I've got to throw my 2 cents in on this one.

I make a decent living, working in Afghanistan. The main problem is USPS only shipping and a 2 week wait for everything I order. I tend to always order more than what I need since it's better to have too many screws or too much sleeving than have to wait 2 more weeks to finish a project.

What burns me up is when I want to place an order for 4 screws from these PC shops, it's $2.50 plus $9 shipping. I can order 12 of the same screws from another shop for the same $2.50, and only pay $3 in shipping, and they still make a profit. For twice as much, that 12 screws becomes 50. I order a power supply, $45 for shipping. My case, $85 in shipping is what they wanted. For an 11 lb case. Which came screws missing.

I love supporting shops that support me, but how am I supposed to do that when they keep on fleecing me. If I want a processor, I would much rather order it from the guys that are on here supporting the community, but how am I supposed to do that when they want $100-150 more for the same thing with twice as much for shipping and refuse returns. I've spent weeks waiting for parts that never came, because the company decided to drop-ship and not inform me, and the drop-shipper won't ship to USPS. And they didn't refund my shipping cost.

I know what we do is a niche, and the phase guys have it way harder than us; but it's not impossible to fix. We tend to be a pretty loyal community - look at the massive grudges against Thermaltake and Koolance - and will spend loads of money on something shiny from a company we love without regrets. Don't be greedy. I got an email from Wal-Mart about a year ago apologizing for overcharging shipping costs to APO addresses, and they refunded shipping costs for my previous several orders and have paid actual cost or very very close for every order since. Amazon and other larger retailers give me free shipping on expensive orders. You're telling me when you're taking $2 for a foot of plain black heatshrink, you aren't making enough to give me a break? You still need that $9 for an envelope the post office gives you for free?

For the companies overseas, I can understand. I'll pay 35 Euros for the order, since I obviously want that thing bad enough; but if it breaks, you want me to pay the shipping to send it back, wait until you look at it, and wait for the replacement, on a 99 Euro hunk of plastic and metal that couldn't have cost you more than 10 Euros to produce. We are the ultimate repeat customers, we aren't ordering OEM parts here, we're using our Dremels and soldering irons to use the stuff you're selling us. We'll spend a few hundred bucks because the color isn't quite right. We have no qualms voiding warranties on a thousand dollar item the day we get it.

Give us one shop, just one single shop, that gives us decent service and you'll become the biggest moneymaker in the industry. Bump prices on the flashy new blocks, I don't care, but not on screws, sandpaper, zip-ties, and shipping. We are all educated consumers here, and you are insulting us. We spend hundreds of hours researching hose, you think we don't know how much a screw, padded envelope and a few stamps cost?