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derating of weight bands
Is the Shipping setup screen, there is a comment "If you set your shipping by weight band, you should adjust the bands by 10% - 20% to account for packaging"
The USPS bands for FCPS are 0-4, 4.01-8, 8.01-12, and 12.01-15.99.
Am I understanding that correctly that I should enter 0-3.2, 3.21-6.4, 6.41-9.6, and 9.61-12.19 ?
Plus potentially do the same for the PM, etc bands ?
I just received an order, where it dropped it into the second band, I know it will require the third, and possibly the fourth.
Going slightly off-topic ...
Part of the problem involved here, is that some LEGO parts have a volume, that is out of proportion to their weight. Over at BL, they attempted to do something about weight based and volume based, but my experience is that it missed the mark. Volume and weight do not take into account the ability of some parts to randomly nest, or even consume additional space. One example is the common 2x4 brick. Even if you account for the volume (H*W*L), larger quantities require an out of proportion physical space (due to all the random void space between bricks). Stacking them tightly together gets closer to the calculated volume, but I do not believe the average customer wants to receive them like that (not to mention the seller having to stack them for each order).
So every part has something I call a 'clumping factor' ... it is a number above or below 1.0 that describes how the calculated volume for one part translates into the volume requirement for a larger quantity of that same part. I suspect that TLG is also aware of this, as they can roughly estimate how many of a given design number will fill a K8.
End of off-topic
The USPS bands for FCPS are 0-4, 4.01-8, 8.01-12, and 12.01-15.99.
Am I understanding that correctly that I should enter 0-3.2, 3.21-6.4, 6.41-9.6, and 9.61-12.19 ?
Plus potentially do the same for the PM, etc bands ?
I just received an order, where it dropped it into the second band, I know it will require the third, and possibly the fourth.
Going slightly off-topic ...
Part of the problem involved here, is that some LEGO parts have a volume, that is out of proportion to their weight. Over at BL, they attempted to do something about weight based and volume based, but my experience is that it missed the mark. Volume and weight do not take into account the ability of some parts to randomly nest, or even consume additional space. One example is the common 2x4 brick. Even if you account for the volume (H*W*L), larger quantities require an out of proportion physical space (due to all the random void space between bricks). Stacking them tightly together gets closer to the calculated volume, but I do not believe the average customer wants to receive them like that (not to mention the seller having to stack them for each order).
So every part has something I call a 'clumping factor' ... it is a number above or below 1.0 that describes how the calculated volume for one part translates into the volume requirement for a larger quantity of that same part. I suspect that TLG is also aware of this, as they can roughly estimate how many of a given design number will fill a K8.
End of off-topic
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This method hasn't failed me yet. See photo. (Other than if I decide the part(s) are fragile and need extra packaging) Also I recently switched to average price per weight band, rather than having to go through and keep modifying prices for all the zones. Also means shipping is the same on both venues.
HTH
Graham
Similar to Graham, I have my own standard approach which rarely fails me... mine are all shared (go to My Store > Settings > Shipping and see the blue Shared Shipping Bands (or whatever it's called) button on the upper right. For first class, I basically pad the order's weight starting at 1/2 oz for smaller weights, and increasing that incrementally in larger bands due to larger packaging used (plus more internal packing, such as polybags). I use a similar principle under Parcel Select Ground, though that pads using a pound and increments upward.
So from 0 to 0.5 ounces in parts, I charge 1 oz for shipping. For 0.51 to 1.5 oz in parts, I charge 2 oz for shipping. And so on (see example attached). I've attached a snip of my shared FCPS bands and how I pad as well as a shot of my entire shipping schema and padding (unsure if that will even be legible). I basically charge actual cost (with weight padded) plus $0.50 to cover packaging costs and so on. What I attached is from the 2021 holiday rates (I haven't calced out 2022 yet, but I will be this weekend and updating my shared shipping bands accordingly).
I hope between Graham and myself, some of this is of help, Nita! I did find setting up shipping to be the toughest thing here to wrap my ahead around for some reason, but 3 1/2 years in, I haven't lost money and tend to come out a bit ahead - more than enough to cover the occasional shipping refund when say my inventory is missing an item from an order.
