Minimum orders and shipping charges

[Stereo Steve]

We have an absolute minimum profit per sale. I can't imagine taking a loss on an order. So, if somebody orders a pack of sleeves for 99p then they still pay £3.49 postage. We make hardly anything on the sleeves but make a bit on the postage. If they buy 100 packs of sleeves we end up charging postage at cost but make a good profit on the items.

We do have a guy who buys about 100 sheets of gloss photo paper a week for about £4 or something and pays £5.99 for next day shipping. We make very little and he spends loads on shipping but what can you do? If he bought 1000 sheets every 10 weeks he would save a fortune and we would have a lot less admin/ packing to do.

We also offer an 'economy courier' 1-4 day option which is a bit cheaper than next day and is absolutely at cost to us. We still send next day courier but it gives us a couple days flexibility to get it sent in really busy times. About 30% of customers choose this and while it is a little less profitable, it helps organising the workload hugely and smooths out the peaks and troughs.

[Duncan Allan]

I made the decision not to have any minimum order and have had .60p orders but min. p&p is £2.00 regardless. It makes no difference as it gets dealt with and off in the post just like any other order.

I blow hot and cold over free shipping and trialled it and it makes no difference so I use it a seasonal incentive. There has to be a level at which it is profitable to work with. And I get annoyed when I want to buy something that large businesses charge extreme shipping charges when I know they are making 400% on the shipping.

Speed is paramount for me and orders are shipped out as they come in but usually same day. So customers can rely on a fast efficient service and not be wondering where their order has gone.

When we get asked about where things come from I simply say we import them from overseas. I take umbridge at the cheek of it especially when I have made the flights to the Far East and made the deals and paid the shipping, duty, tax etc. Let alone the research and time building up a pool of knowledge.

I buy for the UK when the cost to buy direct isn't that different from what it would cost me.

What hacks me off is suppliers who have their own retail web sites. Selling direct. So we have to compete with them matching their price or being less but perhaps not so competitive with shipping as they can be. This is retail price maintenance back again by the back door.

Duncan

[acompton]

We changed surf-wax from free postage to postage calculated by weight and charged more or less at cost about 6 months ago. The main reason for changing is that we were finding our prices were being listed in SE Result pages

I adopted this policy from the start and it does seem to be useful in Froogle. One of the most common reasons for buying is ‘cheapest’.

I have a small minimum charge as I stock some small products that are occasionally bought on their own. The postage-by-weight policy means the postage is minimal too. The actual number of orders like this is very small.

We have a lot of fierce competition who undercut us left, right and centre and a lot also offer free p&p (usually people running from home with no commercial overheads or staff and not VAT registered).

I’m one of these! (although I am VAT registered), and I find it difficult to compete with the big players! I can only assume that they have better discounts from the suppliers and reasonably priced postal arrangements with the carriers, because I can’t se how they are actually making a profit! Admittedly, they have years of established customers behind them and I’ve only been running for 11 months, so it must come down to conversion rates.

What hacks me off is suppliers who have there own retail web sites.

My main supplier actually gets their logo printed on the back of the boxes from one manufacturer! Luckily, they don’t have a web presence (but they do have a mail-order shop).

Alan Compton
www.greenknightgames.co.uk
Great board games and cards games you won't find in the High Street

[Duncan Allan]

It boils down to the following benefits that major suppliers have over us

• Better discounts from suppliers
  
• Longer payment or preferential terms
  
• Volume discount for shipping
  
• Better card processing rates
  
• Accounting staff who can 'adjust' their margin of cost
  
• Differential pricing in multiple outlets off setting low cost in one with higher in another
  
• Initial cash or corporate backed to promote themselves more aggressively
  
• Favourable rates for Internet marketing and cross promotional deals
  
• Marketing themselves on the back of their own products we sell

I'm sure there are more but I haven't time to do this right now.

Duncan

[acompton]

I'm not up against major suppliers for most of my lines. These are just B&M shops who have established a thriving mail-order and internet business over the years. The also enjoy fierce customer loyalty. Its amazing how many times I see: "I bought it from you because my usual shop didn't have it in stock".

Alan

[Duncan Allan]

I've just been speaking with my brother who has been bemoaning the problems getting Blank CD & DVDs.
he said everything was i stock paid for it and requested next day delivery.

So far it's all out of stock and he hasn't had a reply to 3 emails or calls to them after waiting in a queue for up to 40 mins each time!

Duncan

[steveaich]

We tried a little excercise in November, we reduced our std shipping from £2.95 to £1.95. We didn't see a big increase in number of orders, but we DID see a decrease in average order value, so it was much better to have a slightly higher shipping charge which is reasonable as the customers will add more to their cart to 'justify' the shipping charge.

We upped our free delivery from £16 to £40 earlier in the year and have had very frew complaints.

[Kentish Towns]

Free Postage

Hi, We are quite a new store selling books, CDs, DVDs etc based around local interest.

We have experemented with different pricing schemes.
Sadly, the best one for us - Free UK delivery over £25 is impossible in Actinic ( I think) as if you set the free delivery tab it also gives free delivery around the world!!!!!!!!
We price delivery on weight, as this is how Royal Mail work it.

If anybody has any ideas on getting round this, or knows the man who is in charge of this at Actinic could they please help.

Sooooooo Frustrating!!!!
Dan

[Darren B]

Dan

You need to create the different postal zones for around the world and assign the countries to these zones, so Zone 1 UK mainland has free shipping, Zone 10 US & Canada you set up you shipping charges

Cheers
Darren

[Legends]

If anybody has any ideas on getting round this, or knows the man who is in charge of this at Actinic could they please help.

Sooooooo Frustrating!!!!
Dan

Hi Dan

Firstly set actinic to calculate shipping by value - then in the UK zone create value 0 - £25 has a shipping cost = £x (what ever you charge)
then create another shipping band of value 25.01 to 100000 shipping cost = £0.00 and Roberts your fathers brother, every order over 25.01 with have zero shipping and below will have x.

obviously you can select any values you want to give free shipping.

This way you do not affect overseas shipping costs.

Hope this is clear