Short rant -
My parents 40th wedding anniversary is coming up and my siblings and I thought we'd send them something to celebrate. We're all frugal and they don't expect anything, so its just a nice gesture. Seeing as we couldn't envision them enjoying flowers/ fruit baskets/ balloons, we looked up a local bakery and thought we'd send them some mini pies since its their favorite treat. The bakery does a nice little 4-mini pie combo box (since being married 40 years means you can't agree on flavors) and the bakery said they would look into shipping them to my parents house approximately 30 miles away from the bakery.
The owner got back to me and said it would be $100 delivery + the cost of the pies ($22ish). I emailed her back and said, $100?! Really? She then said that was utilizing FedEx. Um, ok, I checked FedEx myself and it says I could ship my parents 150 POUNDS OF PIES, OVERNIGHT SUPER PRIORITY, for something closer to $30. If you want to add in a little for staff time/effort, sure... but a $70 mark up on 4 mini pies??!!! That's like $33 a pie after tax! $8.25 a bite! Happy Anniversary!
I ordered a personalized anniversary xmas ornament for them instead.