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| | | Author: | woodelf  | | Posted: | Aug 20, 2021 14:39 | | Subject: | is my shipping too expensive? | | Viewed: | 217 times | | Topic: | Shipping | |
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| I'm mostly selling empty boxes, so they're light (though not as light
as you might think) but large (and flat, for the most part).
I've had several people place orders then cancel once I invoice them with
shipping & packaging costs. The first couple times, I figured they're just
mentally underestimating the shipping and don't believe my estimates on my
shipping page (or didn't read them). But a few people have said that they
found the same boxes elsewhere for cheaper shipping, or claim that they have
recently bought similar-sized boxes and the shipping was much lower. So I'm
wondering whether maybe it's not just people having unrealistic expectations,
but maybe I'm missing something?
Context: I'm in the US. I'm mostly using USPS, but will upgrade
to UPS or FedEx if the buyer prefers, and also use UPS when that's cheaper
than USPS (typically for very large boxes shipped to US or Canada). But every
one of the complaints has been about domestic USPS shipping.
Questions/Hypotheses
• Are other sellers not charging anything for their packaging materials, even
for large items or items that need extra protection? (I spell this out clearly
in my terms, and none of the complainers has specifically cited the packaging
fee, only "the shipping"—but they could be lumping the two together.)
• Is there some way to ship large things (bigger than 12"x15" envelope) that's
cheaper than USPS ground rate that I should know about? (I have a suspicion,
based on one person's comment, that there may be sellers shipping empty lego
boxes as Media Mail? I'm not going to abuse the Media Mail rate for that,
because I don't want to contribute to it being eliminated. I've triple-checked
and can't come up with any way to shoehorn a Lego box into the allowed materials
for Media Mail, and so far I haven't gotten any orders from libraries.)
• Or are many sellers shipping at a loss (not on the total order, but on the
shipping)? Or pricing their items a little higher to hide (or reduce) the cost
of shipping by distributing it across the item prices?
• Do most people charge shipping to the penny? I've been mostly working in
round figures: nearest dollar for expensive shipping, maybe nearest 50₵ or 25₵
when the total shipping is under $10. But rounding is more often in the buyer's
favor, anyway. (Lots of the USPS shipping rates for packages are a bit over a
dollar: $7.32, $8.25, $11.10, all of which I've been rounding down. The only
rate I've encountered that I rounded up were $8.95 & $13.90, and given that
I'm not charging anything for my time and not accounting for every square
inch of packaging materials to the penny, that seems perfectly reasonable to
me; nor has anyone complained when they received their package and saw that the
exact postage was 5-10₵ less than I charged. Or said 'thanks' when they
discovered that I charged them $8 and the actual postage was $8.55, for that
matter.)
• Or maybe it's just that nobody wants to spend $15-30 in shipping to get
$5-10 worth of stuff, but they're not willing to tell me "I thought I was
getting a super-awesome deal, but I didn't believe your warnings about high
shipping, and this just isn't worth it to me"? So instead they're pretending
that I'm overcharging? (Certainly, most of the complaints have come when
the shipping exceeded the cost of the goods.)
I'm not trying to make any money on the shipping, just recoup my costs, particularly
for the packaging materials (large sheets of cardboard, or large enough boxes
to chop up, as the case may be, aren't cheap). I'd really rather these
Lego boxes end up in the hands of someone who will love them, rather than shredded
at the recycling center, but I'm not willing to lose money in the process
(make very little? sure—most of these boxes I've listed at $0.10 or less,
but I still have shipping to pay). So if there's something I'm doing
"wrong", or if there's a better shipping option I can offer people, I'd
love to know. I can't control shipping costs, but I'm happy to do what
I can to minimize obstacles to buying these, both because I wouldn't mind
a few bucks, and because I'd rather see them reused than shredded.
Any advice appreciated,
-Nat
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| | | | | Author: | yorbrick | | Posted: | Aug 20, 2021 16:26 | | Subject: | Re: is my shipping too expensive? | | Viewed: | 99 times | | Topic: | Shipping | |
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| In Shipping, woodelf writes:
| | I'm mostly selling empty boxes, so they're light (though not as light
as you might think) but large (and flat, for the most part).
