If I had to pay international shipping I wouldn't have any sympathy for US buyers either. However, $23 to ship from California to Oklahoma is about $7 too much--and that's at the prices I have to pay, not a big company. It doesn't sound like much, but when you add up the additional fees over several transactions for hundreds of customers, Sideshow is making a lot of extra cash while claiming to only charge actual shipping.
My shipping charge for Drax is $22.92 which is absolutely ****ing ridiculous.
Another thing to consider is that the "shipping" cost may not strictly be covering transit from Sideshow's door to yours.
Sideshow has to import these figures from Hot Toys overseas, and that costs them money. The prices for importing can vary depending on a variety of factors, including time of year, number of pallets and how full the boats are.
So for some figures, perhaps Sideshow can eat a little of the cost and offer cheap shipping. But other times maybe the cost of importing dictates they charge more to help protect their margins.
Obviously I'm not sure if this is the case, but I feel it's important to consider what variables could be in play here, rather than jumping to conclusions.
"Sideshow is evil and they're just gouging our wallets" is an easy scapegoat when we're upset with the prices and want someone to blame, but none of us know for certain what their cost/profit margin is.
Seeking profit is certainly one possible explanation, and also sort of their primary goal as a business entity. But it's also only one of dozens of possible explanations.
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I think if it was really a cost problem they would be going out of their way to explain what's happened. Silence leads me to take a simpler belief, that they are squeezing their customer base.
If Hot Toys ever decides to distribute to the US and Canada, what would happen to sideshow? How many people are buying $8,000 statues and $500 premium format figures?
I guess I don't see many of the $9 shipping costs reported by board members. I'm in Omaha, Nebraska and my shipping for Yoda was $19.16.But why squeeze some and not others? Some get charged $22 for shipping and others get charged $9 for the same figure
The weird thing to me is that there doesn't seem to be any logic to the prices. Vision was $17, Drax was $19, but CW Hawkeye and Widow we're $10? They're all the same size, about the same weight, going to the same place, but the shipping prices are all over the place.
Maybe with the dimensions? Were the boxes same dimensions? I heard that could affect pricing.
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