Mike,

I have not followed through with many orders/wants of differing goods on the net BECAUSE the sites didn't or wouldn't give shipping costs. Some of them wanted your CC numbers BEFORE you can even see the shipping costs, by then its a done deal. I just dont buy from those!

DR

Duane, I feel the same way as you.!! Since all of the vendors that I do business with state their shipping costs, I just assumed they all did until this thread got me checking yesterday. I definately wouldn't deal with a company that kept the shipping charges from me until AFTER I ordered I have NEVER run across this before.

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2007 11:08AM by Mike Barkley.

So if I'm reading this correctly, you guys would rather we put up a chart that covers everything "safely" (going back to my earlier post about the $20 top VS the $20 blank) than wait till your stuff can hit the scale to charge you the actual postage?? I'll tell you what, that would make our lives a lot easier and get stuff out the door faster, but the chance of a $6 charge for 85 cents worth of postage to YOU greatly increases.

As we say right on our shipping page, we're happy to give you the shipping price in advance and doing it the way we do makes me feel good that we're treating people right, however the way I'm reading this thread, it doesn't sound like that works for YOU. Is that correct?

Mark Griffin
[]
C&M Custom Tackle
San Dimas, California

Mark,
Maybe I didn't say it right. You explain in a very detailed way about shipping on your web site. That's great as far as I'm concerned. I do think that those who have set fees based on price/handling (I don't think there is anything wrong with that) should clearly state those charges BEFORE order is placed. I will pay a shipping/handling fee but I expect to know AHEAD of time, not when I get my credit card bill.
I can honestly say that I have NEVER had a bad experience yet with a vendor/sponsor yet but I do wonder why some of them don't even mention shipping on their sites. I would not have believed it if I hadn't checked into it because of this thread.

How's it going in Woodland?????

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

Mark,

You were not part of concideration in my above post AT ALL. I was actualy speaking about goods other than rod building, as most of my expierances with RB supplies and shipping charges have been good ones. Any company that just states that they charge ACTUAL shipping on their site is flat wonderful! I dont need to know what the exact amount is IF you're using actual shipping. I believe you are one of the FEW that charge actual shipping, and I concider that a perfect practice! Dont change a THING, even if it is a PIA for you and your staff.

DR

Sorry if this double posts. I typed & it didn't take...


Thank you guys for clearing that up. i wonder about that all the time. Those who know us are generally tickled by our shipping policy/prices, but i always wonder in the back of my mind if people who DON'T know us resist buying because we don't post a rate/fee chart. It's a tough call, believe me. Most of our new business comes from word of mouth and I have to leave it up to new customers to trust us that first time around to see for themselves.

Woodland was great Mike. What a great group. Lamiglass is an awesome facility and staff. Mike and I made it through our "unscripted" seminar w/o a hitch. I just wish i had planned to stay longer. We're sitting in the airport while most of the others are out fishing :( There's some gorgeous water up here that i gotta try!

Mark Griffin
[]
C&M Custom Tackle
San Dimas, California

After living in different spots in the world, and a long time amazon and @#$%& user, shipping charges are a natural consideration for me.

Sometimes a very low price is claimed, only to be made up for by stupidly high shipping. It seems very common on @#$%&, as the sellers wish to evade @#$%& costs. You also can dupe people into buying from you because they think they are going to save a decent chunk of change. Either hints of dishonesty. The worst are the places who don't tell you about high shipping costs until AFTER you have commited or been charged. Some of that on @#$%& and online industrial/business supply.

Minimum shipping charges make sense tho, if within reason. You are paying for someone to deal with you, invoice, charge, pull stock, pack, wrap, and ship. Time is money when you are running a business.

In the end you have a choice. Best to make sure it is an informed choice up front. And if you feel rightly slighted, you are still left with the choice to never deal with that party again. Since rarely is there only a single place to get something, that is always the final option.

After reading (scanning for the most part) this thread I have two things to say.

1) With the vendors I have wholesale accounts with I NEVER know what my shipping charges will be until I receive the invoice attached to my ordered products. Like Mark points out...I don't want to pay $6 for something that only cost $0.85 to ship! PLEASE weigh my parcels and charge me what is needed...I'll gladly pay, but don't like to be overcharged by using some sort of "if your oder is between $20-$50, your shipping charges will be......" chart.

2) The talk of deceptive pricing by telling customers what parts cost. People should be SHOT that tell customers you paid $100 for parts when you really only paid $60...BUT this isn't my point. My point is this...if you routinely tell customers what your materials cost, you could be considered DUMB and not deceptive (just my opinion of course!). As far as customers go, it is NO ONE'S business what my material costs are. The only number they need to be concerned with is the total they write on their check when they pick up their shiney new fishing rod. I'm in the restaurant business and sometimes hear a customer complain about pricing. Many times they compare what they pay me with what they might pay for similar ingredients at the grocery store. TRUE they can buy their own food MUCH cheaper at the supermarket, but they don't seem to understand WE did their shopping for them, WE put the groceries away when they came in so they didn't have to, WE did the research/recipe trial & error so their meal would be perfect, WE paid a team of people to create their meal for them, WE had people at their beckncall while they waited for and during their meal, WE even cleaned up after their sloppy butts, and WE washed their dirty dishes for them. NOW!!! What was it they said about being able to buy thier chicken cheaper at Wal-Mart?

Jay



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2007 11:20AM by Jay Lancaster.

I nearly started a thread on this very subject a few days ago myself.

