There are some things to look out for when dealing with online vendors!
My search for the microwave/convection oven/air fryer that will fit the 20" x 13" cabinet hole in our camper continues. I found a "Furrion" microwave that might fit, but it was over $400. A site called "nomadicsupply.com" had it for $299 and the mounting bracket for another $32. More than I wanted to pay, but the best price I could find.
Their prices were slightly higher than those listed on the Furrion website, but sadly, it appears that consumers cannot order directly from the manufacturer. The first thing that made me cautious about using these folks was this mandatory ToS that you had to agree to:
Nomadic Supply Company is in business to protect our planet by directly funding donations to conservation nonprofits. Our dedicated & hardworking employees enable us to further this mission, so we do not allow anyone to compromise the wellness of our staff with entitled behavior, bullying, or mistreatment. If you wish to be a customer & a part of our community, you agree to be kind, compassionate, & patient with the staff at Nomadic Supply Company & our partner brands. Anyone who isn't capable of being kind & compassionate should simply shop elsewhere. Checking this box is a legally binding agreement indicating that I have read & that I agree to the terms and conditions, the Code of Ethics, the Order Cancellation Policy, & the Return Policy, & I consent to receive both email & SMS order updates.
I doubt any of that is enforceable, quite frankly. But it says volumes about the people running the company and they way they view their customers. It also implies they have a lot of angry customers, too.
The next thing that I noticed was "Route" rearing its ugly head - wanting $9.99 for "shipping protection" which you have to uncheck. Never do business with anyone who slaps "route" on your purchase.
The default payment method is ACH debit, which requires you to cough up your bank routing and account numbers. Might as well give them your Social Security number and Mother's maiden name while you are at it! It also means that, if there is some dispute about the product, you cannot dispute the purchase with your bank (chargeback). If you do use a credit card, they charge a 2.9% fee with "Stripe" to process the card (something that used to be against the ToS of the credit card companies!).
But wait, there's more. If you pay by credit card, your order may be "flagged" for fraud:
If you choose to pay via credit card, Stripe Payments will charge you a non-refundable 2.9% transaction fee. You can avoid the transaction fee by paying via ACH Bank Transfer (eCheck). If you choose to pay by any method other than ACH (eCheck) Bank-to-Bank Transfer your order may be held for review and you may be required to complete a credit card authorization form to prevent fraud.
What does this mean? I suspect it is an attempt to foil charge-backs from angry customers who never received their goods or received the wrong item or damaged goods. When we look online to scam reporting sites, we start to understand why. The BBB (ordinarily worthless) reports several people complaining about damaged or never-received goods as well as problems contacting the company. Tellingly, Nomadic Supply did not bother to answer any of the complaints. If a company doesn't have their phone number and other contact information readily available on their site, walk away.
After seeing all that, I decided not to do business with them. Maybe prices may be higher elsewhere, but internet commerce is based entirely on trust. And it is clear that "nomadic supply" has some trust issues - going both ways.
Why not just buy a regular microwave/air fryer/convection oven and then shove it in the hole? Well, a cabinet-mounted microwave needs to be vented and this means a duct leading out the front through the faceplate. The faceplate, in turn, keeps the microwave from falling out of the cabinet as you go down the road. If not vented, the heat from the convection oven or air fryer (same thing, really) will burn down the camper.
Why not just buy from Amazon? Good question. As these are a niche product, Amazon doesn't carry a large selection - not one small enough to fit through a 20"x13" hole, anyway. But we'll keep looking!
Time was, you could buy from small companies like this and get better prices and good service. An individual could set up a quick e-commerce site on eBay and sell product. Today, it is all about arbitrage or drop-shipping. Just put up a website (or eBay store) offering other people's products for 10% more than what they are selling for elsewhere. Use SEO to make sure your listing appears first, and then just drop-ship to the buyer.
Problem with the arbitrage model is customer service, which is messy and time-consuming. The people selling to drop-shippers are probably happy to foist this burden onto these arbitragers. The drop-shippers are just Mom&Pop operations (often just Mom OR Pop) and get overwhelmed with customer requests. If you read between the lines of the text quoted above from the Nomadic Supply site, well, it tells a story. They even admit, on their "contact" page that they are overwhelmed with e-mails on a daily basis.
You hire more people to deal with customers and you lose your profit margin. This is why arbitrage simply doesn't work. Retail is a tough business of razor-thin margins. Mark-ups might be good, but overhead swallows up those "profits" before they are even earned.
Maybe some folks shouldn't be in business. Arbitrage sounds like an effortless way to make money, but the reality is, being a merchant is a cut-throat business and takes a lot more time and energy than the "make money online through arbitrage!" promotions imply.
In fact, like anything else, the real money isn't in doing the thing, but in selling seminars and kits instructing others how to do the thing.
