Came up in another thread and seemed to be a topic worth discussing.

I am sick and tired of gotchas on the bill at the end of a shop visit.

Consumables… Freight… Misc Shop Charges…

Do maintenance facilities understand how frustrating this is to their customers?

Charge enough to cover your cost of doing business without hitting us with extra charges in the end.

We track our cost on everything. At the end of each year, we look at what we've spent on consumables, paints, primers, generic hardware, lubricants etc. We do not have a line item for "shop supplies" or "disposal fees". That's built in to the shop rate. I also don't want my guys spending $2+ labor to sign out a 10 cent o-ring, or $ for my wife walking across the hangar to ask the mechanic what it is because she can't read his writing. Keeps clutter off the invoice too.

I'll mostly take the other side here. Freight is a pass-thru cost. Why should the shop's "overhead" absorb that? I certainly think some of the consumables are out balance depending on the nature of the job, but it seems the norm in auto shops and alleviates itemizing each nut, bolt, and length of safety wire on an invoice.

I’m going to side with the shop.
Freight should be paid by the customer that benefited from it. Why should the guy who needed an 80# battery shipped overnight not pay all of that cost? Or, why should the owner who didn’t require any shipping other than regular ground, subsidize the battery guy by being forced to pay a “average shipping” fee, which is invisibly rolled into the shop rate?
“Misc” shop fees for things like NDI work, battery cap checks, etc are the same. Why shouldn’t the people who benefit from that speciality service not be the ones who pay to support the purchase and up keep of said equipment?

During an avionics install quite a few years ago in my Baron, the tech said my airspeed indicator needed to be overhauled. So he sent it out. $40 out, $40 back freight (not including the actual overhaul cost). Seemed excessive based on how many times I've shipped stuff, but ok. Maybe he's charging me for the box, materials, time to print a shipping label. The airspeed indicator arrived back with a crack in the glass. $40 out, $40 back freight. Everyone blamed each other for the crack. However, I was billed for the 2 round trips. $80 R/T x 2 for an airspeed indicator. Needless to say, I never used that shop again and told friends that were considering getting their avionics done about it.

It's simply a way of avoiding adding to their hourly rate. I'm with Del and include my overhead in my shop rate for guitar repairs. (I don't track everything that closely, but every so often raise the rate or try to find ways to reduce my overhead.)

One of the shops I work with is down to just the manager (who is hands on) and one A&P. They had 2 others but let them go because of quality issues. He's got more work than he can keep up with and can't find mechanics. I tried to convince him that both of these problems are simple economics. He's not charging enough and he's not paying enough. I don't think he wants to raise either, and he has a corporate overlord so he may not have much say.

Ironically, we switched to his shop largely because he's cheaper.

I'm 100% in agreement except for the freight as long as it's necessary.
I'm not going to pay overnight for something that didn't need to be overnighted.
Also depends on how much the shop is marking up the part to start with whether I think freight charges are fair. If you're going to tack 30% on to the part cost I expect you to cover the freight.

Chip you and I are in the customer service side of business. We want our customers happy above all else and have learned what needs to happen to make that happen. Nickel and diming people 25 dollars on a 10,000 dollar bill is a sure way to annoy a customer. It's not the money, it's the perception. Many people don't understand this likely because they haven't sent thousands of invoices to thousands of customers over many years and seen the trend of what people do and don't react to.

Free shipping is the easiest one to understand for people.
Obviously shipping isn't really free, it's built into the price of what you're purchasing.

People see 39.99 free shipping and click buy and go about their day.

People see 29.99 + $10 shipping and they will call or email with "I'm only 50 miles away and the item is small why am I paying $10 to ship this? I can ship it for less at the post office"

People see 29.99 +$5 shipping + $5 handling
They call or email saying "how does it cost $5 to put my item in a box and tape it? that's ridiculous"

All the exact same price at the end of the day but vastly different customer interactions.

Fortunately my current shop is very good, but historically one thing that's irritated me is the shop just being very flippant with customer money. No price shopping (always just ordering from their preferred supplier because it's easy, regardless of whether there is a cheaper option), no efforts to keep shipping costs down (like combining shipments, etc.), etc.

I hear you, but do you want to pay 150+ an hour for someone to spend an hour price shopping to save you 50 dollars?

That one's a tough one and one reason I prefer to order my own parts. I don't like paying for time spent staring at an IPC, or time spent browsing the internet. I can do that stuff for free while the shop does real work. Time is money so any time spent price shopping should be billed to the customer.

