Sticker shipping

Teup

This has been talked about before but just I'm just wondering - could something be done about shipping cost calculation for stickers? I currently have 2 orders that are just stickers, and because the system doesn't take sticker packaging weight into account I lost €2,63 on stamps. It's not a huge deal, and I understand you can factor it into "cost of business", which I've always done. But since it's just a recurring issue, I just think it would be a really nice little improvement if this could be fixed.

I know there's no immediate easy fix.. but perhaps a shipping method feature "add ... gram if the order contains one or more stickers" - or if you want to make it more fancy, to do it only in the case the sticker sheet is bigger than a few cm2 - or if you're max advanced, add ... gram per square cm of sticker. Anyway, even a simple option to add 20 gram when there are stickers would help a great deal and account for most of my lost stamps.

Hoddie

Not ideal but you could use the 'my weight' fields on your sticker inventory.

Calibrick

@Teup, I do what Hoddie mentioned - I have custom weights using the My Weight field to accommodate the cardboard I pack stickers between.

Teup

Thanks! Think that's what I will do until there's a setting for this. I've got quite many sticker lots so it really would be good if this was fixed sometime. Not a top priority issue but a nice one for on a medium term list of things to improve I'd say.

Stellar

Maybe an option in Order Settings like "Add __ gr to order weight if it contains sticker sheet/s" so it is not needed to add it to each shipping method, justi like the order combining fee but to add X gr to the weight of orders when the have one ore more sticker sheets.

robernat

@teup Most stickers go flatrate I suppose, while parts do not (except tiles maybe). Why not simply reduce you weight limits for flatrate by 10-15 grams, 20-25 for large envelopes? I've never had the issue you describe and I ship out many stickers ;-)

robernat

@Calibrick What if the buyer buys 5 different sheets? your personal weight will be added to each and the buyer will end up paying for 5x the extra weight (in stead of once). Obviously a refund will work there, but it might have buyers walk away from your stickers once they see on overrated cost soon they select several.

paulvdb

> @robernat said:
> @teup Most stickers go flatrate I suppose, while parts do not (except tiles maybe). Why not simply reduce you weight limits for flatrate by 10-15 grams, 20-25 for large envelopes? I've never had the issue you describe and I ship out many stickers ;-)

In The Netherlands letters can be up to 3.2 cm thick, so almost every part can be shipped as letter. So reducing weight limits will mean that buyers pay higher postage than necessary if they buy parts. I just accept the extra postage on the occasional sticker order as a cost of doing business, but it would be nice if we could have a way to account for the weight of extra cardboard when shipping stickers.

Calibrick

@robertnat, that is a good point I'd never considered - then again, I carry so few stickers, it's never come up as an issue. I would certainly refund buyers any overshipment costs though as standard practice. I'll have to ponder that though just in case. Hmm....

robernat

@paulvdb Yes, Bpost has the same options (I no longer use it for international), and true, the difficulty lies with orders that combine both parts and stickers, as one would need to add extra cardboard to avoid parts would damage the stickers. But Teup was talking 'just stickers', that would be flatrate... (5mm). If one sets up a separate shipping option for such limited to 2mm (e.g.), one would still have enough spare to remain in the flat rate option, but exclude the combination with parts (minimum 3 mm on tiles).
Obviously this only works for small and medium sized stickers, to remain within flatrate dimensions of envelopes. Larger sheets will always end up in the 'oversized' method (up to 3/3.2 cm) off course.

Anyway I'm past all that, I use shipping boxes for all international orders (3 types) and pay exact weight at PostNL, compared to the pre-setted weight classes I've set for customers, so even when an order is 10-15 grams higher then my pre setted weights, it only represents a few cents extra on that particular order, often compensated by other orders because of the 'by the gram' billing I get by PostNL. It creates me the great luxury of not having to bother to have something within a weight limit, take a bigger box if it's easier to pack, and still have enough spare to ship a backorder now and then.

robernat

@Teup @paulvdb Just wondering, what kind of contract do you guys have with PostNL? When I read what the impact of a bit of extra cardboard has on your shipping costs with postNL, I get the feeling I'm better of with PostNL from within Belgium, then you guys from within NL ? I do have the inconvenience I have to drop of at the sorting facility which I do once a week (60 km drive), but other then that, I seem to have a better deal with PostNL then you guys.

Hoddie

PostNL, useless in my experience. Out of curiosity Eric, why don't you send letter internationally?

robernat

@Hoddie I've been working with PostNL for over 1.5 years now without significant issues (over 500 orders shipped with them), certainly nothing worse compared to Bpost (of DHL for that matter). I do have a 'pro' contract with them.
Dunno what kind of trouble you had, but any trouble can happen with any shipper... ( had my share with Bpost as well).

