Shipment
To make things clear: We do NOT seek to profit from postage costs.
We are a small independent mail-order company, running this business with passion, heart and soul. By fans for fans. As you all know, there are multinational corporations that are able to offer, mostly due to their unbelievable size, discounts on shipping we could not achieve in 1,000 years. You cannot compare us with these corporations.
Some of your competitors nevertheless sometimes offer better shipping rates than you. How can that be?
Some competitors subsidize freight costs in order to be competitive with the industry giants mentioned above.
We strongly believe this is not a sensible long-term solution when operating a mail order company.
Why do you not send goods using standard shipping which is clearly cheaper?
Premium shipping is the only method of shipping which enables us to send goods insured. Under current law, we can be held liable/responsible should a package for any reason get lost in the mail. Unfortunately, our good faith has been exploited repeatedly this way in the past. Time after time we were begged by customers to send them consignments by standard shipping because they had to scrape together their last pennies for the order. Curiously in these cases the shipping almost never arrived at the destination. Subsequently, we were then threatened by these customers with legal action. This meant we had no other option than to re-send the goods – this time using more expensive, premium insured shipping costs. In all these cases, not only did we have to cover the postage costs of reshipment, we were also liable for the (supposed) lost items from the first shipment. You can imagine the ruinous impact when this happens, particularly with the high-priced collectors’ items we sell.
This is why we have decided only to offer premium shipping. Ultimately we believe it is everyone’s interest. You get the goods you want. We are protected from problems with the mail.
Still, the cost of postage does appear high?
We are constantly negotiating with our shipping partner DHL (in our view the very first choice in terms of speed, reliability, returns processing, availability of stores and their pricing policy) and simply pass on those prices on a 1: 1 basis.
We are based in Germany, unfortunately not a country known for inexpensive freight costs. We are not a corporation that can send its packages from countries such as the Netherlands, Poland or the UK...all countries with generally much lower freight costs.
Most of your competitors send from Germany as well and are still cheaper?
As explained above, this can have various reasons. Freight costs are partially subsidized or items are shipped uninsured at the risk of the sender. Very often it is the case that for shipping outside Germany only base prices for the freight cost will be specified and the final shipping costs will be calculated and communicated only after the customer has collected the desired goods. This results in quite higher shipping costs than the ones we charge.
OUR ADVICE - Bulk orders:
When ordering, order together with friends. Collective shopping equals more fun. If you band together with friends for one collective order, you can pay postage just once!
CONCLUSION:
No one will force you to place an order with us. But please understand we love and live the Underground. While competition is good for everyone, we say "Support your underground dealer!" - No matter whomever that may be.
For products free for 18 years 2,99€ will be addet.