Since I sell sets and parts both, I have to consider how each will play into shipping. There is no way on Brick Owl to shunt sets to one track of shipping fees, and let parts go down a different track. Over on BL, I connived a way to achieve that, but it was done by making sets look like a very tiny part (1mm^3) and then make a shipping method with really small dimensions. Needless to say, I was pushing the limits, and expected it to break at any time, but it's held so far. One of the admins mentioned they're doing a rewrite of shipping, so we'll see how that turns out.
On Brick Owl, I have no way to do that, as individual lots do not have override dimensions. My sets have been entered with an override weight here, which represents the weight of the set and of an appropriate box. What that means, is that sets which normally ship FCPS, are going to have the box counted twice ... once in the override weight and once in the de-rated band. At this point, I'm not going to derate the PM bands, so the medium to larger sets are going to behave as desired. If I detect a problem with any of the FCPS shippable sets, I may shift the weight bands to 15% de-rate instead of 20%.
That we actually have zones is fantastic. Only one other site (not BL) was supporting that, and they were doing it via USPS API calls, which occasionally timed out causing shipping to not work as desired. The BO system is superior. Being in one corner of the country, makes it really difficult to find a blended weight scale, which is acceptable to all buyers.
@nita_rae How do you set an override weight on BO?
As for sets, and because they consume more volume than parts, incurring several smaller containers is probably close enough to the truth (for a multiple set order) than it would be otherwise.
I didn't understand from your OP what the problem was, why the order you described should be in a different band, but from the conversation is it about the size of the parcel? As Calibrick said you can control the size limits for each shipping method so if that is the problem I don't understand why you don't use that to achieve the desired shipping method.
Having said all the above, look at the Catalog entry for 32448. That part does not have much weight (33.9 gms / 1.2 ozs), but it is physically huge (compared to a 2x2 brick). Even with de-rating of the bands, it will still calculate I can ship that in the lowest FCPS band. Ummm, no. By the time I put it into a proper box, I'm into the second band, possibly the third. So for that part, I have to do the rare instance of overriding the weight on a part, to force it to a more appropriate weight band at checkout.
Back to your original question, about the size dimensions. Nothing in that, or the above description, account for the weight of the packaging. It has to be figured in somehow, somewhere, because USPS is certainly going to count it. Many people use bubble mailers, but I stick with small cardboard boxes. I even have a box so small, that it can hold a few plates, or 2-3 minifigs. See ULine S-2457 for more information about that one. It also has a tare weight of 0.992 ozs / 28.1 gms. For the smallest orders, it's perfect. For Catalog item 32448, it is not even close to large enough to hold the item.
HTH
Your second point is where the size limits on shipping methods come into play. You set the maximum size that can be shipped under that method so that if the order is larger it would need to use a different shipping method that allows for the size and where the weight accounts for a larger and therefore heavier box.
> You set the maximum size that can be shipped under that method
But where do you get that size from ? If you are referring to what the carrier specifies, it can be excessively large. If you're talking about the packing box size, I have 10-12 different 'brown boxes' that could be used for FCPS (and that does not even include the ones where the box tare weight is so high it takes it out of FCPS). I'm not saying that specifying the size is wrong, but it does force you to make choices.
This is where we arrive at a fork in the road ... is it better to solve the problem on the listed lot, or on the shipping method ? In the beginning, on BL, I tried to solve it by making a different shipping method for each box. At that time I had 50-60 unique boxes sizes (but now I'm down to 40-ish, and trying to shed more sizes). The reason I had so many, is that I really was trying to fit the box to the shipment. Trying to run 50-60 shipping methods (over on BL) was unwieldy, it was a minor nightmare to keep them all tuned correctly. Eventually, I gave up, and just went towards a small number of weight bands, and let the chips fall where they may, plus fixing the problem lots on the lots themselves.
Thus far, I've seen no site that got it perfectly right. I think BO is closer to the grail than BL is. I also sold on another site (not AMZN or EBAY) that has a very limited shipping system. There I had to cut all kinds of corners to end up with something that was correct the majority of the time (sets were OK, parts were a massive mess). BO is better, trust me.