Separate minimum order values for domestic and international orders?

sophiesbrickshop

Is it possible to have a separate minimum order value for domestic and international orders?

Reason being, I dont mind doing small orders (under a £1) for UK customers as I can pack/ print a label and send quickly, but I end up taking international orders in person to the local PO to check rates and weights every time as the web-site seems to over price.

Obviously doing this for 50p in parts is not worth it, so I would like to keep the minimum low for domestic but set international higher to make it worth doing.

Cheers

Mike
Sophie's Brick Shop

Lawrence

Rather than preventing smaller orders, another way to approach this would be to increase the shipping and handling cost on the lighter international weight bands.

robernat

Wait, you actually pick and pre-wrap each potential order after a buyer requested a quote?
Respect, Mike, but I consider such 'crazy' :P
I do hope you have a high rating of orders placed compared to number of quotes given, but it still sounds like a waist of time to me ;-)
UK postal services are extremely flexible (small packages are not that expensive), so if I where you, I would simply set up a number of presetted shippingmethods based on size and weight, in blocks of xx grams and let the buyers checkout on it. If there is a large difference between presetted method and actual shipping, you can always easely refund trough the order form (and it's also automaticly send trough Paypal as well). I have been working like this for over a year now and it works really nice (and I have less flexibility in my postal system).
It saves quite al lot of time by doing so, as orders usually are paid for straight away, you pick pack and ship, refund for an excess shippingcost takes 30 secondes... Play it safe by adding 10-15% of spare weight (after adding in averages of package materials) and your set.
I assume some UK shops have already set up such methods, some might even 'share' them (I do for Belgium), so just a matter of copying them for your store and finetuning them depending on your personal wrapping habit's. Since I set up my presetted methods, Brickowl is like Walhalla for me in regards to auto checkout and instant payments, I hardly get quotes anymore (usually only when an item has missing dimensions, resulting in a serious overcharge) ;-)

Personally I would rather have a different 'minimum' based on payment type (paypal/banktransfer/cash).

Lawrence

@robernat there already are minimum order subtotals for payment types

robernat

@Lawrence
I've been looking into this again now.
If for instance I would lower my store minium to 1 Euro (in stead of 10) and would select a minimum of 10 Euro in my Paypal payment method, then would such imply customers using IBAN or Cash being able to order as of 1 Euro, and paypal customers as of 10 Euro? If so, then that is indeed what I was searching for, but the explantion of the 'minimum' in the payment method itself says otherwise (clearly states to not use that as a minimum, as this is set in the store setting).

robernat

changed now, let's see how it works out :-)

Lawrence

We prefer stores don't have a minimum on paypal higher than the store minimum, as paypal is the most popular payment method, and may lead to customer disappointment when they try to checkout, but we haven't enforced this.

robernat

@Lawrence
How about doing it the opposite way: let sellers set their store minimum, allow to have it overrided by a checkbox in the selected payment methods (in combination with another minimum for those payment methods). Paypal involves a certain cost, one of the reasons why I personally set a minimum, payment options like IBAN or Cash involve no costs at all, reason I don't mind getting orders below my normal minimum. I can understand the reasoning about a certain disappointment for buyers seeing a '1 euro minimum' then try to check out and seeing themselves blocked as they can't because of the payment minimum, reason I would rather see it work in the opposite way. Could also be solved if BO allows a bypass for minimum order, that could be linked to a particular payment method, this bypass could then be stated on ones store page, and not influence the 'impression' for Paypal buyers.

sophiesbrickshop

Hi, Rob / Lawrence,

thanks for the comments and no I don't pack etc before quoting - that would be madness
but I have quoted before and dropped into a higher international postal bracket and made the work pointless as there is no margin for error due to the order price.

and I don't want to enforce a global minimum on payments.....

They all request a quote and I pick a price based on weight shown, part size and previous experiences of shipping to that country. If in any doubt I quote high now.

What I would like is to prevent someone from outside the UK requesting a shipping quote for 10p of parts - without just slapping them a higher quote then they may be are expecting. Its wasting there time as much as mine.

I think this comes from new users who don't know how much international shipping would be and we don't want to put them off using the site,

robernat

I should 'sign' more LOL: it's Eric, not Rob, no point though.
You shouldn't worry to much about over rated shipping costs, it happens frequently I refund 30-50% of the autocalculated shippingcost to buyers, if they checked out with it, it means they where 'comfortable' with it, the refund is then simply a 'bonus' for them ;-)

Good to hear you don't pick in advance, a lot of sellers do (particulary on websites where there is no autocalculation), to me it has always sounded like a waist of time, so I've always picked/packed after payment.