I've had several people place orders then cancel once I invoice them with
shipping & packaging costs. The first couple times, I figured they're just
mentally underestimating the shipping and don't believe my estimates on my
shipping page (or didn't read them). But a few people have said that they
found the same boxes elsewhere for cheaper shipping, or claim that they have
recently bought similar-sized boxes and the shipping was much lower. So I'm
wondering whether maybe it's not just people having unrealistic expectations,
but maybe I'm missing something?
Context: I'm in the US. I'm mostly using USPS, but will upgrade
to UPS or FedEx if the buyer prefers, and also use UPS when that's cheaper
than USPS (typically for very large boxes shipped to US or Canada). But every
one of the complaints has been about domestic USPS shipping.
Questions/Hypotheses
• Are other sellers not charging anything for their packaging materials, even
for large items or items that need extra protection? (I spell this out clearly
in my terms, and none of the complainers has specifically cited the packaging
fee, only "the shipping"—but they could be lumping the two together.)
• Is there some way to ship large things (bigger than 12"x15" envelope) that's
cheaper than USPS ground rate that I should know about? (I have a suspicion,
based on one person's comment, that there may be sellers shipping empty lego
boxes as Media Mail? I'm not going to abuse the Media Mail rate for that,
because I don't want to contribute to it being eliminated. I've triple-checked
and can't come up with any way to shoehorn a Lego box into the allowed materials
for Media Mail, and so far I haven't gotten any orders from libraries.)
• Or are many sellers shipping at a loss (not on the total order, but on the
shipping)? Or pricing their items a little higher to hide (or reduce) the cost
of shipping by distributing it across the item prices?
• Do most people charge shipping to the penny? I've been mostly working in
round figures: nearest dollar for expensive shipping, maybe nearest 50₵ or 25₵
when the total shipping is under $10. But rounding is more often in the buyer's
favor, anyway. (Lots of the USPS shipping rates for packages are a bit over a
dollar: $7.32, $8.25, $11.10, all of which I've been rounding down. The only
rate I've encountered that I rounded up were $8.95 & $13.90, and given that
I'm not charging anything for my time and not accounting for every square
inch of packaging materials to the penny, that seems perfectly reasonable to
me; nor has anyone complained when they received their package and saw that the
exact postage was 5-10₵ less than I charged. Or said 'thanks' when they
discovered that I charged them $8 and the actual postage was $8.55, for that
matter.)
• Or maybe it's just that nobody wants to spend $15-30 in shipping to get
$5-10 worth of stuff, but they're not willing to tell me "I thought I was
getting a super-awesome deal, but I didn't believe your warnings about high
shipping, and this just isn't worth it to me"? So instead they're pretending
that I'm overcharging? (Certainly, most of the complaints have come when
the shipping exceeded the cost of the goods.)
I'm not trying to make any money on the shipping, just recoup my costs, particularly
for the packaging materials (large sheets of cardboard, or large enough boxes
to chop up, as the case may be, aren't cheap). I'd really rather these
Lego boxes end up in the hands of someone who will love them, rather than shredded
at the recycling center, but I'm not willing to lose money in the process
(make very little? sure—most of these boxes I've listed at $0.10 or less,
but I still have shipping to pay). So if there's something I'm doing
"wrong", or if there's a better shipping option I can offer people, I'd
love to know. I can't control shipping costs, but I'm happy to do what
I can to minimize obstacles to buying these, both because I wouldn't mind
a few bucks, and because I'd rather see them reused than shredded.
Any advice appreciated,
-Nat
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I find your terms a bit misleading. You say
Buyer Pays Actual Shipping
But you also say
All shipping charges are actual costs (packaging + shipping).
And go on to say
I'm doing my best to charge actual shipping (rounded to the nearest dollar)
I wouldn't say you charge actual shipping when you charge for packaging too,
and later round it. Saying actual shipping implies just the postage costs but
clearly you are charging more than that. There is nothing wrong with charging
for packaging, but be clear about it.
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| | | | | | | Author: | woodelf | | Posted: | Aug 20, 2021 18:36 | | Subject: | Re: is my shipping too expensive? | | Viewed: | 97 times | | Topic: | Shipping | |
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| In Shipping, yorbrick writes:
| | In Shipping, woodelf writes:
| | I'm mostly selling empty boxes, so they're light (though not as light
as you might think) but large (and flat, for the most part).
