PCGS "handling fee"
lkeigwin
Posts: 16,892 ✭✭✭✭✭
What is the point of the $10 handling fee PCGS charges with every submission?
Is there any rationale behind it? Some extra expense PCGS suffers? Maybe costs for packaging material or storage that aren't covered by shipping fees? Isn't operating overhead normally built into pricing?
Or is it just a throwback to days of old? The handling fee is a relic that goes back decades. We're numb to it.
It's annoying but small so collectors probably don't gripe much. No doubt they add up nicely.
Do any of you dealer/sellers charge handling fees? Why or why not?
Maybe a "no handling fee" could be a future quarterly special. 
Lance.
Coin Photography Services / Everyman Registry set / BHNC #213
11
Comments
They added the handling fee when they removed the minimum submission counts.
Yeah, it kind of makes sense from the perspective of encouraging more coins per submission. There is fixed overhead for PCGS per submission, so it seems reasonable to me.
CAC charges one too.
The shipping charges already discourage small submissions.
Not all submissions require shipping. Would you be happier if PCGS just raised the per coin fee and got rid of handling charge?
In my opinion their pricing is too complex but arguably their has been limited to no pricing elasticities for fees and rate increases so must be working.
Handling fee
Grading fee
Guarantee premium (which is logically frustrating given the conflicts inherent on having a guarantee premium for an already graded PCGS coin so they can benefit in the value of upgrades. I completely can understand the risk associated with cracking another companies coin out.)
Latin American Collection
@Ikeigwin said:
Do any of you dealer/sellers charge handling fees?
You mean like for the gas bringing it to the post office
Not all submissions require shipping. Would you be happier if PCGS just raised the per coin fee and got rid of handling charge?
strange question. PCGS HAS regularly raised the per coin charges while leaving the "handling fee" in place. as a matter of fact, I seem to recall when the handling fee was raised to where it is. didn't it used to be like $8 or something??
A handling fee is an excuse to charge more money for the same service.
A submission already has two handling fees- To and From shipping.
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It might make some sense to set a minimum coin limit and if that limit is satisfied, the handling fee is waived. And to be real creative, set a minimum coin limit that would reduce or eliminate return postage.
It can be hard to evaluate just how profit centers within a business model work, but seems the optimum would be to achieve a goal of having as many coins as possible within a single submission. I would think it would help with work flow and labor costs
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Lance, you're on to something here. Little ticky-tack charges rub me the wrong way. Tell me how much, and I'll pass or play. During the last run-up in fuel prices many companies started adding a "fuel surcharge" to their bills. I don't really care where their overhead comes from - just include it in the price.
Most of the on-line companies that I do business with have a single price, with free shipping. Tax is always added and that's bad enough.
Of course, I'm the sort of guy who also thinks that hotel staff, waiters, and bartenders should be well-paid and that businesses should build that in to their price structure like they do in the rest of the world. Mandatory tips aren't tips.
Finally, I have several coins that need to go see the PCGS shop, but I'm holding off since it's very expensive just to send a few at a time. Maybe I never get around to sending them in. Maybe that's lost revenue for our host.
I would say that 'handling' includes opening the shipment, staging it for processing, system entry/tracking, interdepartmental movement, slabbing and packaging for shipment.....Seems reasonable that those costs must be covered outside of grading and verification costs. It makes better 'optics' to have the cost somewhat broken down then lumped into one giant fee. Cheers, RickO
That could easily be covered by the shipping and/or grading fee charges.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
@MFeld .... True, but as I indicated, the 'optics' would be somewhat off putting... this way, a breakdown tends to elicit understanding - well, for some.... obviously this thread says not for all...Cheers, RickO
Agree that they add up nicely and that's why they have to be there. I don't know how many submissions PCGS does in a year but whatever that number is multiplied by $10 is probably a large sum of money and a good chunk of their profitability. Take it away and it would have to be made up for in other ways. As is it's right in plain sight, if it wasn't there it would be hidden elsewhere and on average you'd be paying about the same.
I'm just guessing here, but I would think nobody likes paying more for the same thing, although in fairness PCGS has made consistent improvements in their product over the years. So if you want to turn this into a gripe thread about inflation generally, I don't see the point. It's a fact of life. As are "annoying" surcharges. Ultimately, such things are out of our control, although how much we let them bother us is not.
