you probably already know...

[patmcn]

I saw an email ad for a soil moisture sensor. I thought, perfect! I'll grab a couple and see how they go since each they're ~$6. I go to check out with 2 of them in my cart, and you guys want me to pay ~$8 in shipping costs? Gah. This is why I never buy anything here.

[phalanx]

The smaller your order, the more significant shipping costs become relative to the total price. This isn't news or rocket science.

I played around with a shopping cart of just moisture sensors and found that the cheapest shipping option for delivery to a residential address is $7.13 for quantity 1-13. If you get 14, you break the $75 threshold and shipping is free.

Sparkfun has USPS shipping options if you have a P.O. box which can significantly lower shipping costs. Shipping 13 units to a P.O. box is only $4.77 and expedited shipping options are a fair bit lower as well.

Your last bit of recourse is to establish your own shipping account where you can negotiate better rates with the particular shipping company you choose and then you'll be completely independent of Sparkfun's shipping rates.

Personally I think Amazon Prime has given lots of people unreasonable expectations as to what shipping should cost. Most people don't seem to appreciate that you are offsetting the costs up front with your membership fee, nor do they fully understand the volume of merchandise Amazon moves which allows them to negotiate substantially cheaper shipping rates than small companies like Sparkfun.

-Bill

[patmcn]

I understand. I'm a small fry right now so who cares, right? I'm merely expressing some frustration. I was frustrated but nonetheless went through the process of signing up just so I could leave some feedback. Good luck sparkfun!

[Ross Robotics]

I personally don't feed the huge corporations if I don't need to. I would rather spend $10 more to a small company doing good things like keeping open source available. But, that's just my preference.

[phalanx]

I understand. I'm a small fry right now so who cares, right?

Are you implying that Sparkfun should be subsidizing shipping costs because you are the small fry? Sounds a lot like an entitlement problem to me.

-Bill