I've had several people place orders then cancel once I invoice them with
shipping & packaging costs. The first couple times, I figured they're just
mentally underestimating the shipping and don't believe my estimates on my
shipping page (or didn't read them). But a few people have said that they
found the same boxes elsewhere for cheaper shipping, or claim that they have
recently bought similar-sized boxes and the shipping was much lower. So I'm
wondering whether maybe it's not just people having unrealistic expectations,
but maybe I'm missing something?
Context: I'm in the US. I'm mostly using USPS, but will upgrade
to UPS or FedEx if the buyer prefers, and also use UPS when that's cheaper
than USPS (typically for very large boxes shipped to US or Canada). But every
one of the complaints has been about domestic USPS shipping.
Questions/Hypotheses
• Are other sellers not charging anything for their packaging materials, even
for large items or items that need extra protection? (I spell this out clearly
in my terms, and none of the complainers has specifically cited the packaging
fee, only "the shipping"—but they could be lumping the two together.)
• Is there some way to ship large things (bigger than 12"x15" envelope) that's
cheaper than USPS ground rate that I should know about? (I have a suspicion,
based on one person's comment, that there may be sellers shipping empty lego
boxes as Media Mail? I'm not going to abuse the Media Mail rate for that,
because I don't want to contribute to it being eliminated. I've triple-checked
and can't come up with any way to shoehorn a Lego box into the allowed materials
for Media Mail, and so far I haven't gotten any orders from libraries.)
• Or are many sellers shipping at a loss (not on the total order, but on the
shipping)? Or pricing their items a little higher to hide (or reduce) the cost
of shipping by distributing it across the item prices?
• Do most people charge shipping to the penny? I've been mostly working in
round figures: nearest dollar for expensive shipping, maybe nearest 50₵ or 25₵
when the total shipping is under $10. But rounding is more often in the buyer's
favor, anyway. (Lots of the USPS shipping rates for packages are a bit over a
dollar: $7.32, $8.25, $11.10, all of which I've been rounding down. The only
rate I've encountered that I rounded up were $8.95 & $13.90, and given that
I'm not charging anything for my time and not accounting for every square
inch of packaging materials to the penny, that seems perfectly reasonable to
me; nor has anyone complained when they received their package and saw that the
exact postage was 5-10₵ less than I charged. Or said 'thanks' when they
discovered that I charged them $8 and the actual postage was $8.55, for that
matter.)
• Or maybe it's just that nobody wants to spend $15-30 in shipping to get
$5-10 worth of stuff, but they're not willing to tell me "I thought I was
getting a super-awesome deal, but I didn't believe your warnings about high
shipping, and this just isn't worth it to me"? So instead they're pretending
that I'm overcharging? (Certainly, most of the complaints have come when
the shipping exceeded the cost of the goods.)
I'm not trying to make any money on the shipping, just recoup my costs, particularly
for the packaging materials (large sheets of cardboard, or large enough boxes
to chop up, as the case may be, aren't cheap). I'd really rather these
Lego boxes end up in the hands of someone who will love them, rather than shredded
at the recycling center, but I'm not willing to lose money in the process
(make very little? sure—most of these boxes I've listed at $0.10 or less,
but I still have shipping to pay). So if there's something I'm doing
"wrong", or if there's a better shipping option I can offer people, I'd
love to know. I can't control shipping costs, but I'm happy to do what
I can to minimize obstacles to buying these, both because I wouldn't mind
a few bucks, and because I'd rather see them reused than shredded.
Any advice appreciated,
-Nat
|
I find your terms a bit misleading. You say
Buyer Pays Actual Shipping
But you also say
All shipping charges are actual costs (packaging + shipping).
And go on to say
I'm doing my best to charge actual shipping (rounded to the nearest dollar)
I wouldn't say you charge actual shipping when you charge for packaging too,
and later round it. Saying actual shipping implies just the postage costs but
clearly you are charging more than that. There is nothing wrong with charging
for packaging, but be clear about it.
|
That's helpful. Thanks.
