Dealing with low-value orders

SilentMode

First off, I'm grateful for getting any orders at all, but most of the ones I get are very low value (GBP 0.01 - 0.10 before postage). I don't mind doing these as I want to reduce my stock, except combined with PayPal fees I'm losing out with these orders.
At the moment my prices are the bare minimum as I can't compete on having thousands of items... well I can, but there's no guarantee people would actually buy them!

I'm pondering whether I should increase prices across the board, or introduce a minimum order value. What would you do?

sophiesbrickshop

Do a minimum order value, I've set ours to £1. Can't see the point going lower by the time you factor in fees, postage material / label costs and time etc. I've even considered that £1 is too low for the work involved. But we do £2ish bundles on *b*y all the time, so kinda works out the same realy.

But from the point of me being a customer, I do find myself not ordering from stores with higher minimum values as I usualy only need a few bits here and there and to make up £5 plus say is just annoying.

So I do a quid minimum for good customer service - I hope

Loremonger

I do a $5 (£3) minimum and add a $1 handling fee to every order as part of the cost of shipping. When I first started, I had no minimums and ended up doing a lot of tiny orders that weren't worth the time it takes to even walk out into the garage. The handling fee became essential when I got too busy to use only recycled envelopes and bags. Between packing material, envelopes, shipping labels, and printer ink, that fee covers the overhead and offsets all or part of my PayPal or Stripe fees.

As far as no guarantee on people buying your parts, you'd be surprised. I'm still baffled sometimes why a new customer would choose my store over any other. Wide selection? Good logo? Low prices? I don't know. I just keep reinvesting my profits to grow my stock, put it out here, and keep it customer friendly. I had a goal to get over 100,000 parts by the end of the year, but people are literally buying them faster than I can restock. Good problem to have.

Enoch

Teup

Just give it a 50 cent or so handling fee. Should give you enough of a threshold income

So far my brief BrickOwl experience learns that at least part of my customers really couldn't care less how much shipping & handling is going to be. At least two of them have checked out choosing boxed parcel when it could easily fit in a small envelope. That's over €10 of a difference. (pretty annoying, gotta get back to them and ask whether we can do priority airmail and then send out refunds.. someone has to pay attention to the wallet, right :P)

KyleJohnson11

I am a no minimum kind of guy. I set my shipping bands to account for these types of orders.

Markyd7

Set your minimum to £1. I think that's what most UK stores have including myself.
Or add the minimum paypal fee onto your postage.

DadsAfol

The buying population here is largely non-AFOLs looking for replacement or additional parts. This can be quite profitable if you do it right. In addition to the store minimums, handling fee (which has to be part of postage), and increasing your prices, another option is to require multiple quantities on your low-value parts. For example, if you sell a 1x1 brick for $.02, rather than letting buyers select x1, set your inventory to x10 and you've turned that $.02 order into a $.20 order.

Our preference is to not set a store minimum as that tends to frustrate buyers that really do just need one piece. but we employ all the other tactics to ensure that we aren't losing money filling those small orders.

Graham

I don't much care for limitations and especially not average lot value, however I tried no minimum, and indeed got many orders under $1.

These are time consuming, and just add too much clutter (as a 1 person venture) - also I feel it a bit pointless (from a customer POV) spending $2.53 (or $7 international) for 20¢ worth of parts.

I have found $5 min (actually $4.95) a good balance.

As a buyer I have no problem with minimum purchase stores, I usually just buy extra parts *I may need* or can sell on at the same or similar price.

I usually steer clear of stores with high postage unless I REALLY need the parts, from my POV buying more parts gives ME something, spending more on post gives the seller something!

Jason, I don't know how you do it! No min and reasonable post cost… from your store I can buy 20¢ of parts for a total of $2.69.

Unless you have some serious discount on post costs, I reckon your costs to be $2.45 - $2.55 (not including labor)

You get between ¢14 and ¢24 less cost of parts comes in at (say) between ¢4 and ¢14 profit, unless you have people doing nothing at all to process this order - it must be costing you??

Good on ya for doing it tho! Graham

DagsBricks

For example, if you sell a 1x1 brick for $.02, rather than letting buyers select x1, set your inventory to x10 and you've turned that $.02 order into a $.20 order.

Our preference is to not set a store minimum as that tends to frustrate buyers that really do just need one piece. but we employ all the other tactics to ensure that we aren't losing money filling those small orders.

Doesn't setting minimum quantities still frustrate the buyer who just needs one piece? :-P

Brian

Stragus

Non-AFOL looking for a replacement part may not care much about high shipping. Though, I have noticed several such orders tossing a spiderman minifig (or so) along to reach the purchase miminum, and that works just as well.

DadsAfol

Actual US postage is $1.93, so we have $.56 "handling" built in on the micro orders. We're not making a profit, but we're not losing money on them.

I've found that 50% of the time, that micro-order buyer will come back and place a second larger order, so I think of them as marketing expense. Builds a good relationship with the consumers.

Regarding the multiple quantities, surprisingly enough we never get complaints about that. That's why I think buyers are more willing to accept that versus a store minimum.

SilentMode

Thanks for the tips!