"Reducing my shipping costs" Topic
21 Posts
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CorSecEng | 20 Jan 2012 7:43 p.m. PST |
I've been trying to figure out how to get our shipping costs down. We are based in the US and charge $5.25 USD for anything in the US. Internationally we charge $13.95 USD. This is priority mail flat rate. I have occasionally used first class to ship internationally but I'm not sure if that is very reliable. Does anyone else have problems with first class internationally? Best place to get padded envelopes? I'd like to to say $5 USD flat for US and Internationally. I just can't justify the numbers. Most of my packages range from 2 oz to 11 oz. Every once in a while I get some crazy order that is 2 or 3 pounds. After you add in the $1 USD or so for the envelope I just can't see breaking even. I'm going to experiment with having paypal calculate the orders based on weight. That might help. Add the cost of the envelop and then give them the option of flat rate or first class. US customer are going to stay flat rate. I've just had too many people complain about high shipping because they want to by $4.00 USD worth of Omni-Rulers and don't want to pay $13.95 USD in shipping. US sales are good and I get some international orders but if I hope that will increase if I fix the shipping problem. I'd like to hear how other US based companies do things. Jonathan Bowen CorSec Engineering corseceng.com |
Ironwolf | 20 Jan 2012 8:44 p.m. PST |
I have some friends in europe and canada. When I ship to them I just ask the Post Office for international postage for that country. So far I've had no problems with this. Only time I've used Priority Shipping is when the weight of the package would make international postage to expensive. So I'd use the flat rate priority shipping. Hope that helps? |
Richard Brooks | 20 Jan 2012 9:41 p.m. PST |
We have the same problem and approached it as you did. We shipped everything priority, but international customers complained, and I can't blame them. So now we offer a first class rate for international orders and refund the extra postage paid depending on the size of the order. But some orders just will not go in a padded envelope, those orders can go in small boxes up to about 1 1/2 pounds for less than priority rate (which increases on Sunday especially on international orders where small boxes up to 4 pounds go to $16.95 USD). Richard Recreational Conflict |
Micropanzer | 20 Jan 2012 10:20 p.m. PST |
I run micropanzer wargame studio been charging US 3$ and international 5$ -- I have to raise pries to flat rate box price as I am eating too much on shipping on over half the orders. like you same weight range – I try to find bubble envelopes on sale and buy bulk Boxes to save a bit but still looking at .65. I am considering a 30$ min on international order as one of my all metal vehicles has a shipping cost of 4.50 to UK and any package over 8 OZ is actually cheaper to ship in flat rate box -- I had to ship 2 flat rate boxes to Australia to same customer as a non flat rate box that would hold everything was 36.00 next size priority box was 45.00 so 2 small flat rate boxes was 26.00. For awhile I charged flat rate fees refunded any amount rounded down back to customer if I could ship cheaper ( 1st class parcel post ext) -- That was a hassle and I probably forgot to do some. Way I look at it shipping replaces paying Tax most the time it is more than the tax rate but at least it is not on top of -- I always mark my packages as gift or commercial samples and claim value at more of a cost value to me not retail value. There is not a good way any more to send large light weight packages. First class is Ok at best -- has taken up to a month to get to customers and if shipping to Poland forget it -- Send priority or you will send 2-3 packages. I lose more packages to Canada than to Australia -- I never insure and lost only 1 package of value – Customers need to ask and realize this cost is on them -- I have replaced all missing packages. If I could find a reliable UK guy to ship a large flat rate box to and give them a % of sales to handle UK Europe orders on a consignment type basis so they did not have to pay upfront for product I would. I am still learning not sure what I am going to do -- Orders average 20-30 in the states and 10-20 international I don't want to do a min order for international but might have to. Jason |
sillypoint | 20 Jan 2012 10:47 p.m. PST |
Good luck on your research, it is reassuring to see companies taking the time and making effort to find a better result for their customers. It is appreciated, I am a goldfish when it comes to spending my money on this hobby, one of the factors in my choice is the proportional amount paid to postage. |
DuckanCover | 20 Jan 2012 11:10 p.m. PST |
