I've had this picture in my ideas folder for a year or so now. I have the scale gas pumps. I even found an old building near by with all these great logos painted along the one side
So when Greenleaf came out with its 2010 Spring Fling contest featuring a garage
for only $30 and for another $15 you could get this addition to it
I nearly jumped for joy. Here's what the ad said:
This is a special offer to friends of Greenleaf for use in our Spring Fling Contest. In an effort to increase participation, we are offering the Winners Garage at a greatly reduced price with the additional savings of FREE SHIPPING anywhere in the US. *If you are ordering outside the US, special pricing has been added so you can participate too.And when you go thru the order form, it seems like shipping to Canada is $9.00! But like all things that seem too good to be true.... it wasn't!
When you get to the payment page suddenly an additional shipping charge shows up. Apparently shipping will be done by UPS for another $17!
Now you're probably wondering what the problem is; this is a $50 dollhouse discounted by $20 ...which should cover shipping.
For them to tell me that I'll be paying $9 in shipping on page 1, and on the final order form page to add their normal shipping cost, constitutes false advertising to me!
What I resent most is being told that I as an international customer am getting a special shipping price when actually I'm paying their normal price!! And on top of that for Greenleaf to use UPS instead of USPS means that they obviously know nothing about how their postal options work. Occasionally I get that from eBay sellers as well.
United Parcel Service (UPS) can afford to give their users great international rates because of the hidden fees that get added at the other end. They force all mail to go thru the country of destination's customs department since this then allows them to add on brokerage fees. (I have this info on good authority from the people working in our post office) Those fees are horrendously high! And of course customs adds on sales taxes....in our case close to 15%!
So the garage with add-on that appears to cost $53 would end up costing me close to double. Is that garage worth $100? I don't think so! And if you do, then you have more money than....
I can custom make a garage for considerably less than $50!
I certainly won't be looking at any Greenleaf dh promotions again!!!
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WOW!! I didn't know that about International shipping! I'm not entering this year as I really don't have $45.00 for a contest. I am doing the HBS one. If I were going to do a garage I would do the one in the HBS catalog or find someone to build one for me as I don't care if the garage door works. The Greenleaf one really didn't "speak" to me this year and I really don't have the time to do 2 contests this year. But I can see how that style of garage would really bbe great for your project. I would have liked to see what everyone is talking about (laser cut) but will wait until I see one that I really want. Have you talked with or e-mailed Greenleaf about the shipping rate? Maybe there is a way around the shipping.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to add that your project looks very interesting!! I would love to see what you do with it. No matter what you use as a building.
ReplyDeleteKarin,
ReplyDeleteDon't panic!! Have you talked to anyone at Greenleaf?. My understanding is that some of the international shipping price is taken off. Dean from Greenleaf said this in the contest posting:
"*Greenleaf is providing a delivered price just for this contest at an amazing price. We’re sorry that the free shipping only applies to US members, but we urge our members outside the US to still participate in this contest. We have pre-stripped the houses to minimize the box size and setup a discounted shipping rate to help you out. There is an additional $9.00 to Canada and $19.00 to everywhere else outside the USA. Please select the appropriate destination on the Winners Garage page. Please ignore the additional shipping shown at check out. It is a limitation of our system and we won’t charge you the extra money."