Can I do this? (a shipping Q)

[TraceyHand]

I currently offer UK shipping only and it's priced at £1 per item up to a max of £3.

I'm thinking of expanding my shipping to cover the EU too..and was going to grade the shipping similarly.(Perhaps starting at £3 for one item, up to a max of £12 or something..not sure yet)

BUT, I do have one nursery item that would be too heavy to send overseas at the same kind of cost as I send clothing items.
I don't suppose there is any way to exclude this one item from overseas shipping, is there?

I have a certain amount already built into the item cost (to cover some of the UK shipping) anyway.. but not enough to be able to send it overseas for the basic "1 item" price (it weighs approx 4 kg)

Any ideas how I can work round this? It is an item that I am probably not going to restock when I sell out..but I expect the stock I have to last me a while yet.

Thanks in advance
Tracey

[leehack]

The fudge is to not allow excess shipping in your eu table and assign a weight to it which is over the max, just make sure that weight is ok in the uk though. They will get a message saying they can't add it. Good to also mention it in the description too.

[TraceyHand]

Thanks, Lee

The thing is, my shipping isn't set up by weight..it's done by Total Quantity.
I guess the only way round this would be to set the weights of everything as "1" and set up the shipping by weight in the same way as the quantity is set up?

Then I can assign an excessive weight to this one product that is still the standard rate for the UK...but disallows shipping overseas?

WOuld that work?

*thinks that sounds like a longer job than I was hoping for but hopes I can set a default weight as 1*

[leehack]

Set 1kg as default weight across the store (no need for any input), uk shipping is then:

1kg=£1
2kg=£2
3kg=£3
If excess take highest value.

Then eu is set as:

1kg=£3
2kg=£6
3kg=£7
4kg=£8
5kg=£9
6kg=£10
7kg=£11
10kg=£12

No excess allowed and input 11kg in for the problem product and mention that it does not ship to the eu in the description. You only have to input 2 weights, one the default and one for the problem product. 5 mins job done.

[TraceyHand]

Thanks, Lee!

I have to admit, when I first thought about it, it hadn't occurred to me to switch to "shipping by weight" and do it that way..that'd mean I could still stock heavier items but just detail that they are not available to ship overseas..

You're a star!

[leehack]

Shipping by weight is so versatile, as soon as i see someone asking about values and quantity, I expect to see them in the forum 2 weeks later complaining that it doesn't work as they want.

I'm yet to see a shipping scenario that can't be done by weight (watch the flood of challenges come in now lol)

My pleasure anyway.

[TraceyHand]

Set 1kg as default weight across the store (no need for any input), uk shipping is then:

1kg=£1
2kg=£2
3kg=£3
If excess take highest value.

Then eu is set as:

1kg=£3
2kg=£6
3kg=£7
4kg=£8
5kg=£9
6kg=£10
7kg=£11
10kg=£12

No excess allowed and input 11kg in for the problem product and mention that it does not ship to the eu in the description. You only have to input 2 weights, one the default and one for the problem product. 5 mins job done.

OK..been thinking about this..
Obviously..for my "problem product" I would enter a UK shipping cost of £1. But, what happens if someone orders that PLUS another item? Usually. 2 items would be £2. But, set-up like that, it's going to pick the highest value and charge £3, isn't it?

Wondering if I could get away with specifying that this particular item is £2 UK shipping anyway (it has to go by courier)and then adding a further item would still give a correct total.
Would that work? More to the point, did it make sense?

Cheers
Tracey

[leehack]

Hi Tracey

This is a drawback of V7 shipping, it is addressed in V8. I would approach it from a different angle. State on your site that £3 is the maximum anyone will pay for UK shipping. I wouldn't go into the number of products at all. People LOVE clear and straightforward shipping costs nowadays and a flat structure is a great solution IMO. It can also encourage multiple sales as they think i can get this shipped for free etc. I would also advertise the fact on my home page, "£3 Shipping across the UK, no matter how many items you order".

It depends on you and how you see it.

There was a great tactic in the late 80's by a large kitchen company, they used to charge a fortune to have a kitchen installed. At the end of the transaction after the customer had paid, they used to write them a letter stating that a mistake had been made on the original quotation and they would refund £600-£1500 of the total price. The customer soon forgot about the £10k they had paid for the kitchen and mentioned this refund to many of their friends and family. It was the greatest advertising plan i have heard to date. Only has a certain shelf life, but at the time it was pure genius.

If on the odd occasion somebody does get charged £3 when you'd want it to be £2, highlight it on the invoice and mention that you have reduced the shipping as they were overcharged. You'll be surprised how much that sticks in peoples minds. I can say from experience, that while we were getting shipping right at the model shop, we did this on a few transactions and people will actually ring up and thank you etc. I still see regular orders come through from a few of these names from 2 years ago.

[TraceyHand]

Hi Lee

Thanks for your reply.
I'd considered flat rate shipping in the past but, the problem is, a lot of my orders are small (£8-15) single item orders and, IMO, the flat rate seems excessive and customers could go elsewhere for them (a lot of my competitors offer free shipping on some of my best-selling new items)

I figured most customers aren't going to argue over £1 shipping on an item worth maybe a tenner and I'd deliberately left my "top" rate of shipping at £3 because this is still pretty low for a standard mail order P+P rate (thinking of the high street names who usually charge anything from £3 to £6!)

I'm reluctant to alienate my "little and often" customers by increasing these lower rates.. but I'll give it some thought..

As for the shipping problem being addressed in V8....I don't think I'm gonna be going "there" any time soon... I like my hair the colour it is!

Cheers

[leehack]

If i was building a store for myself, i would undoubtedly have free shipping across the board. I think this is a fantastic selling point nowadays, we all hate paying shipping. You can counter it with your product prices and for me i think it is the way forward. FREE shipping advertised on the home page is a very good selling point.

Most people would rather pay £11 with free shipping, than £10 with £1 shipping in my eyes.

After doing the normal checks on a website, the shipping is always the last thing i will check and at this stage i am so close to buying. If it's free i will buy there and then, if it's not, then i will check elsewhere. I never like to present the opportunity to cool off on a transaction.

[TraceyHand]

If i was building a store for myself, i would undoubtedly have free shipping across the board. I think this is a fantastic selling point nowadays, we all hate paying shipping. You can counter it with your product prices and for me i think it is the way forward. FREE shipping advertised on the home page is a very good selling point.

Ahh sheesh....don't tell me that!!
I had free shipping for 6 years til RM changed their rates to Pricing in Proportion and, especially after this latest price increase (which was hefty!) I felt I needed to claw some back.

I could revert it back to free shipping...but..then I'd need to increase nearly 1000 items in price..and they're all labelled (with price tags) and bagged up ready to send out the door..that'd be one long job!

decisions, decisions!

[pinbrook]

If i was building a store for myself, i would undoubtedly have free shipping across the board. I think this is a fantastic selling point nowadays, we all hate paying shipping.

there is a big drawback to this, if your prices appear in SERPs people see you are more expensive that others as you have shipping in your price, they then don't visit the site to do a proper price comparison.

we withdrew "free" shipping for this reason.

[leehack]

Fair point, i would always have enough content on an item or use a layout that ensured the price would never be shown in the first 2 lines of text to overcome that.

What is giveth in one hand, be taketh in another.