From a long time buyer of goodies in Australia. If the product is worth me having, I pay for shipping that's appropriate to the value of the goods. Seriously. In over thirty years of snail mail and online retail purchasing from overseas, I've irretrievably lost TWO packages. Both were over two decades ago. Low dollar value (books/rules under USD20, small handful of dice) I'm happy to have go via First Class (US), or Small Packet (UK). Most of hundreds of Peter Pig miniatures (in over five years of buying)have gotten to me via Small Packet, entirely without incident. First Class has done well for many from Khurasan and Rebel. Over a certain value, and Martin chooses to use Airsure, and I agree with his doing so. As the dollar value of the goods climbs, I understand the need for speed and security. Flat Rate Priority has done well for most of my miniatures rules (ask Ed at THW)- sturdy mailers and, usually, less than two weeks. Hardbounds, more than two or three Ospreys, and anything electronic, goes higher value Priority or Express Mail. Period. The tracking and insurance give comfort while you wait, often less than a week, usually just over. I'm definitely NOT saying the circumstances in Oz warrant the precaution, but it demonstrates to the seller too, that you're serious about your stuff. And everybody's covered
.. Everything I get from Litko comes via Express Mail (their choice), and I've no problem with that either. I have regularly paid more for shipping than the cost of the goods being shipped. Having placed the order to begin with, I want it all to arrive safely, and in a timely fashion. With the exchange rate being what it is for the Aussie Dollar against US and UK coin right now, no one down here really has any reason to beef about shipping costs. Niche marketing and special interest retailing issues in Australia aside, much of what I order simply isn't available here anyway, so the concept of "total cost" falls kind of into the realm of "rubbery figures", since there is no local source to compare with. If people think the damn shipping is expensive, just imagine what hopping on a plane, and going to get it yourself, would cost
A handful of items come to me via FedEx, DHL, and UPS. The cost often compares favorably with USPS Express Mail and, well, see my recent kudos for Gamestation/FedEx
three days from order to Oz! Buyers have to realize that, for the most part, sellers using a country's Postal system do not set the rates
The question really just comes down to how much they actually value the goods they paid for, and how fast they want them in their hands. I think most of the retailers represented on this board are trying their damnedest to do the right thing with shipping costs. That's my experience. Sorry, this became a rant. But I think buyers of goods from overseas sometimes need a reality check. I've had similar discussions with sellers on eBay as well. I can't see the issue, from a buyer's point of view, with shipping costs. Fatigued Duck |
bsrlee | 20 Jan 2012 11:13 p.m. PST |
Let the customer pick the shipping option & pay for it. a) Some postal systems are less reliable than others, so trackable and/or sign for delivery is the only way to make sure you get your goods. Someone in the US Post seems to think Australia is a small landlocked country in Europe, and about 25% of my parcels not sent priority come a couple of months late & with stickers from a European holiday. b) Some customers may want their goodies in a week or so, others may be happy to wait a month or so – give the customer the choice of paying the extra for quicker delivery. |
DuckanCover | 20 Jan 2012 11:21 p.m. PST |
Oh, and in case it didn't come through in my babbling above- if the buyer won't pay for insurance, then it's damn well on them. Full stop, the end. If the Postal service in the seller's country doesn't offer it, a buyer would do well to ask themselves "why not"? If the seller won't come to the party with an insured shipping option, see previous
. As I said above, reality check. Duck |
DuckanCover | 20 Jan 2012 11:35 p.m. PST |
"Someone in the US Post seems to think Australia is a small landlocked country in Europe
." Amazing what skipping over two letters when you're reading a name can lead to. Duck |
vexillia | 21 Jan 2012 3:24 a.m. PST |
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GarrisonMiniatures | 21 Jan 2012 3:38 a.m. PST |
I do a straight percentage with a minimum postage value. On balance, most orders I lose out on, especially cavalry. To help counteract that, I've actually buit a coiuple of pence into the price of cavalry figures. As far as deliveries go, I don't think I've had more than a couple of orders ever go astray to GB, US, Canada or Australia, but Continental Europe is a different matter. In fact, when we reopen in March I'm seriously considering postal options to Europe. |
korsun0 | 21 Jan 2012 5:26 a.m. PST |
There was a discussion on this on the sponsors forum and in a nutshell graduated shipping for bands depending on weight or value seemed to be the prevalent option. US flat rate shipping is something I really wish we had in Australia; our postage costs average around 69% of order value across all orders (80% of stuff goes o/s) and we only charge a max of around 25% of value. I think it is one of those things that is really going to hurt more and more unfortunately, unless you have the sales volume to have low postage charges. cheers jon. |
Samulus | 21 Jan 2012 5:48 a.m. PST |
