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Comment by disposition2 | Hacker News Reader

Great article, thanks for sharing.

Fanatics sports merchandise (t-shirts, etc) is probably the worst quality merchandise I’ve purchased in my life. It’s a good thing they have such a monopoly, because after a few purchases, people would seek out alternatives. I, despite being a pretty avid sports fan, have just stopped buying sports merchandise because it’s almost always Fanatics.

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100% this! The quality at Fanatics has fallen off a cliff the last few years to the point that I won’t ever order anything from there again. They have descriptions of some “performance t-shirt” material that turns out to the be low quality cotton that starts falling alert after a few washes. Advertisements of “Free Shipping” only for them to have $4 added to every order for “handling” (they’re synonymous in the US).

My tip to everyone is to order sports related clothing from Chinese sites like DHGate and AliExpress. The quality is better than Fanatics at 25% the price. “It’s counterfeit” — well sometimes a consumer has to fight back.

Regardless of agreement, shipping and handling are not synonyms.

“Shipping and handling” is a ubiquitous term in U.S. online stores and I’d challenge you to find any site that separates them out like Fanatics does.

They are literally different things and always have been. Whether it’s common to bundle them isn’t really the point.

They're a doublet, like "cease and desist." Separating the two makes about as much sense as paying someone an extra fee to "handle" the goods from the warehouse to the supermarket shelf.

Hopefully if something is done about this, they'll make the policy Fanatics currently holds both null AND void

It’s 100% the point. It’s such a common and accepted thing here that most sites just have “S & H” during the check out process. To advertise free shipping in the US implies the S&H is free. To suddenly spring a “handling” fee at the last step is deceitful and no different than airlines or hotels advertising a price and then adding a “resort fee” on the last step. And if you think differently, then why do they hide the handling fee until the very last step?

Sure, I think at some historical point, and by dictionary definition, they are not.

In practical terms in north america, I've never seen them separate, and I buy online A LOT. So if they're not synonyms (and I agree with that pedantry:), they are functionally equivalent for most people's most practical purposes. They're just a phrase that goes together.

Ultimately, if a retailer advertises "FREE SHIPPING", and I find that I need to pay some additional fee beyond item's advertised price, to get the item to arrive to me, I will feel I've been deceived, whether they call that charge shipping, or handling, or gnorf.

Admittedly if they advertised "FREE GNORF" I'd at least be intrigued

They offer free fnords all the time but people never take them up on the offer for some reason.

They include them in the box; it's just no one ever sees them through all the packing material.

Regardless of semantics, a bait-and-switch is a bait-and-switch.

Reminds me of the old Vistaprint model of “Free business cards, just pay shipping.”

It was so cheap to print the cards (and relatively cheap to ship slowly) that Vistaprint still made money on the “free” cards.

> The quality at Fanatics has fallen off a cliff the last few years

And yet our courts are still under the sway of the Chicago school of thought that says monopolies are _good_ for consumers, because it drives prices down and normalizes a market.

Yet.. I've never seen that come to fruition, in any circumstance, ever.

While I haven't found anything similar for professional sports, Homefield[1] is great for college gear. If your school isn't offered, they add new schools like every week. Less of a selection, I guess, but not only is the quality of Fanatics bad, their gear is also very cookie cutter. All of Homefield's apparel is unique to the school.

I feel like I have to go to the store for anything worthwhile in professional sports now, and even B&M will often just have a bunch of Fanatics junk.

[1] https://www.homefieldapparel.com/

They even make the replica jerseys for the NHL, which has absolutely cratered the quality... and will be making the authentic jerseys too starting next year.

I'm sick of the trend of manufacturing companies being replaced by e-commerce companies who see manufacturing as an obstacle to distribution rather than a goal in itself. The quality is always worse because they don't care about the quality, only the logistics.

Demonstrating that enshittification isn't a phenomenon exclusive to tech companies.

I don't understand how Fanatics is still in business. I've heard good things about Fanatics products literally never. I still remember the Overwatch League merch where they shipped people black jerseys with black lettering. When people complained, since it was white lettering on black material in the photo, they were told they only printed black letters and it couldn't be changed. Wild.

Rubin is good at schmoozing with big name athletes and power players in the sports world. If you can do that long enough to get some exclusivity agreements, then you're golden because no one else can make the "official" merchandise of NBA or whatever

Exactly this.

Ebbets Field Flannels is basically the only sports merchandise I buy these days but since they were bought by Lids last year, Fanatics now has a partial stake in them too. Thankfully I haven't noticed any change in product quality, but its only a matter of time.

My goto these days is:

- homage.com

- whereimfrom.com

- neweracap.com

- 47brand.com

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