I too am frustrated by shipping charges by some rod building vendors. As one who has had his own business and understands the additional costs of shipping over and above the postage rate, I am STILL frustrated by rod building vendors. What is most frustrating to me is the common policy of shipping charges being tied to the dollar amount of the sale. What the heck does the cost of the order have to do with weight?! Certainly there can sometime be a correlation because more stuff can equal more expense can equal more weight can equal more postage. But that is by no means a given. Even more, the cost of postage seems to increase ridiculously quickly with increased order amount with many vendors. Surely a $25 order is not $2 less to ship than a $26 order.

The only thing more frustrating than the rapidly increasing postage tied to order cost is an insanely high flat fee. $12 no matter what you order? Why? I suspect it is because the company is trying t o say we don't want to fill small orders.

The root of all this frustration for me is that rod building is the only arena in which I make purchases where I need to watch for outrageous shipping (other than @#$%&). I order lots of stuff online, and rod building is unique in its relatively common extreme shipping charges.

FWIW, this issue is probably most felt by those of us in smaller town. With no local source for rod buidling supplies I must mail order EVERYTHING. As such, when I need a new thread color or I lose my thread burnishing tool, I have to either pay $7 to ship a $5 order, or wait until I build up enough needs to order enough to justifiy the shipping cost. Even then though, it is hard to justify because when I want to go ahead and order $60 worth of stuff, shipping pops up at $10.)

Tyler

P.S. I'm currently in need of a particular item that is in the $30 range. I have checked all the sponsors of this site that I am aware carry the item, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to buy it without a 30% "surcharge" for shipping. That would be OK if that was the cost of postage; however, the actual postage charges will be MUCH lower. That is quite frustrating.

What gets me is not always the shipping fees but the brokerage fees I have to pay when vendors ship via UPS (not blaming the vendors), that and the Canadian gov getting their piece of the pie as well, can quickly double any shipping fee a company might charge.

Colin

This post reminds me of one that I started a few years back. I don't remember all the details but the thing that I really remember wasthe order was for around $30 and the shipping was really high, like $15. Part of the shipping charge was $3.00 for the box which was an empty Gudebrod thread box. Everything that I bought fit in that small box that they got for free. I laugh about it now but I was really mad at the time and did not buy from that company any more.
Tim

The cost of shipping, packaging and packing, etc. is either buried in the cost of the product or added to the cost of the order. There's no other way to do it. As a custom builder you either make a profit off the product and breakeven on the shipping, etc., or you make a profit off the shipping as well. If you don't, you don't stay in business. It's just that simple.

Yes, some vendors charge shipping based on price. The only solution for that is to make sure the order is at the high end of the price range. Others charge by weight. Some add an extra cost for "oversize" tubes. I know one vendor who charges the "oversize" amount for each rod, but they ship three rods in one tube - obviously, a bit of a ripoff (and no, the extra weight in the one tube doesn't justify the add-on cost - I checked with the shipper). In fact, the only other way to reduce the effect of the shipping costs is to order enough stuff at one time to reduce the shipping cost to a smaller percentage when it's spread over the cost of all the items.

Some vendors will put a single piece or two (such as, a guide or tip-top or butt cap) into a mailer and just charge you the postage - it's a lot simpler for them. That's the kind of vendor who will also charge you a really reasonable shipping cost for a larger order. I figure if the shipping cost is at or under 10% of the total product cost, I'm doing OK on my costs. Some folks routinely charge between 5% and 7% - even better. Those folks quickly become my "go to" sources.

Uncle Russ
Calico Creek Rods

Looking at this thread, I can only shake my head. If the shipper is a vendor that only sells parts and components and the person doing the packaging and shipping does only that, then the packaging and handling costs shold be covered as a function of normal overhead that is factored into the price of each item they sell. If the person that packages and ships the product usually is doing something else, then the cost is what the value of their labor in their normal function is.

Here is where it gets complicated, because an employee that is paid $10 an hour actually costs the employer considerably more.
Once you add the costs of the SS match in, that runs the cost up to about $11.30 an hour
Then you add in 15 days a year of paid holidays and vacation time that runs the per hour cost to around $12 an hour.
Then if you give them 2 paid 15 minute breaks every 8 hour day, your actual per hour cost is up to $12.50 an hour.
Once you figure that their productivity is at 85%, the per hour cost is around $14.50.
(This does not even touch on the unemployment insurance cost or any other hidden costs that this person's employment brings to your business)

So 15 minutes of that $10 per hour person's time is actually costing you about $3.63 just to pick and package that shipment.
If that person's labor is worth $50 an hour to your company as a rodbuilder or finisher, then that 15 minutes just cost your company $12.50.

Neither of these calculations even touches on the cost of the materials for shipping, or the actual cost of the postage.

All that aside, there are several ways to handle the recouping of that cost:

(a) Include it in the product cost (man I can get that product elsewhere for a better price)

(b) cover it under a combined S&H cost (boy did I get raked over the coals for S&H)

(c) cover it under a seperate handling surcharge (why do I have to pay a handling charge).



Beyond that, there are many different ways to implement those charges:

a shipping and handling chart based on weight and/or cost of the total order factored in with the distance the package is to be delivere,
separate handling and shipping charts, handling costs based of the value of the total order, and shipping costs based upon the total weight and distance the order is shipped.
a standard rate for all orders under a certain value and the other rates for heavier or more cosly items
or... or... or...

Most important is that the vendor or shipper clearly inform you of what and how those charges will be arrived at so you are informed.

As for me, the costs I am willing to pay for an item including shipping is determined by how quickly I must have it, where it is available and what the cost is to get it into my hands after shipping and handling is calculated.

MW