Just as a note to CorSecEng, I was going to purchase some of your omni stands – they're great – but the postage did put me off (as it often does with US companies unless I'm ordering a large amount of stuff). So thanks for addressing this! |
CorSecEng | 21 Jan 2012 8:47 a.m. PST |
I don't have solid numbers in front of my by I usually ship 2-5 packages a day. Tentatively, I'd say at least 1/3 of those are international. This is actually down because of the release of the Omni-Ruler. It was closer to 50% before that. The Omni-Ruler is interesting because the most people spend is around $5. USD 8"-10" rulers are average with the occasional group buy of like 10 sets of 8" rulers. My hope is that I can increase sales by reducing my shipping costs. I can't really do much distribution right now. We are setup with the right margins but we are struggling to keep up as it is. If I could afford to I'd shut down for about a month and build machines to make all this stuff. I've only ever lost 1 package and that was to the UK. I did learn a valuable lesson about flat rate envelops. The normal ones are machine sorted and break open easy. I had a bunch of Omni-Ruler orders that had to have replacements sent out. Now if I could just get the USPS to send me more then 15 padded envelops at a time
I burn through those in 3 or 4 days. I'll start experimenting with having paypal calculate the weight for international orders and offer that as an option. The big problem is the acrylic planet kits. They weigh nothing but take up massive volume. My next major project is going to much like the Omni-Rulers in size/weight vs cost. So I'll try to implement it before they release. |
Miniatureships | 21 Jan 2012 8:53 a.m. PST |
I believe with all shipping cost there needs to be the realization that all postal and shipping options are charging more. It is getting expensive to have stuff shipped. The with rising cost the shipper is left between a rock and hard place. One to keep shipping cost low, they may have to rise the price the product. Or, due to issues with web pages and the shipper not eating the cost of shipping, customers may have to notify the shipper of what they want and then wait for the shipper to respond with an actual cost of shipping the item. The later allows the shipper to keep their cost down on their product, and the customer only pays what it cost to send the item. Also, it should be noted that most customers don't consider all what goes into the cost of shipping. It is not just the postage, as pointed out here, it is also the packaging. Yes, the USPS offers free flat rate boxes, but they don't offer padded envelopes, tape, and packing material. |
GarrisonMiniatures | 21 Jan 2012 1:09 p.m. PST |
Some UK postal rates are liable to be going up by 50%! link |
CorSecEng | 21 Jan 2012 5:31 p.m. PST |
USPS is going up tomorrow. Expect that the next time you ship. Flat rate small boxes $5.35 USD and padded envelopes are $5.30 USD. I hope they keep the normal discount for online orders but I'm not sure. I can't confirm it but I think the international flat rate padded envelopes is increasing to $16.95 USD. We will adjust when we have firm numbers tomorrow. As long as paypal doesn't increase what they charge me then I'm fine. I will note we were using stamps.com and they started gorging customers early. Their software tried to charge me $16.95 USD earlier then it should have. We planned to drop the service anyway. I guess this is the best time to try and change things over. I just wish had had more funds to buy bulk envelopes. |
Forager | 22 Jan 2012 7:52 p.m. PST |
I checked on the USPS rate calculator site ( postcalc.usps.gov/) using NYC to Alaska for domestic and US to Australia for International for my examples. For domestic up to 13 oz, first class is cheapest and only takes 1 day more than priority mail (USPS estimate). Above 13 oz, First class is not available and Priority flat rate small box is cheapest alternative. For International, First Class Int'l Parcel is cheapest up to 1 lb 12 oz (to Australia anyway). Above that, Flat Rate Priority Int'l (small box) is cheaper. For small boxes, google "trading card storage boxes". I found one site ( bagsunlimited.com ) that had small boxes (roughly 3x3x3) for less than $.50 USD each for 25 count up to about $ .28 each for a 250 count. Hope this helps with your decision. Craig |
MelEbbles | 22 Jan 2012 9:16 p.m. PST |
Ah, I had some experience with this back in late 2010/early 2011. International shipping via USPS comes in 3 flavors: fast and expensive, cheap and slow, or Random Crapshoot. Fast and expensive is generally Priority Mail. Each time I used that, stuff got there in 2 weeks or less, but damn if it don't cost an arm and a leg. Slow and cheap is normally the case with First Class Mail International. Transit times of 3-4 weeks, sometimes longer, weren't uncommon. Canada, Italy, and some South American countries were notoriously bad destinations for my FCMI parcels in terms of transit time. Some countries, especially in mainland Europe, were a random crapshoot. I've had a few cheap FCMI parcels show up a week after dispatch while one expensive PMI parcel sat in customs for 4 weeks once, all to the same country. I've only had one misdelivered order, I think, and that was a domestic