While setting tuition for a new professional doctoral program at a private university, I successfully argued against listing numerous individual fees in addition to tuition and instead, rolled all the fees into a single number (and magically, all the fees plus tuition equalled the new single tuition cost). On the backend, all the fees were distributed as normal.
This tuition model decreased student complaints over fees as everything was included. Sure the students knew they were paying the same fees, but the single tuition cost was perceived as a better approach by the students. Perception is important.
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
@astrorat
This!
I don't charge my customers handling fees. If I did it would be a nice monthly bonus...if I still had as many customers.
In unrelated news: My golf buddy is 13 years my senior. When he turned 50 the golf courses raised the senior discount age to 55. When he turned 55 they moved it to 60 and when he turned 60 they moved it to 65. But we still play
it is much too easy to have ONE only fee, all inclusive, based on a percentage of the cost.
There is a "drive" to explain all the extra charges, as a guilty feeling has set in.
Not many customers would object if they knew exactly what the cost is without having seen or being presented with a "feel guilty" breakdown. this breakdown gets many peoples back up with a lot of negative thoughts.
it is different if a company "needs" to add and explain a surcharge for whatever reason, like fuel price, or postal increase etc.
But have you ever seen in any circumstance these surcharges reduced when the situation subsided?
One price that has everything like OH and other expenses included (yes, and profits) is best. NO breakdown that gives a reason to question the issue... maybe the right word is trying to justify or, taking advantage of some circumstances "simply because you are in a position where "you can?"
My cell phone is even a FLAT FEE of $45/month for unlimited data/texts/calls/etc....no taxes, access fees, random garbage fees etc. It is all built in. If a cell phone company can do it...or as astrorat explained, if a doctoral program can do it....then you would think PCGS could do it, but I guess not.
Looking for Top Pop Mercury Dime Varieties & High Grade Mercury Dime Toners.
In my opinion, a 'handling fee' is just another word for 'extra revenue'.
Does no good for customer moral.
"“Those who sacrifice liberty for security/safety deserve neither.“(Benjamin Franklin)
"I only golf on days that end in 'Y'" (DE59)
But don't you think that it's more equitable (and more transparent) to charge for the actual "handling" steps that @ricko listed than to try to recoup those costs by burying them in the "shipping" or spreading them out over the grading fee for each coin? The increased grading fee penalizes high volume customers, and the higher shipping might cause complaints like "why does it cost $29 for shipping when I get free shipping from Amazon???"
(Note: I have never submitted coins to PCGS, but I'm annoyed by all the little fees for other services so I figured I'd weigh in)
Successful BST transactions with: Cameonut, Rob41281
I know a fellow collector who submits coins all the time.
He's a little on the cheap side and you should hear him squawk when he's filling out the 'handling fee' section of the form.
I make sure there's no children in the room.
"“Those who sacrifice liberty for security/safety deserve neither.“(Benjamin Franklin)
"I only golf on days that end in 'Y'" (DE59)
I'm not sure the charges are for the "actual handling steps" that were listed.
To be fair to PCGS, they are by no means the only company in our industry that adds a "handling" charge.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
@MFeld.... You are correct.... Many companies charge handling fees...Those expenses are a part of any business. Those of us who have managed corporations understand that structural/functional costs exist and must be covered in some manner. Cheers, RickO
Comparing tuition for a doctoral program to coin submission fees is not apt, in my opinion. In order to bring in the same revenue without a handling fee, PCGS would have to do elaborate calculations regarding how much to increase fees per coin at each service level based on past submission statistics. This would end up penalizing higher volume submitters vs. people who send in a coin or two at a time. As someone in the former group, I prefer the status quo.
Charging multiples of actual shipping costs as "shipping" falls into the same boat.
Some call it being nickled and dimed to death. The world of medicine if famous for that. One of the hospitals I work for divided their surgeries into four broad categories. The price for anything in that tier is a single, fixed price. Patients love it. Some hospitals don't like it because it makes it easier to shop around.
Here's the solution: Have someone else fill out the submission form and just look at the total fee when it shows up on your credit card bill.
This is how you do product costing. Every product has a fully loaded cost attributable to it with activity drivers behind the scenes which shape the cost allocations.
You customer will want to litigate every cost if you give them visibility to it.
