but my books are heavy, even if not expensive.

I pay up to 75¢ for a padded envelope, depending on size and quality. Of course, I don't buy 10,000 a month or my price would be a lot lower.

It takes about 10 minutes take the order, pick a book, put it into an envelope with the invoice, put it on the UPS scale, and enter the information and print a lable. One or two people to do those jobs and are paid an hourly wage or a commission (in the case of the salesperson). So it only makes sense to add a buck for that, which is a reasonable amount to me as a business owner.

So, $7 shipping on the red clip seems very reasonable to me, even though I am an amazon.com junkie because of their free shipping and decent discounts on a lot of stuff (which I cannot figure out for the life of me how they stay in business doing it).

Now the price of that clip as mentioned is just plain silly... I completely agree with you, Travis!