shipment with a bad address. Customs and other fees also tend to freak out international customers, so it's important to make sure they realize there's a possibility of it happening before they make any orders. Going with a service like Endicia is a boon for international orders compared to taking it to the post office. Customs paperwork built right into the label, you qualify for Commercial Base or Commercial Plus discounted pricing, both of which also give you awesome options like using the Regional Rate boxes instead of the flat rate boxes for domestic orders. Not taking advantage of those is leaving a lot of money on the table, especially for orders going to Zones 1-4. I also like the easily scheduled carrier pickup (with the rates the USPS are charging, damn skippy I'm gonna have THEM spend the time and gas to collect the small mountain of parcels by my front door.) One of the biggest things I learned during that experience was that packaging weight matters. I had 2 box vendors, both of which had similarly sized boxes--the boxes from one vendor weighed twice as much as the boxes from the other, and you'd be surprised at how much difference an extra 4-5 ounces tacks onto postage, especially for Priority Mail shipments. A few ounces could mean the difference between shipping a 2lb parcel and a 3lb parcel. This is one reason I was thankful for being able to use Regional Rate boxes. Use the lightest possible packaging you can get away with while still adequately protecting the contents. Bubble mailers worked great for DVDs and non-fragile tool items--they weigh next to nothing and offer good protection. Anything over 13 ounces, try and fit it into a small flat rate box. If you can't do that, take a few minutes to compare regional and flat rates before picking a box, especially for orders heavier than 2lb. Also, it sucks to sell things that are both heavy and cheap, like reams of paper. At 7-8 pounds for a ream of cardstock, you're in flat rate territory *and* paying more for the shipping than you did for the paper. It's better to sell lightweight items that have high margins--shipping costs go down and high margins give you more room to play with discounting shipping rates, which is good because customers are pretty price-sensitive when it comes to shipping. I avoided Parcel Post and the other slower methods like the plague, as those are basically shoveled into containers that don't leave until they're full, so there's an element of random chance where the transit times are concerned. First Class and Priority Mail shipments leave quicker, and you don't really start seeing any massive savings until you're shipping bricks, lead ingots, or entire sets of encyclopedias anyway. It's suppertime, so that concludes my little contribution to this conversation for now. |
mrshasslefree | 20 Feb 2012 1:17 p.m. PST |
we have had this issue for many years. we used to charge a flat rate based on value of the order but to keep costs down we didnt factor in any staff costs for packing the order or the cost for the packaging materials. we ran at a loss on shipping charges alone for over 5 years as we didnt want to price ourselves out of the market. now everything on the website is weighed and we have three shipping matrices built into the cart. One for UK, one for EU and one for Non-Eu countries. Once the customer selects their destination country the website automatically gives them a choice of regular post, 'signed for' or a courier and they then pick their shipping option based on what they want to spend. I cant say that it has got shipping costs down per se but it has taken out of the loop the customer who says "thats extortionate shipping i am not paying that" because everything is transparent and they are welcome to compare the price charged for the weight of their parcel at the Royal Mail website. What never ceases to amaze me is the amount of people who grumble at what small miniatures companies charge for shipping just to cover cost but dont even quibble at the flat rate charged by some of the larger companies who buy all of their packaging in bulk for a quarter of what we pay AND get a preferential rate for shipping based on the volume of parcels they shift. |
CorSecEng | 26 Feb 2012 2:03 p.m. PST |
I just got an add for a PitneyBowes Postage meter. I'm considering this a better over something like Endicia. Stamps.com was a waste for me. All our orders are processed through paypal and I have yet to find anyone who imports directly from paypal without problems. I think most of those issues are with paypal. The postage meter weights the product and prints a small label to attach to the label. I'll have to continue to use the USPS shipping assistant to create the labels but then the meter can give me to postage. I'm on the fence. It costs $19.99 USD a month but they are giving me $20 USD a month in free shipping for 2 years. I'll have to see what the labels and ink cost is. Alternatively, you can just stick stamps on the shipping assistant labels. You have to go buy a bunch of weird stamp values in order to get the postage right. Here is the deal for the meter pbmeter.com/meteroffer |
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