site feedback : sweets2yourdoor.co.uk

[george]

No way will a lot of potential customers order some sweeties with such hard hitting delivery conditions and costs. Surely Royal Mail (unsigned for) would be better for small orders?

Obviously you're gearing yourselves more for the bulk buyer than the sweet toothed tv watcher?

[pinbrook]

does it really cost you £6.95 to ship?

i agree with the others if I wanted a 200gm of something I certainly wouldn't order and pay £6.95 to ship.

i'm not sure that Martin is correct where he says people expect free delivery. I feel that people are happy to pay delivery but at cost or similar (unless a high cost can be justified)

[fleetwood]

i'm not sure that Martin is correct where he says people expect free delivery

Jo - I guess that comes from the particular marketplace I am in. Whilst we are still niche in a lot of respects, we are up against Amazon in a lot of areas, and the big A has been responsible for instilling a heavy discounts and free postage mentality to a large customer base.

I do think that customers notice postage as an additional cost, moreso than say noticing the cost of travel to the shops, parking etc.

Having said that, we have a minimum postage charge of £2.99, and still get a remarkable number of orders (including repeat custom), for single comics costing £1.99!

Setting a minimum of £2.99 helps offset packaging, credit card processing fees, and paperwork, which otherwise would leave virtually nothing left from a £1.99 sale.
For some reason customers appear to prefer this way, than setting a minimum order value, which always used to get questioned or ignored, yet virtually nobody questions the £2.99 postage.

Martin

[los_design]

Just as an off shoot, why not offer two delivery bands?

1 for trade/bulk orders (B2B) (6.95ish)
2 for consumer (B2C) Royal Mail weighted?

Possibly entice both makets then? My stand point is that you have to decide on whether or not you want trade or end user? If you want both then you must factor in the price Vs postage considerations IMHO

Regards
Daren

[chris ashdown]

Am i missing the point here?

The goods are sold by weight in most cases so why not use the weight to place them in post bands of 0.5 kg, 1kg, 2kg etc

Unless the price is quite high, i would suggest not using a signed for service as on our experience 25% of people are out on the day of delivery etc. about 99% of all customers are honest, so a signed for service costs at the Post Office about 66p so if you don't use it you will save quite a bit over the year taking the occasional hit with the 1% or lost posts

If the bags are big enough they will not be able to put them through a letter box and therefore card the customer to pick up at the local post office, what better way to get a signed for service for free

[Luddite]

Hi,

just noticed four typos in track an order I think! -

1) recieved - received
2) dispacth - dispatched
3) recipt - receipt
4)Christam - Christmas

I can't spell for toffee but my better half is a proof reader!

5) (CONTENCE NOT INCLUDED) - (CONTENTS NOT INCLUDED)

[pinbrook]

Having said that, we have a minimum postage charge of £2.99

In my Opinion I will always happily pay up to £3 for delivery without thinking about it. This normally is a good reflection of the actual cost.

Heavier goods I expect to pay more.

We are just about to add the delivery charge to Surf-wax its been free until now, the reason for the change is to change the advertised price. We have found in SE listings the price shows and as it includes posage our prices often appears high. When we investigated our competition all their prices were cheaper but exclusive of postage.

Having said that we are adding a delivery cost of £1.95 which is pretty well cost, most of our competitors charge £2.95 and £3.95. So i hope we will steal the edge

[pinbrook]

i would suggest not using a signed for service as on our experience 25% of people are out on the day of delivery etc. about 99% of all customers are honest, so a signed for service costs at the Post Office about 66p so if you don't use it you will save quite a bit over the year taking the occasional hit with the 1% or lost posts

don't forget for orders less than £27 a certificate of postage covers you for loss

[davie_ne1]

Delivery fee's - arrgh what a mindfield

After reading all of your comments, thanks buy the way.

I have changed our postage rates, shipping now starts at just £2.25 going up to £4.95 for the heavier items.

The reason why I did not do this before was we had shipping set at simple and have now had to put the weight of over 1500 lines in which took a bit of time.

99% of our customers are private individuals, you'll be surprised how much sweets some people order. £200 + is not uncommon !!!. The one of price was set up in the hope that the customer would spend more. It seems to have worked well for us but I always open to new ideas.

We are looking to ship worldwide next so I would appreciate any help on good couriers

Cheers

Davie