You should not be charged for the shipping of a book from LQS.

I used to own a bricks and mortar quilt shop. I never charged shipping on books, patterns or notions. In fact I usually charged less than the MSRP. Fabric is a different story. Fabric shipping is so expensive that I worked shipping charges into the price per yard, which is standard operating procedures.

Never heard of such a thing !
I used to work and teach at 2 LQS a few yrs back, the only things we charged a customer SH for were special orders ... We gave a DISCOUNT on fabrics, sometimes on the book or pattern when you took a class !
Sounds like this shop needs to learn about customer appreciation !

I agree, shops don't pay shipping on books. The price of the book is in the ISBN code on the back and that is all you should pay, plus the appropriate sales tax (if your state has sales tax). I wouldn't take classes there any longer.

I've only taken one class at a LQS. I did get something taken off the fabric I bought but don't remember how much. That was 3 years ago and "I've slept since then".

That is not right .. to pay full retail plus shipping!!??!!! That would be the last class I took at that shop. I would also tell the owner why.

If you walked into the store & purchased the book, would they add the shipping charges to the price on the book? Probably not. I agree with others, rip off! I would certainly express my unhappiness with this policy to the management and make it clear to them that not only would you not be interested in future classes, but you would spread the word to friends & contacts about the unrealistic policy. That is just greedy.

Never have I been charged a shipping fee in several LQS that I shop at. I can't believe a quilt shop would charge a customer for a ship fee. !

I would also like to make the point that a good business person would have got a bulk supply rate from their wholesaler (which one hopes would be passed on to the customer after a reasonable markup) and would have thought twice about being seen to be gouging customers. The book price, even inflated, would have been better off buried in the class fee! Unbelievable. This sort of thing is how brick and mortar stores drive themselves out of business.

Speaking of which, a relatively new quilt store locally was very bright in realizing stocking all the colours of the Kona Cottons would be a good marketing tool, and would really draw in the younger and art quilters. But recently I popped in with a solids shopping list and they were out of several of the colours I needed. Hmmm. Bad enough they are not managing the reorders in a pre-emptive fashion (you can't sell what is not on the shelf), they just left it at that..."we are out". They should have said "I am so sorry you came in and we were out of stock, let me order those colours in right away and I will give you a call when they are here, they should be in next week!". As it was I decided to order online instead.

My LQS never charges for that and gives a 20% discount on any fabric, etc. required for the class! I love my LQS : )