(I guess I thought it was clear that I'm charging my best estimate of the
actual shipping, rather than standardized "price classes" (like "$2/box" or something),
not that I'm charging shipping in contrast to charging shipping+packaging.
But I'll go clean that part up, in case you're not the only one who finds
it contradictory.)
As for rounding slightly: that's just because I don't really have any
way to know the final shipping until I go to the post office. I have a postal
scale and a tape measure, but there's really no good way to know the exact
weight until after I've packaged the boxes, because I'm creating the
packaging to fit (so as to keep both weight and size, and therefore postage,
as low as possible), and if I package them up before someone pays and then
they decide shipping is too much, I've probably wasted the packaging materials,
because the next person is likely to buy a slightly different assortment of boxes.
I've done enough that I have a pretty good idea, but then I'll round
larger packages up to the next half-pound in order to estimate shipping, because
I got burned several times early on with underestimating the weight that proper
packing (so they don't get mangled in transit) adds to the boxes, and for
large packages, the difference between 3#15oz and 4#3oz can be $5-$10.
And I guess I thought I was doing people a favor not worrying about exact change—I
know as a buyer, I'd just as soon round anything that costs more than about
$5 off to the nearest dollar. But I guess it's all digital anyway, so there's
no particular reason I couldn't charge $8.10 instead of $8.
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | negative | | Posted: | Aug 21, 2021 16:55 | | Subject: | Re: is my shipping too expensive? | | Viewed: | 113 times | | Topic: | Shipping | |
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| In Shipping, woodelf writes:
| | As for rounding slightly: that's just because I don't really have any
way to know the final shipping until I go to the post office.
|
There's your problem. Go to Harbor Freight and buy a cheap scale. Use Paypal.com/shipnow
or some other similar service to print postage at home. You get a cheaper rate
and you can just hand the outgoing packages to your carrier instead of driving
to the PO.
Many, if not most sellers do this, so they are able to charge less for shipping.
Thank you
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| | | | | | | | | | | Author: | jbo210 | | Posted: | Aug 21, 2021 20:26 | | Subject: | Re: is my shipping too expensive? | | Viewed: | 96 times | | Topic: | Shipping | |
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| I second what Negative said! I feel this method is the best way to get the cheapest
shipping for your customer.
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| | | | | | | | | | | Author: | woodelf | | Posted: | Sep 28, 2021 00:45 | | Subject: | Re: is my shipping too expensive? | | Viewed: | 77 times | | Topic: | Shipping | |
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| In Shipping, negative writes:
| | In Shipping, woodelf writes:
| | As for rounding slightly: that's just because I don't really have any
way to know the final shipping until I go to the post office.
|
There's your problem. Go to Harbor Freight and buy a cheap scale. Use Paypal.com/shipnow
or some other similar service to print postage at home. You get a cheaper rate
and you can just hand the outgoing packages to your carrier instead of driving
to the PO.
Many, if not most sellers do this, so they are able to charge less for shipping.
Thank you
|
I have a not-at-all-cheap postal scale. It doesn't solve all the problems.
• Efficiently shipping large Lego boxes means custom packaging—there's so
much variance in Lego box sizes, that if I just had some standard sizes pre-made,
I'd be wildly overcharging most people. So while I can generally estimate
the weight, and therefore cost, I would have to cut up the packing cardboard,
actually wrap the boxes to waterproof them, and then weigh, and if the person
doesn't want the boxes then because of the shipping costs, I've potentially
wasted most of those packing materials and a significant amount of time.
• For some larger packages, I think the online price is the same as the retail
price. Specifically, it looks like when the dimensional weight is the determining
factor (i.e., large & awkward packages), there's no discount for buying online.
Which, unfortunately, is most of the packages I've been shipping (anything
that is larger than 15"x12", but less than 4" thick, tends to get upcharged.
It technically depends on the weight, but for empty boxes, the dimensions are
almost always the larger charge than the weight is). And even when it's cheaper,
I'm seeing savings of 5%-10%, which doesn't seem to line up with the
complaints I was getting. That is, $8.06 vs $8.25 doesn't seem like it would
get most people worked up.
