Remove request shipping quote feature

Greatgrandpa

Requesting a shipping quote is a pretty easy thing to do, but it is annoying how you can’t see the actual shipping price. Sellers should be more responsible with calculating shipping.

Mrs Swoop

I agree it's annoying and I tend not to buy from a seller if I have to request a quote. But I wouldn't call it irresponsible, it's their choice to run their store that way.

Greatgrandpa

I guess it does save them a bit of time because I used to run a store and it was so annoying calculating shipping costs. I would honestly agree with you.

HeartlandBrix

FYI: BrickOwl rules require all sellers have the "request a shipping quote" option enabled. New sellers might have problems setting up shipping options, so having the ability to quote a shipping price ensures the store has at least one way of getting their product sold.

In my experience, there is one instance where the "Request a quote" feature has helped with a sale: instruction books.

For US sellers, USPS has a shipping option called Media Mail, which is really nice for the instruction books. It has different rules than First Class and Priority mail, but is cheaper. I can't have an entry for Media Mail in my shipping options because a customer might add a part to the order, violating Media Mail's rules. A quote lets me decide which shipping option would best fit the situation.

I've had a couple of customers request a shipping quote with only the instruction book. I quoted the cheaper Media Mail price and got the sale.

nita_rae

> I agree it's annoying and I tend not to buy from a seller if I have to request a quote.

IMHO, back up and take a deep breath. Between zoned shipping (which BO correctly supports) and the USPS dimensional weights (which BO does not handle so well) and the recent USPS surcharges (which BO does not handle at all), some sets cannot be shipped without a Quote Request. Everything that I sell, that requires a box with one dimension longer than 20-inches, is now tagged with force Quote Request. Anytime the combined inch^3 exceeds 1600, it will default to only offering a Quote Request.

Without a bunch of improvements, there is no easy way around that. I can think of a few undesirable ways, but they would end up overcharging the customer.

Mrs Swoop

I backed up and took a deep breath and I'm still of the same opinion. When I'm buying loose bricks if I can't see how much the postage will be it's very likely that I'll buy elsewhere. I want to sort out where everything is coming from and how much it's going to cost and I don't want to wait for up to 2 days for someone to get back to me. I rarely buy sets on BO but when I do I am more likely to request a quote because then it's just one item and it's not impacting where I'm buying other items from. And I'm not in the the US so I'm not affected by the zoning.

Bricks On The Move

No do not get rid of it.

As a seller we have parts and minifigs set to auto shipping costs easy to deal with and no surprises .

BUT when it comes to FULL BNIB sets we have that set to request a shipping quote for a reason and that it is it way to hard to have as an auto shipping as set vary in size and weights etc. which in turn could end up costing the buyer more in shipping than it needs to if set to an auto ship. will throw an example out there 2 different sets same box size etc but the total weight of sets vary by 500 grams from one to the other. Now as a seller that 500 grams can make a huge difference in shipping costs to an end buyer can be up to $15-20 in some country's. What a seller meant to charge to the MAX weight of the heaviest set so we can offer auto shipping on everything and overcharge on shipping an item that would be cheaper to send via a quote system? Just food for thought

Emporiosa

Unfortunately, the site doesn't support full zoning for shipping and for certain countries, like Canada, the prices of large shipments like sets can vary widely (a tiny set can ship for $15 to one place in the country, but $30 to another, and sometimes that big of a difference within the same province or the next). They have some support based on province alone, but within the province are huge ranges (so sellers will often have averages listed for figures/parts orders, but sets most sellers will always force a quote).

When you purchase on a site like eBay or a retailer like Toys R US, they have direct API setups with various carriers so you can see the shipping costs up front. This site does not have that (it's infinitely trickier when it's a worldwide platform as there are so many of these types of integrations that would need to be done).

nita_rae

> This site does not have that (it's infinitely trickier when it's a worldwide platform as there are so many of these types of integrations that would need to be done).

It would be necessary for BO to have knowledge of the variety of box sizes available to each seller. Box sizes are having more and more to do with generating an accurate shipping cost.

To compound this, all the boxes I have can be used for USPS Priority Mail, but the subset not supplied by USPS are the only ones that can be used for the ground shipping. So the permutations are a bit tricky.

Calibrick

With my customer hat on, for me, I don't mind Request a Quote AT ALL for a set. Even if I wasn't a seller, I'd understand that there are diff shipping options for those large boxes out there and would be fine with it.

But conversely, if it's content that can fit in a first class mail package (I'm in the US), I would be befuddled as to why I had to request a quote (that's basically stuff under 16 oz and within a certain size constraint). Honestly, I'd go for the store that had their prices up-front - it's immediate gratification when I'm just buying less than $20 in parts.

With my seller hat on, I operate similar to Nita_Rae: everything over that size max which adds on additional fees I have set to request to quote now. Everything under that is auto-calced by the store in real-time (no quote needed). I do put notes on my instructions (public comment) recommending that if they are ONLY buying that they can RFQ for a media mail rate, which is likely lower than the store's auto-options.

Just sharing a POV here is all, however every seller sets their store is what is best for them as far as I'm concerned! :-)