Fees

[Exeter 77]

Is the activation fee an online thing only? I renewed by phone on Friday and it wasn't mentioned and the final amount doesn't indicate that I was charged it.

[pauliewalnuts]

There's really no justification for this sort of shit.

As Risso said, if that sort of amount is really crucial to our income, just add it to the price of the tickets rather than do this sort of thing which just makes people resent them and think they're being ripped off.

[Bad English]

*runs off to find tweet sent to @AVFCOfficial (no reply was forthcoming) re. P&P charges when purchasing items from online shop*

[pauliewalnuts]

Didn't they add some sort of spurious charge to season tickets a few years ago, only to back down when people pointed out they were taking the piss?

[PeterWithesShin]

Didn't they add some sort of spurious charge to season tickets a few years ago, only to back down when people pointed out they were taking the piss?

£2 fee for ST or match tickets even if you paid cash.

[Bad English]

".@AVFCOfficial online shop: 2 FA Cup t-shirts & a hoodie = £48. P&P to France = £15. One FA cup t-shirt = £12. P&P still £15. Shameful."

The P&P for one T-shirt is greater than the cost of the T-shirt. Great way to develop overseas sales of Villa tat.

My mother got me a T-shirt and sent it over for under £3.00. There is allowing the company who runs Villa's online sales to make some money, and there is allowing them to attempt to sodomise us without any lubricant.

[KRS]

You can't blame the club for international postage costs!

Whats the P&P if sent within UK?

edit: I'm not even going to try to justify excessive P&P costs but you will find most companies have contracts with delivery companies and charge set fees per transaction rather than how many items you buy (only exception to this would be a substantial increase in size or weight). I'm sure they could reduce the costs if they negotiated a better deal with any contracts for international deliveries, however if you are right and they are making additional profit on international delivery charges then that may be worth raising as an issue to the club.

[KevinGage]

After the absolute fucking dross Lerner and his chimps have served up over the past five years, you'd think they'd be looking at ways to entice supporters back. 

[PeterWithesShin]

Even if sent surface a t-shirt would be at least £3.75 to send to France, and that would need it to be under 250g. Realistically it will be £5.50 airmail assuming it weighs between 251g-500g.

Villa site charges a flat rate for shipping, so for one item it will be expensive, for a few it becomes a lot better value for money.

Obviously the above prices are Royal Mail counter prices, the Villa may use a different courier, which with tracking abroad will be higher anyway.

[Bad English]

The Villa online shop charged £5 to send one T-shirt to Water Orton. My mother then sent it on (probably for £3.75 as PWS wrote). This beats the £12 + £15 p&p charge (flat-rate up to a certain weight)

Yes, I know they offer free delivery worldwide in orders over £100. But I don't want to spend £100 on tat in one go.

I only wanted a frigging FA Cup T-shirt. £15 is a gigantic fucking piss-take and not "international postage costs" as KRS said.

A reasonable charge could see me and others buying more tat over a season. It is not rocket science.

Edit. My T-shirt weighs precisely 217g. Add on a plastic bag and call it 250g.

Piss-take.

[PeterWithesShin]

The problem they have is the variety of items they sell on the site. Unless they put quite a complex shipping system on the site, they have to go with a flat rate, and so as they don't lose money they will go for a higher rate. As an example BE could order a t-shirt that weighs 300g, his neighbour could order a benchcoat that weighs 1800g. One Costs £5.50 to post through RM, the other costs £13.46, £16.96 if you want it insured for more than £20 value.

Not saying it's right someone can stiffed for so much P&P for a t-shirt, but I can understand why they have the system they use in place.

[Bad English]

I understand it but I find the system in place to be unfair. If other online vendors can find ways of selling stuff with reasonable P&P then it would be nice if Villa could encourage the company that runs the online shop (it is not run by AVFC) to find ways of encouraging me to spend money more regularly without the onslaught of cognitive dissonance and sharp rectal pains.

I don't want to detract from the fantasy fee issue that is at the heart of this thread but felt that my P&P gripe was worth a moan. :-)

[KRS]

Fees are fees at the end of the day BE. I rarely find online shops have free P&P (usually a minimum spend, special offer or discount code if it is) but they are generally quite reasonable where they do charge, so a complaint to the club about the P&P costs of the third party vendor would be the best way to approach this.

[AVH87]

Robbing an extra £4 out of loyal fans.

I didn't technically renew my ST this year as I'm sitting somewhere else in the ground, which meant I didn't have to pay a transaction fee or renewal fee, which goes to show they don't need to charge either.

[Clampy]

I don't like it either. You're not actually booking anything, you're paying for it so a booking fee shouldn't really apply.