Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Not free shipping

A thing we take for granted in the online shopping age is free shipping. Thanks to Amazon, we’ve come to expect free shipping no matter what we buy, from the smallest everyday item to the bigger furniture set possible. Heck, if I buy a Tesla car online, I expect a Tesla employee to deliver the car to me, gratis. How is the guy getting home afterwards? That’s not my problem.

Of course, free shipping is most decidedly not free. Someone is paying for the teams of people driving those trucks and carrying those poundages, and it’s certainly not the retailer. The cost of shipping is baked into the margins the retailers have on the item sold. Any Shark Tank watcher would know, margins between landed cost and wholesale is typically enormous.

We are paying for shipping, it’s just that the norm is to bake it into the price of the product. Except on platforms like eBay. The auctions there are where the true cost of shipping can be seen. No individual seller can afford to “eat” the shipping cost just to placate the customer expectations. The economies of scale is non existent. Psychological test: is it more lucrative to hike up the price and offer free shipping, or lower the price and charge shipping a la carte?

The problem with free shipping is that it sets an unrealistic expectation that shipping should also be free if customers need to return an item. I’m sure Target can afford to absorb the cost to return a pack of pencils, but for something like an exercise bike? Probably not. But then the customer gets pissed once they see the actual costs to ship the bike, which they must pay if they want to return it.

Amazon is kind of genius in purchasing Whole Foods, thereby creating a physical location where Amazon shoppers can return items conveniently for free.

True cost of buying

If the economy is in the dumps, you know how they can spur spending? Give a tax holiday. Perhaps I’m the only one who thinks about this component? The sales tax is highly salient for me when it comes to big ticket purchases.

Remember in the early days of Amazon they did not charge sales tax? Those were the lucrative times. You can buy a television by the thousands of dollars and save hundreds on tax. Now I think we’re suppose to report that come tax time, but honestly, who the heck did that? Besides, doesn’t sales tax go to the state and city?

Never mind! As an employee of a state (at least until Elon Musk’s DOGE gets around to state public workers), I’m a big fan of the sales tax.

Look at buying a new car. The (let’s just say) $30,000 sticker price is not inclusive of the addition thousands in taxes the buyer must pay. Obviously it’s obscured by the mechanism of spreading it over multiple years in payments. (That’s how they get you!) I tend to look at it holistically: do I want to pay additional thousands to not even for the car itself?

What scares me from a mortgage (not that I can afford a house around here) is the amortization table. The amount of interests alone over a 30 year term is freaking outrageous. It seems more prudent to me to keep renting until I am able to pay a majority portion of a house in cash. Keep that money in investments in the meantime and let those interests come to me, instead of the bank.

The true cost of buying something significant is super important to consider.

Where it all went

As a person who doesn’t typically do New Year’s Resolutions, I have but one in 2025: no buying new books until I’ve read all the ones I already bought. Tolstoy’s War and Peace will finally be devoured before I can clear off additional books on my Amazon cart. It’s the right thing to do. The least a book can do before becoming a gatherer of dusts on the shelf is to entertain me with its infilled information.

As 2025 gets underway, a good exercise to do is to take a look at your money in 2024. Credit cards make it super easy to gather and export all your purchases in an Excel file. The Chase cards that I predominantly use even categorizes the spending for me, and lets the user compare year to year. That’s how I was easily able to know that I successfully spent thousands less money (2024 compared to 2023) on Amazon.

I think it’s valuable to know the big picture of where my money went, so that I can intuitively plan for the new year. Performing the audit (if you will) was how I found out I only filled up my BMW M2 a total of twelve times. For a car that goes 200 miles before the gas light comes on (which is to say: pathetic), that means I did very little driving in 2024. I endeavor to accumulate a lot more miles in 2025. To pay for that extra gas, the amount of money not spent on books should cover a good chunk of it!

A surprise spend of last year was food delivery. How it can add up to so many hundreds of dollars, even though I’ve only ordered seven times. Those fees and tips really add up to already inflated food prices. This year there will be zero food delivery orders, unless I am so unfortunate to become incapacitated.

Spend wisely, my friends.

Well, that shipped quickly

The Bay Area is experiencing its usual winter rainstorms. Two mornings ago I woke up to what seems like an overnight power outage. My white-noise machine (it really helps me sleep) was off, and the clock on the microwave was incorrect. (Internet connected microwave coming up?) So much for buried power lines in this subdivision! Could be worse: at least we didn’t break off into the Pacific Ocean.

The power outage did claim one casualty: the tiny dehumidifier in my bathroom. (I’m on the first level of a house, so it can get mighty humid.) As an avid practitioner of austerity, I initially cursed at this misfortune of having to spend money to replace the device. Then I realized the humidifier was a cheap unit I bought at Costco for like $25, three years ago. I’m surprised it lasted even this long, running all the time, 24/7.

Amazon to the rescue, right? There’s a Target within walking distance to me, but the dehumidifiers there are probably locked behind security glass. That’s what happens when you let thieves get away with crime. Stores’ preventive measures instead inconvenience law-abiding customers. Sorry, I can’t be inconvenienced, especially when Amazon is so convenient.

