What's going on with RAMA shipping prices?

Learning and discussion
#1

I’ve previously noted how odd RAMA’s shipping prices were for the M60-B GB but now I feel like they’re trying to pull my leg with the current MATS:

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I’ve entered MIA, USA as destination. Apparently the only option is DHL Express (for whatever reason) and I’m starting to believe that RAMA maybe stopped caring about non-local markets? I mean, I’ve ordered a couple of deskmats from Aliexpress, where most had free shipping (at a similar price point for the deskmat) or cost less than $10.

I’m not trying to rant here, I’m genuinely interested to understand why shipping prices have gone up for RAMA specifically? Even Kbdfans offers a better rate (~$25) - and they’re also using DHL Express from what I know.

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#2

Maybe shipping rates are much higher shipping out of Australia than China?

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#3

One might assume so, yes! I, too, thought that maybe this is the difference. Then I went back into the depths of my email inbox and searched for a Daily Clack order:

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The screenshot shows AUD, not USD and at the bottom of the mail it says " Shipping method Tracked - 1kg". The deskmats might be little over 1kg together, however, 23 AUD / 15 USD in shipping is still a lot cheaper than what RAMA charges.

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#4

Shipping is expensive right now. I wanted to buy a couple accessories from Monokei, but it was close to $100 just for shipping.

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#5

Shipping deskmats is super expensive in my experience, they are a shipping anomaly. I live in Canada, and I have yet to buy a deskmat where the shipping wasn’t more expensive than the deskmat, even the one I shipped within Canada.

I asked, and I was told that the box is an odd shape which affects cost, and they are heavy.

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#6

I experienced the same shock this morning when I went to order the Soya mat. I’m not so delusional to expect free shipping from Australia to the US East Coast, but these shipping options killed the purchase for me:

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In September 2020, I ordered the Canvas 2 deskmat with much more reasonable shipping:

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#7

Seeing the same thing with anything from Kbdfans or AliExpress. $35-$45 shipping to the US east coast.

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#8

Aye - I balked at snagging one of KeebMoney’s refurb’d Model M’s for the same reason. Good price for a cleaned and modded M, but the shipping added another 50% to the cost! Oof. back to poking around old offices

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#9

Ouch. That’s much higher than I’ve paid in the past for KBDfans.

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#10

Not much can be done regarding weight, but I’m surprised that if the shape is jacking up the shipping cost that they wouldn’t just put the weird-shaped box in a standard-sized outer box?

#11

I’ve ordered stuff from them before and expected shipping to be around $8 for their standard shipping, like it is with smaller items from their keyboard kits.

$37 shipping for an already pricier $24 deskmat is simply a no go for me. Too bad!

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#12

Buying from RAMA in 2022…

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#13

Shipping costs are the new group buy times.

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#14

An unrelated side note, iirc AliExpress and Chinese shipping in general is subsided by their government, combine that with low shipping methods and you acn get it for free.

Shipping is expensive, to get the NK65EE or the KBD67 Lite that had to use regular shipping companies, the product ended up almost twice the price.

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#15

But group buy times are already the new group buy times. :frowning:

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#16

Oooh, I didn’t know about the subsidies! That’s interesting, will definitely look that up. It’s just kind of awkward then, because that means RAMA is actually profiting off of these subsidies (assuming they’re producing their deskmats in CN like everyone else), but then slapping a hefty delivering fee on top. Makes me wonder why they wouldn’t drop-ship in that case… hm.

#17

Wait that’s not what I’ve implied, from what I’ve read big international companies tend to get subsides to boost the Chinese economy, in return you get longer shipping times and tiny chance of it getting damaged or lost.

Though they made massive improvements in the last years, usually shipping could take 2-3 months, but in the last year or two it’s almost consistently a month, sometimes shorter.

Companies like KBDFans or NK_ are using private companies like DHL or Fedex, so their shipment will be safer and faster, shipping is about a week international for me.

Don’t know about the scale of the subsides but I can only guess it for the bigger markets, and private manufacturers like what RAMA is using are not, unless of course their shipping takes a long time and it’s just dropped through standard shipping methods…

#18

You’re right, but I don’t think anyone is going to go to that trouble for Canada, without being prompted.

Canada Post hates round parcels, and will charge you extra for them. It’s one of the worst things you could ship to Canada. I guess they think the package might roll or something, not fitting properly among boxes.

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#19

Just checked RAMA’s extra allocations, which are live rn and it’s not getting any better. Over $80 shipping on the M65-C, pushing it to over $460 in total price. There are far too many great alternatives these days at a comparable or even lower price. RAMA would do their customers and themselves good if they would at least try to somehow make it work. It’s a bummer, really.

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#20

Just noticed that RAMA changed (fixed?) the lower cost shipping option to $20 for the new desk mats:

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Still a pretty big hit but definitely a huge improvement from nearly $40.

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