Still, thanks for pointing me at that option on PayPal. I knew that buying postage
online was cheaper, but I thought that you couldn't buy ground service for
oversized packages online. All the ways I knew to do that involved paying a subscription
to somewhere (like Stamps.com or similar) or having a commercial account. (You
can look up ground prices at USPS.com, and buy Priority and Express package postage
online, but you can't buy ground package postage at USPS.com, which is why
I was stuck going to the PO.)
-Nat
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | Author: | brac.brick | | Posted: | Sep 28, 2021 06:29 | | Subject: | Re: is my shipping too expensive? | | Viewed: | 53 times | | Topic: | Shipping | |
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Still, thanks for pointing me at that option on PayPal. I knew that buying postage
online was cheaper, but I thought that you couldn't buy ground service for
oversized packages online. All the ways I knew to do that involved paying a subscription
to somewhere (like Stamps.com or similar) or having a commercial account. (You
can look up ground prices at USPS.com, and buy Priority and Express package postage
online, but you can't buy ground package postage at USPS.com, which is why
I was stuck going to the PO.)
-Nat
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Pirateship.com is a free service where you can not only print USPS labels but
you can also see the rate from your zipcode to a buyer's , based on the mail
service you choose. They have the ground rates on the site.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Author: | magicalbricks24 | | Posted: | Sep 28, 2021 06:40 | | Subject: | Re: is my shipping too expensive? | | Viewed: | 55 times | | Topic: | Shipping | |
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| In Shipping, brac.brick writes:
| | | |
Still, thanks for pointing me at that option on PayPal. I knew that buying postage
online was cheaper, but I thought that you couldn't buy ground service for
oversized packages online. All the ways I knew to do that involved paying a subscription
to somewhere (like Stamps.com or similar) or having a commercial account. (You
can look up ground prices at USPS.com, and buy Priority and Express package postage
online, but you can't buy ground package postage at USPS.com, which is why
I was stuck going to the PO.)
-Nat
|
Pirateship.com is a free service where you can not only print USPS labels but
you can also see the rate from your zipcode to a buyer's , based on the mail
service you choose. They have the ground rates on the site.
|
Speaking of Pirateship.com, they are getting a new carrier on the third of October.
If I had to guess, it will be UPS. FedEx doesn’t usually give discounts unless
they are for individual account holders.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Author: | peregrinator | | Posted: | Sep 28, 2021 15:10 | | Subject: | Re: is my shipping too expensive? | | Viewed: | 31 times | | Topic: | Shipping | |
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| In Shipping, magicalbricks24 writes:
| | Speaking of Pirateship.com, they are getting a new carrier on the third of October.
If I had to guess, it will be UPS. FedEx doesn’t usually give discounts unless
they are for individual account holders.
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It could be DHL
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Author: | peregrinator | | Posted: | Oct 2, 2021 09:58 | | Subject: | Re: is my shipping too expensive? | | Viewed: | 42 times | | Topic: | Shipping | |
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| In Shipping, peregrinator writes:
| | In Shipping, magicalbricks24 writes:
| | Speaking of Pirateship.com, they are getting a new carrier on the third of October.
If I had to guess, it will be UPS. FedEx doesn’t usually give discounts unless
they are for individual account holders.
|
It could be DHL
|
You were correct - it is UPS. Probably a good deal if you're sending out
large parcels, but not for the smaller parcels I typically send.
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| | | | | Author: | zorbanj | | Posted: | Aug 20, 2021 20:24 | | Subject: | Re: is my shipping too expensive? | | Viewed: | 90 times | | Topic: | Shipping | |
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| Your competitors are likely using Media Mail. Hard to compete against that unless
you are also willing to use Media Mail.
Best way to find out what other sellers are charging is to find stores with instant
checkout or the ability to get a quote and see what they would charge for the
same or similar boxes that you are selling.
In Shipping, woodelf writes:
| |
• Is there some way to ship large things (bigger than 12"x15" envelope) that's
cheaper than USPS ground rate that I should know about? (I have a suspicion,
based on one person's comment, that there may be sellers shipping empty lego
boxes as Media Mail? I'm not going to abuse the Media Mail rate for that,
because I don't want to contribute to it being eliminated. I've triple-checked
and can't come up with any way to shoehorn a Lego box into the allowed materials
for Media Mail, and so far I haven't gotten any orders from libraries.)
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USA, Minnesota
United Kingdom, England
