RockAuto is not a place. They don't have a warehouse to ship from. They have agreements with parts vendors and distributors around the US. Everything is drop-shipped, so no, it is not possible to get things into fewer boxes.
Rockauto has been good for me I pick things I need from THE SAME location, so I might get 5 things or more in the one box, I also check postage as I add things to the cart, somewhere youll hit the tipping point into the next postage cost bracket, works for me. Speedway has gone silly, they say ring and discuss, not my favoirit thing to do after midnight so they have missed out on sales. Just bought a Hughes torque converter, price delivered was A$500 less than local price (Jegs), on the other hand US$217 to post an early Ford ciggie lighter is beyond stupid, youd think the business would be feeling embarr***ed but I bet they are not. If you own a business organise your postage and sell more overseas.
UPS & FED X have went to using the Girt of the package or volume of the box to determine shipping. I was looking at replacing a rear fender for my 32 pickup from United Pacific. The fender weighed 25 lbs but because of the size of the box they determined it could hold much more weight so they charge for the higher weight. That was through a rod shop in CA but UP told me they would have to strap it down on a pallet and ship it truck freight. I was at Bobby Walden's shop recently and he had all these boxes of roof and door skins ready to ship. He said he was looking for an alternative to UPS and FED X because of the girth deal. Roof panels and door skins that had been costing $150 to $200 to ship were now costing up to $500 to ship.
I’m not a rocket scientist but 50% of what I order could come in a padded envelope which doesn’t seem to be on parts suppliers radar. Amazon seem on top of it but they are the only ones….
Padded envelopes **** to ship anything that isn't soft goods unless you are amazon and your own employees are handling it from start to finish and even then half the stuff I get from them is damaged when it comes in an envelope. Got a coil from Amazon today in a padded envelope. Coil box torn open, coil loose in the bag dented to ****. Got a Petronix module the other day in a padded envelope from them looked like someone had stepped on the box. I can't imagine what it would be like after going through the post office or UPS. No thanks.
Little known secret…..you can put that small (but fragile) item in a small sturdy carton inside that padded envelope with USPS. They don’t seem to worry about the fact that it’s not flat, ***uming you’re using the Priority Mail option. If you can fit it inside the padded envelope, they’ll take it and you’ll get the Padded Envelope Flat Rate price. We buy what’s optimistically called a “crushproof “ folding box and put the item in there first. If the item is easily damaged and either rare or expensive or both, we’ll generally move up to the Medium or Large Flat Rate cartons. When we use the box inside the padded envelope we add a buck for the carton,but it’s still a lot cheaper than the bigger cartons.
How summit makes any money I have no idea. I ordered 100 bucks worth for the free shipping, and I got 4 separate boxes over a few days. One box had valve cover grommets, another had the gaskets, a third had Permatex. It was ridiculous and costly...for them. Perhaps they shipped from different warehouses?
even over here, we have something similar, a large envelope can be up to 20mm thick (3/4”), - but no track and trace with this option.
We like to whinge and moan about them, but Aussie Post prices are not too bad. Have sent a lot of small stuff (carb parts) to the US, and price is about a third of what it would have cost coming US to Orstraylya. UK post prices (and speed) are pretty good too. cheers, Harv
The Jalopy Journal