If you set up pre-determined methods, buyers have the option to fine tune their cart, add a bit, remove a bit and build up their potential order based on what shippingvalue is shown in their cart, any major change will make them realise that removing the item they just added in cart is making a difference, and you don't get all those returning quotes all the time soon a buyer added a few extra things (providing quotes repeatedly also takes up your time).

Cheers, Eric

sophiesbrickshop

Thanks....Eric. I should learn not to assume names from forums

I shall look a bit more into the pre-set methods and what I can do from there to make this more transparent to the customers.

robernat

@sophiesbrickshop
Tip: go to settings, then 'shipping methods'. On top of screen, right side, you'll have a blue button called 'shared methods', if you check the sellers in your own country, you can easely check what they have set up and copy the one that would fit best for you, just a matter of finetuning for yourself then ;-)

Eric

robernat

@Lawrence
I've reverted the setting I did earlier with the store minimum and payment method minimum.
I tested it myself and there is no notification anywhere during the build of a cart that the minimum for Paypal is higher then the store minimum. Once in checkout, it only becomes clear in step 3 that Paypal isn't an option at that point, no notification either, so this way of setting up things is a big 'no' from my point of view, in worst case buyers will checkout with 'cash' or 'IBAN' while they only have Paypal (US/UK/Asia).
This will only result in more orders being unpaid for and the final result will be to have to cancel the order and/or make an unjustified 'Buyer did not pay' on buyers, I'm sure that is not what the setup was intended for, and I understand your reservation on the use of it.
Hope you can put the suggestion I made above on your agenda (bypass linked to payment method), I understand that being located in UK you most likely exclusivly use PP, but remember there is a wide variaty of sellers located on EU mainland who are able to use payment methods like IBAN and I'm sure a lot of them won't mind offering a bypass for minimum if it can be linked to that particular payment method ;-)

Cheers, Eric

Ems Bricks

Mike - I believe international large letter are now the same size dimensions as UK large letter so you could use what you have set up already for the UK to set up that international shipping method.

DadsAfol

I like the way that the minimum per payment method works, and don't want to see it changed. I realize that EU sellers may have different needs, so if a change is made it should be in addition to the current functionality.

We have no store minimum, but a $10 minimum for payment by credit card due to the fees. For small PayPal payments, we have a micro payments account (not sure if these are available in EU) which minimizes the fee. (BL still won't support this after years of me buying them, so kudos to Lawrence for being visionary.)

robernat

@DadsAFOL
Jason, obviously the current system has it's advantages, what I tried to do earlier had the opposite effect when I tested it, but I also stated ' not what the setup was intended for', clearly it has a purpose, but the downside is that there is no option to have a bypass to run it differently.
On BL example I can provide a bypass to buyers to buy under my minimum, I only grant it if I know the buyer can indeed pay by IBAN, and as a matter of fact, *if* the buyer chooses PP regardless of the agreement, as a seller I can still 'switch' towards IBAN before sending the invoice. On BO, neither are possible, a bypass doesn't exist and the autocheckout doesn't allow a seller to take the action to actually switch a payment method, as the transaction already took place.
So an additional option as I described would solve all this.

And no,as far as I know micro payments are not an option in EU (maybe UK, dunno), so we always pay a normal fee, reason why I desperately want a fixed (and higher) minimum for Paypal orders to cover costs in a more reasonable way, while I don't mind smaller orders with IBAN (no costs at all). The current systems (BL will have the same issue in future) are just not flexible enough for such setup, and yes, kudos to Lawrence for many things regarding the development of BO, but sometimes an extra option is even more 'visionary' ;-)

Hoddie

I really don't understand all this talk of bypasses and minimum orders. Are your profit margins so small that you really need to ensure every cost, no mater how small, is passed to the buyer? Set your shipping & handling prices so they include payment costs, set your items appropriately and use the minimum order amount as a way of ensuring you don't make a loss on small orders.

It's nice, simple and incredibly effective - the BO way is hands down superior to the BL way of itemising costs to the nearest 2cm of sticky tape. Every discussion I've ever seen about BO/BL on Brickset and other Lego forums, BO wins every time for its ability to cleanly compare prices and the simplicity of knowing what you're going to pay.

If it's for sale, you meet the store's minimum, and they ship to your country, then you can buy.

There's no worrying about which payment method you need to choose because you're in the EU, there's no worrying about paying an extra €1 because you want to pay with PayPal and won't send as a gift payment, there's none of that (often illegal) nonsense. It's the future and BL will drag their sellers kicking and screaming to the BO method eventually, watch this space.

sophiesbrickshop

Cheers Em, I know that exists, just I have been caught out once or twice on going over weight or size with my packing and paid for it My fault totaly.....

The discussion has gone some what of track since my original question, which I know the answer is now a no