I probably should have been more detailed on the freight, I think most understand reasonable freight, the issue is shops charging a flat percentage of the total parts bill for “freight”

Again, it’s the unexpected add on at the end.

As long as the freight is justified, not overnight charges because the shop forgot to order it!

I hear you, but do you want to pay 150+ an hour for someone to spend an hour price shopping to save you 50 dollars?

That one's a tough one and one reason I prefer to order my own parts. I don't like paying for time spent staring at an IPC, or time spent browsing the internet. I can do that stuff for free while the shop does real work. Time is money so any time spent price shopping should be billed to the customer.

Textron's is possibly the worst. Want a piece of fuel tubing for an A36? No stock, it'll need to be pulled off the line. No ETA, no returns or refund, but you have to pay now plus outrageous shipping that is never enough on the final bill adjustment.

I normally had my oil changed at annual but one year put more hours in so asked the local FBO to change the oil for me. Dropped off the keys so they could pull the plane out of my hangar at their leisure. I asked that they refill with Phillips and Camguard.

Apparently they discovered after towing my plane into their shop that they didn't have any Camguard. When I got the bill it included $75 for an overnight shipment for the Camguard.

To add insult to injury, it was raining when they towed the plane, which converted accumulated dust on the wings to mud.

These shops that mostly service jets and commercial helicopters have a pretty casual attitude about money for us bugsmashers.

I buy supplies and parts primarily from Aircraft Spruce for my shop. It might not always be the cheapest but I can sit down, order and be gone quickly.

Over $300 is free shipping for most items and free shipping on batteries. So I'll order stuff I need then order some extra Camguard, oil, filters, brake pads, hardware that I know I'll need later to get the free shipping.

But yes today I spent $38.07 to ship a dual electronic tach Fed Ex Ground from PA to Wichita Kansas with $500 insurance. It will be the same for return.
I'll have to pass that along as "Shipping" but it's backed up with a real receipt.

The time to box, ship and make labels etc. Probably an hour but I'll wind up eating that cost. I shouldn't but how it goes.

That's a very simple item to ship. There are much more complex items but bill accordingly not a flat "shipping" fee.

I get upset also for the same thing when the King Air goes for MX at other shops. Long scheduled but yet it seems like it ends end up with overnight Shipping on the bill for parts that could have been waiting for it. Seems like there is a disconnect then the parts are needed right away so the overnight bills stack up.

Hardware has gone crazy. Price electrical crimp ring terminals or lock nuts. $1.12 for red butt splice!? You have to track every piece of hardware these days. AN Fittings etc.

I do try to find deals to keep the costs down where possible. Usually new in box old stock parts that I can find on alternate places like Preferred Airparts or eBay. If the shop I pick messes up I end up eating the labor to remove and reinstall that part to get it fixed again. If the owner picks the overhaul shop and they mess up then that's on them. Sadly I am really nervous about picking shops for things like engines, props or large instrument repairs because I have been really shafted by many different engine, accessory and radio shops so often. It's nearly bankrupted me several times trying to get engines corrected and right with multiple removals and reinstalls to get them fixed.

Go to your local autobody shop and buy paint supplies. Not the junk stuff but decent 3M type products. Your eyes will water at just masking tape prices. But if it works it works. The time spent dealing with inferior products is horrible. Yet that can't all get absorbed into the hourly rate.

To add to what Charlie said...

Depending on how quick you need parts, a good parts person (even in a one-man shop) can get free shipping on 80% of the items ordered. I think I only paid for shipping once or twice last year from normal parts vendors.

I generally charge 3% of the labor cost to cover consumables unless they are some of the crazy hardware that has jumped lately. A simple metal lock nut or nylock have gone crazy, in addition to the connectors Charlie mentioned. The price of basic rivets became stupid expensive a couple years back.

Depending on the part, I'll search around for a few minutes if it's an expensive part, but if it's under a couple hundred dollars, the labor involved in chasing down parts, then likely paying shipping doesn't make sense.

I bill shipping at actual cost. There are ways to get discounted shipping rates with very little work.

We have one customer that brings his own steak to a steakhouse under the pretense that he doesn't want to wait for parts to arrive. One shop that I used for some work said they flat out charge a 20% profit for owner provided parts. Seems reasonable to me.

It doesn't take much to make or break a small shop. We've "fired" a couple customers for either being a PITA or expecting us to float their bill for 90+ days. The way the industry is going right now, I'm not convinced there will be many small shops around in a decade.