I could use 'letters' as well with PostNL, but I don't bother. I've used the 'letter' format with Bpost for a decade and it's just more work (at least the way I wrapped), less safe against damage and the price difference is not significant enough to have me set up 2 separate shipping methods. My standard 'box' format (30mm) with PostNL is being shipped as a letter, it's just a little safer compared to padded mailers (and the 15/30 grams of extra weight are not significant enough).
It makes 'organising' my shipments easier (I need to take weight myself and put them on a consignment note), reduces the number of 'types' of shipments I need to generate, reduces the amount of types of packing materials, etc etc etc. So when I decided to work with them, I just 'skipped' on padded mailers for several reasons.

Hoddie

Ah I don't use padded mailers unless I'm only sending a handful of parts. I too use boxes that are 3-mm in depth, and send these as letter format.

I do use PostNL from time to time but through gritted teeth. You only see the truth about a company when you see their reaction when things go wrong. PostNL's reaction was to obstruct me at every stage.

robernat

And just to give you and idea when I compare Bpost with PostNL:
An order to Poland of 60 grams (=100 grams shipment) would force me to charge the buyer around €5.47 if I use Bpost.
€3.90 for the stamp, €0.82 VAT (and I can't deduct it, it just goes straight to the VAT office), €0.75 handling (contains cost of mailers/boxes/etc and the basis PP cost of €0.35)

With PostNL I charge that same buyer €2.21, final cost, including handling and VAT
I consider that difference significant enough to chose PostNL above Bpost ;-)

leopard37

@Hoddie "Ah I don't use padded mailers unless I'm only sending a handful of parts. I too use boxes that are 3-mm in depth, and send these as letter format."

Do you mind sharing your source?

Tyson.

Hoddie

@robernat - indeed that's a great difference in price.

@leopard37 - storopack, though my post should have said 30mm not 3mm. Consequence of using on-screen keyboard due to feeding baby with my other hand ;)

robernat

@Hoddie have a look at 'enveloppenland' a bit cheaper then storopack at first sight, no administration costs and free shipping (from NL) if over a certain amount...
They also have tape and ziplocks, so pretty easy to reach the 'free shipping'

Hoddie

Cheers @robernat I'll take a look.

Teup

> @robernat said:
> @teup Most stickers go flatrate I suppose, while parts do not (except tiles maybe). Why not simply reduce you weight limits for flatrate by 10-15 grams, 20-25 for large envelopes? I've never had the issue you describe and I ship out many stickers ;-)

That'd be a great loss, counting 10 extra grams on top of every order. My shipping prediction is correct 99% of the time, modifying it like this would make it off very frequently. I would rather sometimes pay a little extra than overcharge orders by counting double packing material weight on every single order.

I don't have any contract with PostNL, except looting Bruna for stamps each december ;) Though this time I used the webshop, and part of the shipment got lost, and then they sent everything again, leaving me with €70 of extra stamps. That was fun :D Great webshop..

robernat

@teup Just to be clear, I do not put on stamps, I simply put on a label 'postage paid', which PostNL provides me. All shipments go on a consignment note with destination, weight and the type of shipment.
Have you ever considered talking to their 'pro' service? You have a VAT number, so you should be able to work in a similar way as I do. Dunno how it works in NL offcourse, my operation is with the Belgian division of PostNL

Stellar

I do something like that, I have a contract and I have an Ink Stamp that says postage paid and the logo of Correos, I hand all the shipments and a consignment note, it saves a lot of time!

Brikomania

I currently don't have a contract with our postal system, but I am in good terms with the manager and workers on my local PO, so after some time, they told me to do just that. Make a list of all the shipments, what it should cost, and they would run them for me when the PO wasn't busy. It's really helpful, specially since it's always crowded, and it only costs me a couple gifts on christmas :-P

But of course, I'm lucky to have this nice man as the head of my PO.

Teup

> @robernat said:
> @teup Just to be clear, I do not put on stamps, I simply put on a label 'postage paid', which PostNL provides me. All shipments go on a consignment note with destination, weight and the type of shipment.
> Have you ever considered talking to their 'pro' service? You have a VAT number, so you should be able to work in a similar way as I do. Dunno how it works in NL offcourse, my operation is with the Belgian division of PostNL

Thanks for the advice, might be worth a shot! But there's already a business solution called a frankeermachine to get a lower rate, and I already looked into that and my number of shipments is slightly too low for it (I believe you need like 50 a week or something like that). That'd make me suspect no interesting contract would be possible..