Reasonable Shipping Expectations from Vendors

Well I ordered a single shot tray from a very very well known dealer here in the us back in September I called them and ordered they said all was good it would ship in a cpl days at most oh let me mention this maybe weighs the same as 4 or 5 pellets and shipping was $10 “ripoff” two weeks go by they say it isn’t in stock and fx doesn’t know when they will send them to them. So here we are middle of November and still no single shot tray. I could have had it sent from croatia and I would have had it long ago. So my issue isn’t only with shipping time it’s with shipping cost as well. This could just go in an envelope and cost maybe $1.50 tops. Like many others have done 

I think AMAZON and DONNYFL have really raised the bar for expections on shipping and communication of those shipments. I have been very disappointed with several AG vendors when it comes to communication, tracking info, and time to ship. They all will die a quick death if Amazon gets in the AG buisness. I know they do not have the infrastructure or size like Amazon, but they should strive for that new gold standard of service. 

I think realistic expections;

Ship notice within 36 hours of receipt of order for instock items.

If an items will be delayed communication within 24 hrs of receipt of order.

Response to email within 24hrs of receipt. Even if it is an "I do not know and will get back to you."

Certainly because these are small businesses the weekend hours could be a grace period, but top notch service would cover those hours at least for email communication in a limited way.

I was flamed a while back for saying how we as buyers are at fault for all of this pre-ordering of goods within the airgun community. If we did not do this pre-ordering then the vendors would be more up to date with their online advertising of on-hand supply and would only sell what they had in inventory. This would put the pressure on the manufacturer to keep up with demand as well, because the retailer would be contacting them wanting inventory to get money to survive as a retailer. Instead, the retailer is sitting on a customer's money to use to pay for their inventory when the manufacturer eventually gets them made and shipped.

As far as time to receive an item goes, it should be no more than two weeks to your door if ordered in country, and if it needs to travel a pond then three weeks.

@vinny Check these two shot single loader magazines out. I ordered a couple and they are on their way across the pond. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Slide-Loader-for-FX-Impact-Single-Shot-Loader/143050200824?

In my own personal experiences not intended to influence anyone in any decision:

AGD and PYMA ship from the same distribution warehouse and share a common order processing unit. When I called to address a AGD order issue the answering party was able to see my PYMA order and AGD order and correct/influence both. Oddly enough the answering party was confused at my own confusion where order history on PYMA was equally accessible with AGD orders. When I called the number the first few times the call handling systems misrouted the call and the automated greeting was for another service/system. I figure they both use the same payment processor/CSR/warehouser.

There's manufacturers, distributors, resellers, warehousers, and order processors. It's one of these small business things, that it seems, are trying to appear as if they are big business. It makes sense when competition is fierece which is the case now especially in the PCP and consumer grade compressor market.

The only resolution I know of is to learn from mishandling issues and mispacking issues and share those issues freely. Optionally engage in educated ordering. IE -- the only thing I order from AGD is pellets. Order as close to the distributor as possible to avoid middle-men?

I joke about my experiences with this often with friends because it's like clandestine secret moonman talking to space lizard and it's the same person on the end of the phone the whole time just disguising their voice, lol.

A lot of this is Amazon’s and other large retailer’s fault for setting our expectations so high. Those big guys take a loss on the shipping where the smaller shops can’t do that. I sell a fair amount on eBay and the actual cost to ship something small via priority mail is around $8 (more if you want insurance). If these shops don’t send things via a trackable insured method they’ll get scammed by people claiming to have never received the item or get burned when it gets damaged in transit.

My biggest complaint with the AG industry is lack of live inventory on the website. I want to know if the item I’m ordering is in stock, back ordered, etc.

That, and smart post shipping. That is the worst thing ever invented and avoid it like the plague. I’ll pay more for standard us mail than that smart post junk lol.

2weeks...China 1 month though I have had things from China in 2 weeks...always a good idea to know when item is shipped and if item is even in stock...also give me a shipping number and by the way please take Paypal....!

What does retirement have to do with anything,time does not slow down nor speed up.....,"My it's been a long time,seems like times just slips away"That is called age .

my 1st airgun was purchased from a very well known online airgun store. the gun took 3 weeks to reach me and the scope and sling that were included were absent. upon calling, the woman was rude to say the least, and insisted the scope and sling were not included. i asked her to look it up on their site and bingo! i did finally get the items, but i never did get the "points" added to my account. i haven't shopped there since. there is an online store that also has a brick and motor store, that always answer my emails within 24 hours. if i call and there is a wait, the automated system has them call me back. needless to say, that is where i've purchased all my other guns. they have also held shipping a gun when i was out of town so it would arrive the day i returned. the last time i bought a small part from them, it arrived in a padded envelope for only a $3 shipping charge!

it also helps if you build a rapport with them. i may make several calls asking questions before finalizing the sale, and when i do put the order in, i mention who i spoke to. i have also asked them to reduce the shipping cost based on being a repeat costumer.

Never a problem ordering from Pyramyd Air for me. However, I've ordered twice from another big outfit in the next state over, and both times I had to call them after the crickets chirped for a few days only to discover that the goods were out of stock. Wasn't reflected on their website. Haven't ordered from them since.

Never a problem from Hatsan USA