Because my Amazon-ordered (in the morning) replacement humidifier was delivered three hours later. Free same-day delivery, baby! On the week of Christmas, too. Surely the busiest delivery week of the year. Jeff Bezos and the folks at Amazon deserves all the billions for revolutionizing our shipping expectations. Those who complain of Amazon as this shady and evil corporation: are you willing to give up this convenience?

You get handsomely rewarded for providing a service/product that (a lot) people want. That’s how it should work in a civilized society.

A free screwdriver

It’s kind of interesting that when I bought a non-stick fry pan on Amazon, it came with a full-size screwdriver to assemble the handle to the pan. It goes to show just how absurd the profit margins are on these products when they can afford to throw in a screwdriver for free. IKEA furniture at least expects you to have some tools at home. Or you can buy the tool set from them.

Avid watchers of Shark Tank understand how much margin are in the products we buy. It’s fine: that’s just how capitalism works. I needed a fry pan for eggs, another person is smart enough commission a factory in China to make them. I can certainly do it myself, but then I’d have thousands of fry pans that I’ve got to sell. I have a need, someone can fulfill that need, therefore that someone can reap the profits. (There’s a joke about hookers in there somewhere.)

The fact the seller can afford throw in a screwdriver for free with every pan shows how cheaply things can be made in my motherland of China. The country truly is the factory of the world. And with that means a whole spectrum of price and quality. I think it’s way past time to associate “Made in China” with horrible quality. Yes, many things coming out of China are crap (looking at you, Temu), but my brothers and sisters over there are equally capable of making world-class products.

Lest we forget, the Apple iPhone has been made in China for the longest time. The ever popular Fujifilm X100VI camera - a precision photographic device - is manufactured there. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a Hisense branded TV (if LG weren’t so damn fantastic with OLED).

The equation is simple: same (high) quality, lower labor cost. What corporation beholden to shareholders wouldn’t shift manufacturing to China - or any other country offering the same incentives. Made in U.S.A might only mean you’re overpaying for an American worker’s wage.

Buy nothing to save 100%

It is Amazon Prime Day, a sort of Black Friday for those of us with an Amazon Prime membership. A not so elaborate ruse to separate you from your hard-earned money.

Because the item you actually want to buy would never go one sale during Prime Day. That’s not how it works. What do go on sale are things you didn’t even realize you wanted to buy. Take for example the AirPods Pro 2 going for a never before seen low price of $170. This utterly fantastic price creates intense FOMO to hook in customers. Because, what if we never see this price ever again?

Then again, who doesn’t already have a pair? My set of AirPods Pro 2 gets plenty usage on the daily.

In previous economies (as in: not in this economy), I would have bought the AirPods Pro 2 at that rock-bottom price. (True ballers have backup earphones in case their main unit gets lost or craps out.) See how that works? Amazon would have tempted me out of $170 that I had zero plans to spend. People see an item with a tremendous percentage discount, and their minds immediately switch to justifying. I can really use a new Dyson vacuum! Look at how much money I am saving!

Spending money to save money. That’s the essence of Prime Day and Black Friday. Guess what? I saved 100% by not buying anything.

Well, that’s not true. This Prime Day I was able to snag a 50-pound kettlebell for $50. When it comes to gym weights, you want to aim for paying one dollar per pound. I’ve long since progressed from my current 40-pound kettlebell, and have been eyeing a 50-pounder for a few months now. I was not expecting it to be discounted for Prime Day, but I was pleasantly surprised. Well played, Amazon.

O package, where art thou?

There is indeed a first time for everything.

Like most of you, I’ve been shopping with Amazon for the longest time. I’m old enough to remember when Amazon did not charge sales tax in California. Anyways, throughout this long relationship, the couriers contracted by Amazon have not once lost a package of mine. (Or stolen before I got to it, I guess.) Sadly, that streak ended this past Monday.

I got the standard notification email saying the package was delivered. However, it was nowhere to be found - and I was out the front door almost immediately. I live in a nice neighborhood, so package thievery doesn’t really occur (knock on wood). Couriers typically take a picture to confirm the delivery, but for this instance there was no picture! The only explanation is… well, bottom line is the package is missing.

In such situations, Amazon asks customers to check with neighbors to see if the package got delivered to them by mistake. Hope you’re on friendly terms with your next doors! If that returns unfruitful, the customer is then to wait 48 hours. Because apparently. couriers sometimes will mark a package as delivered, but will actually make the delivery on a different day (USPS has knack for this, according to Reddit). Only after 48 hours should the customer contact Amazon support.

If the courier is third-party (UPS, Fed-ex, DHL, etc), customers can and should contact them about the missing package that was marked delivered. In my case, the courier was Amazon (affiliate, probably), so nothing to do but wait the two days.

To Amazon’s credit, I was able to get a refund after a quick word with support chat. I was surprised at how easy it was, given it was about $160 worth of stuff. The fact that I’ve not once before this contested a missing package probably helped to grease things. I’m obviously not trying to scam Amazon here.