I found an aftermarket item yesterday I’ve been pondering, and managed to order it. And only it.
Huh? …you might say?
My habit has been otherwise. If I’m ordering one smallish thing, I always figure I gotta pay shipping anyway, so I end up browsing around and ordering more stuff, ending up spending 20x what I was planning to. This has probably cost me a fortune over the years. It shocked me that I was able to order just that one thing, it wasn’t quite as traumatic as I thought it might be.
So I’m just curious, does anyone else suffer from this goofy purchasing behavoiur?
My typical ‘justification’ is “Well, I’ve got to pay X-amount of shipping anyway…”
So I start adding on…just to ‘flesh out’ the order…and adding on, and adding on, until I’m way past the ‘minimal’ shipping threshhold, and perilously close to the ‘free’ shipping level: “Gee, only thirty dollars more, and it’s free.” (When is anything ever free???)
The ‘good’ news is…about 2/3 of the time my innate cheapness kicks in, and I look at the total – and the one or two items that I actually started the order for – and think to myself, “Screw it, I won’t need it/them this week.”
(And of course…with advancing age…a day or two later I will have forgotten the whole thing. [;)])
I have also had times where I have ordered more than I need to justify shipping costs, but that’s OK because as long as I use what I buy eventually, it all comes out in the wash. The thing I do more often than not though is to order just what I need…and then I pay more for shipping than I did for the item. A couple of days or a week later, I find something else that I needed, and kick myself for not including it in the previous order. That’s a behavior I wish I could break. [sn0ps]
I try not to order single items at once unless there is nothing else they had to offer. I’d like to save money for myself because most of us can’t afford ship[ping costs. I try to see if Amazon Prime would have it with the free shipping. Or look at online companies that have free shipping. Most of the time I would add items to their wishlist on their website and later on add more items I may want down the road.
Yep, I do it all the time to offset the shipping charge. I for one don’t like ordering a $3.99 paint jar and pay $4 or more for shipping so I stock up on other stuff. I also open the paint drawer and search for jars that went bad to replenish.
Yes Amazon prime is easy. I hope they switch to Fedx or something though because in our area UPS been screwing up royally lately. FedX been doing fine.
You also have to watch Amazon, some things are priced ok but some are totally out of line.
When I buy online, I set a budget for myself and look for kits that would interest me that are in that budget. My lack of a stash encourages me to buy a kit and all of the extra goodies for it in one order.
For paints, I just go to the LHS or hardware store because it is cheaper to get rattle cans there rather than getting them online. My other reason for this is good hobby shops are far and few between in my area so I like to support them whenever I can.
I’m in the same boat. I just ordered a beautifully printed blower (I have not current need or plan for it - just had to have it). I browsed the guys site for anything else I could add… In the end, I paid $5 for this and if it looks like the pic it will be well worth it…and then I paid $10 shipping. In hind sight I should have ordered 2 or 3 of them.
I’ll order single items from Prime or eBay if shipping is free. If it’s something I can only get from for example SprueBrothers I’ll add things to the order usually paint. I keep a list of any paint or supplies that will be running out in the next month or two and just order what is needed.
Nope. Sometimes the shipping costs encourage you to do that. I carefully shop to find what my lowest bottom line will be, then keep looking at other vendors. I have amazon prime, and have ordered from amazon when they had to highest price on the kit or supply item, but bottom line cheaper. I am a real cheapskate.
Some well known members of ModelWarShips forum seem to buy 1 kit at a time. I can understand the “get it while you can” method when it’s something you absolutely needed or always wanted. Often models are Pre-release or issued in limited quantities or have not been produced till now. The going out of production reason may provide the biggest stimulus for a single purchase. All good reasons for a One Item Purchase.
The other side of the Coin…
Spending more than you planned becoming a habit? Mine too and economical I say. Buying multiple items on the same order is my method 99.9% of the time. Until earlier his year I still had big wish list. There was always something to " flesh-out" any order to pro-rate that shipping cost with my favorite Online retailer. My method was to request they Cancel my Entire order if any item was out of stock. That request only failed 2 times. I felt real dumb paying for a $9.99 item with $8.95 shipping.
The retailers that have always followed my requests and understood the reasoning are FreeTime, HobbyLink, ScaleHobbist, DragonUSA, ModelUA, HobbyEeasy, and Plaza Japan.
Ultimately, spreading out the shipping cost coupled with a percent off Coupon plus the chance at free shipping is the American Way! Buy More America! My 401K depends on you.
It’s not just models…
I buy Books that “economical” way too. (GM is Sooooo Right.) Some recent purchases were done 'cause I got free shipping with a 2 book purchase. Then I got a 15% coupon off on my next purchase, so another order placed that also qualified for free shipping. (Those books are Silent Victory: Submarine War against Japan by Clay Blair, Clear the Bridge By Richard O’Kane, and Thunder below: The USS Barb By Eugene Fluckey. All Great Recommendations by Tom Dougherty.)