Headline: charge a cost based on the value which you provide to the customer. It is the manufacturers job to ensure that the costs of production and managed and below the value charged.
Latin American Collection
Handling fee = plastic box fee.
Reminds me of hotels that charge “resort fees” for use of amenities. How is that not covered in the cost of renting the room? However, my understanding is that resort fees are taxed differently than hotel rental fees, so that explains that one.
I see the handling fee as just another means of generating revenue while being able to advertise lower costs for the base service.
Now there's a handling fee. As soon as you lift a small liquor bottle in the little fridge in your room at the Aria you get a nice little charge for handling.
Now we need to get ATS on board
I would actually opt out of getting a plastic box 9 times out of 10! I have a bunch of extras that I will likely never fill and will just end up taking up space in a land fill. My last order was for 9 coins but I had to put them across 3 different submissions. I am getting 3 plastic boxes! One would have been more than enough. Several of the coins will be sold one by one. I can ship to PCGS all 9 coins in one package for cheap but PCGS has to send them back to me, charging me 3x as much for shipping and with extra plastic boxes/packaging that does the environment no good.
Looking for Top Pop Mercury Dime Varieties & High Grade Mercury Dime Toners.
If you figure that your three submissions traveled different paths and timelines through the grading process, putting the egg back together might take a lot of expensive vault space and be a source of errors.
If they put the shipments back together, anybody wants to bet somebody would be here asking why it takes so long? "I submitted three invoices on January 31st, two of them show completed, but everything is waiting for the last invoice all these months"
It's why Amazon has that "ship my order in fewer boxes" option and then usually ignores it. I ordered six network cables on Saturday, they came in five envelops on three different days.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
There are no delivery companies that transport packages at no cost. When you see "free shipping", you might as well read those words as "we're not going to tell you how much you're being charged for shipping".
Just sayin'.
I always sell my excess boxes on the BST or eBay. No sense sending them to a landfill when someone can always use them. Four of them will fit (with padding) into a long Medium Flat Rate Priority box.
How much can you sell them for...and shipping isn't cheap necessarily so...more info is appreciated. Thanks!
Looking for Top Pop Mercury Dime Varieties & High Grade Mercury Dime Toners.
If they're in excellent shape (typical of boxes for returned submissions), you can get perhaps $10/each. Priority shipping is about $13 (flat rate) for four boxes, slightly less if paid online (via PayPal or USPS) or if the recipient is geographically close (non-flat rate). Honestly, I'd do it even if it were break-even, but then again I'm a well-known tree-hugging Californian "socialist" type.
I've always assumed that the handling fee covered the fixed costs of packaging the coins for return. The plastic box, cardboard box, tape, foam and bubble wrap in some cases. I reuse most of their packaging material in subsequent transactions. Doesn't bother me as much as the $65 crossover fee for errors slabbed by other TPG's.
A lot of people on this thread will argue that those costs should be included in the shipping charges, and perhaps they should be. In the end analysis, the bottom line cost is all I care about. One thing that did set me off was getting some paper money reholdered by PMG and having them bill me additional shipping as a separate charge after the fact. I called them and they said that the return shipping rates printed on the form were estimates. I fought it and was refunded.
This thread I'm sure will go poof. They are in business to make $. They make a margin on all line items. Remember they are also a public company and that recent shakeup with their largest shareholder, running the stock price up to $40, will not make things get cheaper...
https://pcgs.com/setregistry/showcase/2819
I am not sure whether to be surprised that no one from the staff has chimed in...or it goes poof!
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This.
Considering PCGS still charges an annual "membership" fee just for the privilege of giving them your business, why would a handling fee surprise anyone?
Your hobby is supposed to be your therapy, not the reason you need it.
So does Amazon.
Welcome to market realities! Charge what the market will bear.
In before the lock!
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
There are lots of good observations here. It would be a shame to nuke the thread. This is good feedback.
No one is being unkind or excessively critical of PCGS. We all get that PCGS should make a profit and they have fiduciary obligations to shareholders to do just that. We all want continued success for PCGS.
I like simple. I'll bet PCGS does too. Can you imagine all the problems Customer Service has to deal with from screwed up submission forms? No wonder it's hard to get them on the phone or to answer email.
Lance.
PCGS doesn't charge $10 for its boxes.
If you include shipping, they do.