It seems that someone in their shipping dept is not using all the tools of the trade available. For us in Cleveland shipping to West Coast is 3-4 days thru USPS and Saturday counts, UPS its 5-6 business days and Saturday does not count. When shipping a fitting, throw it in a USPS flat rate, charge for insurance and you have inexpensive shipping. BUT its possible they have had a ton of theft so shipping UPS signature required, ground service to a residential address with insurance from East to West coast will add up costs. Their credit card merchant services might also be requiring them to ship a certain way to retain their 2-3% rate on phone and internet transactions to provide coverage in case of a charge back or theft.
We deal with it everyday, it's a kick in the nuts when you get a charge back for a customer claim "not delivered" and your shipping guy forgot to check the signature required box. Credit card company takes the $ out of our account and you lose the product.
We have had to tighten up all aspects of selling on line and over the phone, sounds like Livorsi had to do the same, but they are not finding the cheapest solutions for their customers and will lose business because of it.

Shipping/handling is a BIG pia, I have 2000$ worth of junk I sold on Ebay in past week, the only thing that will fit in USPS flat rate boxes is snowmobile belts and they only weight 2lbs so I mailed them by weight, about 8$ cheaper each to send to the buyers. The rest of the stiff does NOT fit in a flat rate box, with my ups discount its CHEAPER and much more convenient to use UPS but it still takes 10 minutes to fill a label, print it, box stuff up. The flat rate USPS boxes used to be a good deal, now they are about double of what they were just a few years ago, small box was like 4$ is now almost 8$ or something? I too have bought from companys that pretty much charge 25$ S/H, the shipping was prob 4$ so the HANDLING is a rip off although the prices look better when you are putting stuff in cart and s/h is not built in!

Bought a $50 (overpriced as it was) steering reservoir cap, shipped was $98

Don't get me started on the "signature required" stuff. I've had some stuff show up the past couple months, that was signature required, and it's SO infuriating for me. My wife and I both work...so nobody is home to sign. I end up having to drive 30 min each way to the UPS hub to pick up that stuff.

Voodoo outlined why companies do it, and i understand, but I wish there was an option to say "I will take responsibility for these packages if they get stolen....leave them on the porch of my house in BFE"

I completely understand the shipping charges on a large part. The part that gets me, and I think the same for the OP, is when something could be dropped in a padded envelope or very small box (and many times are) but still costs $20+ to ship.

I'm glad to read I'm not the only cheap bstrd that's decided they don't need something once they see the shipping charges...

The worst is when they make you sign in with an account before they give you a shipping estimate. Shady bastards. lol.

Please use UPS, my son just started working for them as a delivery driver.

Mine didnt require a signature nor was I told what the shipping would be, believe me I asked, they said they wont know until its boxed and headed out the door, then I see the charge on my debit card, that's when I called them.............350 bucks ( 8 senders ) worth of parts that will fit in a bubble wrap envelope 35 bucks shipping, at the end of the day its not about the money, its the principle, I made it clear to them that I would avoid buying from them again.

I've noticed cpperformance is high also. I order from them frequently however do try and get everything I can think of placed under same order but there's been numerous times when I forget that one little part that you need also so you place another order and then get charged near the same amount for shipping. It eats my azz a tad bit. I have no problem paying fair prices but do not like being taken. Like Icdedppl said I'd rather them increase their price points and have free shipping but then I could see where you get a low price somewhere else and get raped for shipping at the very end of your order.

We've all seen the eBay shipping scams. My comment regarding cpperformance wasn't meant to be nasty but rather just stating a fact. You'd think OSO paying members would get some kind of discount or free shipping from advertising companies. We are a huge community here. Wazzup

Signature required really sucks ass, the worst by FAR shipper i ever dealt with and by far most inconvient is fed ex, i 100% REFUSE to dhip things out with them as its a big run around (i live in middle of no where) and anything fed ex means driving 20 miles each way to drop it off. My son runs my business from 8am till 11 everyday till i get there, 2/3rds of our fedex shows
Up signature required at 7:12 am before anyones at shop, sometimes several days in a row plus i have a old farmhouse at shop no one is currently living in and they will go to front porch door that involves them walking thru 50 feet of snow or mud as they pass 2 buildings with entry doors and leave a tag on a door that hasnt been used in 6 months. A kid driver showed up one day, drove up my driveway at 25 mph, drove 200 feet by both of us STANDING in shop door and drove past my two daschunds IN driveway way up near house with electronic containment collars on inches from them while i waved my arms and yelled (he had a walkman/stereo head phones on). Thing is he had 2 race car tires, geez, do i want them in shop or do i want them in the house!