Clamps Price

Re: Clamps  Price

Stuart Johnson

Depending on the size Amazon also has the clamps. For example 36" McFeely is $37.76 (check availability) free shipping over $99, Amazon $38.00 free shipping. Then there is Harry Epstein $28.00 plus $11.10 shipping. I like how they all more or less have them for the same price depending on shipping.

Re: Clamps  Price

david weaver

They're miles cheaper at Harry Epstein if both are in stock both places.

dubuque 60-inch clamp, HJE - $30, McFeely's "sale", $53

dubuque 36-inch clamp, HJE - $26, McFeely's "sale", $37.76

There may be some difference in shipping, but it would have to be a *lot*.

McFeely's has been bought at least twice in the last 12 years. I'd be surprised if their sale price on anything wasn't easily beatable with minor google work. Nobody buy's something after tax, then sells it to someone else so that they can buy it "after tax" and doesn't expect both enough to pay the cost of purchase and the additional return above and beyond that that such a buyer would want for taking the risk.

Re: Clamps  Price

david weaver

quantity counts (amazon and McFeely build a price expecting that you'll order enough to get "free shipping"), but if you order in quantity, it can be worth the trouble.

(shipping on ten clamps from HJE is about $35 if I use their estimator)

Cheaper Indeed!!

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Thanks David

Just saved $25 on 4 48"

Re: Clamps  Price

Stuart Johnson

There is a big price difference when buying several. I haven't bothered adding different sizes to see if Epstein changes the price but they do seem to have the best buy.

Re: Clamps  Price

david weaver

The shipping gets quite steep when you add a bunch of clamps on, but I'm assuming that when the package or packages arrive, it'll be evident why.

Free shipping and the coupon economy frustrates me because it makes prices hard to compare (i'm sure that's intentional), and because it can give people a false sense of savings.

My wife is apt to buy something like an electric toothbrush from one of the local retail stores because she can "stack coupons". Two years ago, I bought one online for $70. She was very upset because she didn't get a chance to "save us money" by stacking a 10% coupon on top of a 30% coupon that she'd been saving. The price of the toothbrush at the retailer was $172, yielding a post-stacked coupon price of $103 and some change.

I know there are apps that will direct people to various retailers, but I find that I can quite often beat them just looking around, and I'm guessing that they're really just lead generators for online sellers. They do give one a lazy way to do a comparison, but I can't imagine that they work for anything other than sites that pay for a reference.

I miss the old days when prices were fair, and that was about it. But they were fair all the time everywhere. There was so little imported stuff back then sold at 3 times the cost of purchase plus distribution, so it wasn't really possible to play all of these shenanigans. I know also that the preference of consumers for the shenanigans is what leads to all of them in the first place and data driven everything makes it so that someone more sophisticated than HJE will be able to figure out how to package price plus shipping plus sale offers to make deals look more attractive to people without actually making them cheaper.

I wouldn't be surprised if people get to the end of a large order at HJE these days and expect that they should be able to get free shipping, too, and maybe hesitate on an order.

Re: Clamps  Price

Rum

I paid $70 to have 12 bandsaw blades shipped last month. Amortized per blade they still had a better price than the other folks with comparable blades.

I think the free shipping often ends up being some combination of charging customer a to subsidize customer b (anyone who thinks shipping anything outside of flat rate is the same from east coast to west vs west to west much less anywhere to AK or HI hasn't shipped much) and counting on people not being able to do math.

Re: Clamps  Price

Barry Irby

I bought about a dozen of these clamps from Epstein. The price was good and they charged me on the entire shipment and it was not a simple multiple of the rate for a single clamp. Completely satisfied with Epstein and more than happy with the clamps. Could not recommend them more highly.