Shipping and Handling Costs

Last year, I've taken notice of the great variety of products that online stores offer at great prices through buying games online(or was that in 2006?). Well, recently I've been surfing the bytewaves and visiting stores like eBay, Amazon and the now defunct Yahoo! Auctions, and also individual stores(which are normally musician stores). I am always drawn to the prices that are offered, $5.99 - $12.99 for CDs and sometimes even clothes! However, as much as I'm all shaking with excitement to purchase them, I am faced with the three biggest problems I face as a stinky 19 year old.

Problems are:
1) I don't have a bank/ATM/NETS/debit card.
2) At that moment of time, I just happened to be broke.(Sorry I'm an unpaid gigolo)
3) Shipping and Handling Costs.

For the first problem, it is something I can ACTUALLY do something about but because of "parental" forces...I lay handicapped. Even if my friends offer to purchase it for me and I'll pay them back, I would rather like to feel the flow of purchase myself and not depend on people. But NOOOOOOO, my parents will never let me handle my own cash in my bank although I'm reaching 20 by next year. And having siblings won't help too, especially when they're a bunch of hypocrites. So yes, I usually fall back on asking friends or m'lady to purchase stuff from the internet for me...then I'll pay them back with utmost gratitude.

Other than that, I'm the broke gigolo. Well, that includes you too...yes,you smirking crook reading this blog. You know the feeling of being broke yet you are eyeing something that you so desperately want but in no "decent" way can you get the cash. 'Cept to just to join a freak show(applies if you're a freak).

Finally, the biggest demotivator of all: Shipping and Handling Costs. This is the mother of all bitches of online shopping, especially when you're purchasing from foreign countries. Which you normally would be, 'cause if you were to purchase locally the evidence would be that the scheming, fat ass pedo/rapist/molester/despo would want to MEET UP AND SELL instead of minding his/her own business and just post it over like a nice business man/lady. They would WANT to look and judge how attractive their customers look and actually make advances or just be a pain in the ass if the customer is attractive. Too bad I'm as pretty as cavemen, if not they'll just sell me guitar pedals at the special offer of 1 for 1 and with a sweeter-than-honey smile when serving me.

Internet and it's hidden trolls, I digress.

Back to shipping and handling costs...
Recently, musicians have moved to marketing their music online through their individual websites and at VERY low prices. This is an effort to show that the music industry is dying and that they are able to sell their music through their own efforts.

So yes, the most recent, Mr. Trent "I'll-break-you-like-a-twig-you-terrible-lie" Reznor released Ghosts I-IV through NIN.com(linked from banner at the top). He has several packages for this album and there was the $10 pre-order purchase of the physical copy. Yes, HOLY HELL! $10! That's cheaper than HMV will offer when the album ships here to our measly, pie-hole island.

Click, click and after several clicks later, blam! I realised that there's gonna be shipping and handling costs included in this thing! So I checked and snooped around, I found out that the shipping costs would triple the original cost of the CD!!!!!!

It'll be $30+ (estimated: $36), if I bought it straight from him! ARGH! Heck, I rather just have the digital copy although I'm still pretty much a physical CD lover(strange fetish,yes..it even makes my palms sweaty when I hold a CD). So yes, shipping costs.

And I'm not just saying from no experience.

Puscifer:V Is For Vagina
$30+

I ordered it along with Skylar through Puscifer.com. The price there was $12++, but when we checked out the CD it was $30+. I got lucky that time and thanks to Skylar, I still got the CD. But shipping and handling costs are crazy! They can just sky rocket that little thingy that you're eyeing for from $20 to $60! Oh yes, take note of currency conversion too if the seller you're buying hails from the land of scandinavians, you gotta pay in dubloons and gold medallions.

So yes,I was thinking...can't there be a uniform shipping and handling cost given? For example, having a range of shipping cost depending on the PRODUCT and not the seller's LOCATION. CDs = S$5, clothes = S$10. Won't that actually boost the online shopping market? For example, Ghosts I-IV will only cost around S$16++(or near $21) but sure as hell would be lower when those money sucking HMV people bring it in and see that there's a double CD! They would just sell it at the price of two CDs!(Approx:$40, unless there's a "new release" offer).

That's why I still think that even though Trent or Radiohead wants to change the music industry, the little people like me and several others without their own bank cards would still rely on the big shots to bring in the products for us. Cutting you artists off from getting direct benefit from us although we would love to support your cause.

May Trent or Radiohead or any upcoming big artist aiming to hit the cyberspace read my blog and give some thought to this and realise that this is why the music big guns aren't scared of them going indie and selling the CDs their way. 'Cause they know that they will still be needed in the long run by younger artists and also by younger people(who are the more passionate music lovers) who don't seem to possess their own bank card.

Ænimic
One rant per century