Author Topic: Free shipping from Toys R Us (USA) until Sept 1  (Read 2638 times)

Offline Timotheos

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Free shipping from Toys R Us (USA) until Sept 1
« on: August 26, 2008, 12:52:21 »
Toys R Us is offering free shipping on everything, including the circus, the Greenpeace Knights, and the KISS Knights.

Unfortunately, TRU doesn't offer blister sets online.

EDIT: I was just about to order the circus dog act, then I remembered I'll have to pay state sales tax because TRU has a brick-n-mortar store here...

Maybe I'll wait a week and make a big order from PM USA...

Sales tax is funny...  it's a significant competitive advantage for companies like Amazon and Playmobil USA that have no brick and mortar stores anywhere...  My company gives us gift cards to Barnes and Noble sometimes--the 7% bite for sales tax (vs. Amazon's what you see is what you pay) really bites!

Offline Martin Milner

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Re: Free shipping from Toys R Us (USA) until Sept 1
« Reply #1 on: August 26, 2008, 14:44:27 »

Sales tax is funny...  it's a significant competitive advantage for companies like Amazon and Playmobil USA that have no brick and mortar stores anywhere...  My company gives us gift cards to Barnes and Noble sometimes--the 7% bite for sales tax (vs. Amazon's what you see is what you pay) really bites!


I understood (from my wife) that if you live in Washington State where Amazon are based, you do have to pay sales tax, which makes it somewhat less attractive.

As a Britsider, I never can get my head round seeing one price on the shelves, and paying a different price at the till.

Offline Timotheos

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Re: Free shipping from Toys R Us (USA) until Sept 1
« Reply #2 on: August 27, 2008, 11:33:45 »
Sales tax, which isn't a federal tax, appears to be levied at "point of purchase", meaning the costumer's billing address.  For merchants to comply with the costumer's local sales tax burden would require the merchant to account for literally thousands of different sales tax regions (a state levies sales tax, plus each municipality or county can impose additional tax).

So merchants argue that imposing sales tax on out-of-state web (or mail) orders would effectively prohibit these transactions.

The compromise is that if the merchant has a presence in the customer's state, then the customer must pay state sales tax.

For us consumers, it's better not to ask too many questions and just hope the good times keep rolling.   8} 8} 8} 8} 8} 8} 8} 8} 8} 8} 8} 8}

Few merchants, except national chains, have bases in Missouri, so I'm a beneficiary of this confused system.

-Tim

 

Offline Knight Train

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Re: Free shipping from Toys R Us (USA) until Sept 1
« Reply #3 on: August 27, 2008, 19:50:58 »
Quote
Sales tax is funny...  it's a significant competitive advantage for companies like Amazon and Playmobil USA that have no brick and mortar stores anywhere... 

Unfortunately for me (and others) Amazon charges sales tax to everything shipped to Washington state.  The good news is that if you know people who work there, you can get some good discounts.

 

Offline Timotheos

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Re: Free shipping from Toys R Us (USA) until Sept 1
« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2008, 00:19:16 »
Unfortunately for me (and others) Amazon charges sales tax to everything shipped to Washington state.  The good news is that if you know people who work there, you can get some good discounts.



I tried flirting once with one of the phone operators at PM US direct sales.

She must have heard all the lines before because I still didn't get any Roman yellow shorts guys.