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cheapest ways to ship???
Hi, I just wondered what companies/methods people have found are the cheapest to ship with for both small packages under 1 pound and larger packages? Thanks
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On rare occasions if a customer buys only an instruction book or stickers, I offer them the option of media mail which is slightly cheaper and then refund them the difference if they want to wait (that can take 7-10 days).
For the bigger stuff, I cost compare USPS and UPS via PayPal postage (they have a UPS integration, too) - 19 times out of 20, I have found USPS to be cheaper (via PayPal postage). Though honestly, shipping larger sets is VERY expensive, even with a merchant discount. That is where distance really comes into play - someone buying from you in WA (I had to peek at your store to see if you were US, like me - this advice would do a UK seller no good <s>) would get a large set shipped way less then say someone buying from you that resides in MA or FL.
Best of luck with your new store, Kerryla!!!! :-)
What I like is that it gives you the USPS postage integration (LOVE that, personally), API integration to go with Brickowl for the instant checkouts for the buyers, detailed activity reports, etc.
Hopefully others on here will chime in with their recommendations.
"We support PayPal instant checkout to allow customers to make instant PayPal payments during the checkout process. Once a user checks out using instant checkout, the money will instantly be transferred to your PayPal account. As part of this process, we need your PayPal API details. This is not your PayPal username and password. You can use the button below to get your API credentials. For your information, PayPal will show your PayPal e-mail address to the buyer during the checkout process."
I know this also allows instant payment processing, refunds, etc., all from Brickowl (joined with PayPal via the API).
Agreed the USPS website is nonsensical, back on point as they are gifting Amazon near "free" shipping... they gotta make the money somewhere. Thats why shipping is so expensive.
To make matters worse (for us) they also have switched to volumetric weight for anything over 1 cu ft. Cant find the prices on that in the 75 page pricing book!
I don't begrudge the older former employees who came onboard with that understanding - that is fair, they deserve every penny. I DO begrudge USPS not cutting that off for new hires several decades before they did. Even DoD finally stopped that for civil servants decades ago and shifted to a 401k-like system. USPS has their own union in Federal service and their own pay scale which is higher then say DoD civil servants of equivalent levels (I believe second only to Federal firefighters - and they should be on top, I am glad for that!). I've always wondered how they've gotten perceivable special treatment over say an engineer working on missile defense or an agricultural scientist.
Because of that cascading (I guess ballooning) budget, I suspect they are severely understaffed for the work they do, which in turn affects service quality (as they don't have enough budget for hires - plus frequent USG hiring freezes affecting all the services outside of USPS as well during budget battles in DC).
I think compounding this is ongoing hesitance in DC to raise the price of postage. I mean let's face it, as an end user I'm not devastated by that <s> but from a holistic POV, everything else has just SKYROCKETED the past decade in cost, why not postage too? I could live with that, it would just be par for the course. I think DC allowed a temp bump a few years ago in a severe budget crisis and then actually required them to drop it back down, even with USPS in a negative budget. If memory serves, at least. :-)
As for Amazon, I haven't personally read the public USPS contracts, etc. (I bet a lot of that is online - I'm weird, I like to go right to the source and read actual bills, contracts, etc., when I can) in order to really have an informed opinion of my own. I hear one view state they're killing the USPS with practically free shipping and I hear another view that they essentially saved USPS 's budget with consistent new business and kept it afloat. Each view is equally passionate, which means I need to go the source (heck, BOTH may be right! <s>).
And then there's the international postage topic that aggravates me and likely others to no end (would cost us $50-$60 to ship something in country, but an external country to ship the same thing here for $15 as an example). I need to learn a lot more to understand the reasoning behind that (e.g., does it holistically create more business/work in the US in someway to offset the loss at our end?), but on the surface, that situation is just super super frustrating.
But with all that said, I do believe in what I think I originally said in this thread - I personally have been VERY happy with USPS. They have done a fantastic job. While my shipping levels are nothing near the big folks on here (I'm at maybe just below 1000 orders/year?), in all that I've only had an item disappear once. That's pretty good. Could industry do better? Unclear. Would industry cost more? OMG Yes, at least for me. I cost compared USPS with UPS and FedEx ground, and it was almost criminally more expensive.
So holistically, bang for the buck? I gotta stick with USPS for 2 pounds and less. For bigger heavy items? They appear to all charge within a few dollars of each other.
Just my respectful two cents! :-)
The vast number of DoD civilians work incredibly, incredibly hard (many 12-hour days or more on average without overtime - while supervising contractors who take home 2-3 times more then they do) busting butt to maximize limited taxpayer dollars and deliver increasing, innovative capability to the warfighter. As with many jobs, they sacrifice time for less or with family to travel with little or no notice on many occasions.
Sure, there's the occasional individual that betrays the million-plus of their peers by being a bad actor - which is *devastating* to that community with one of their own betrays the public trust). Sadly, what industry does not have those rare bad apples? :-(
So, so, so many of these patriots are NOT there for the money - they're there out of passion to serve the nation by bringing their engineering, science, administrative, management, or whatever other skills they have to bear under a shared mission that they take deeply seriously. :-)
Then there are the international zones, which are similar principle. If memory serves, Canada and Mexico each have their own zones which are quite a bit cheaper then say shipping to Europe or Asian zones as they can send it ground easily enough. Then there are zones for smaller nations where they just don't ship to as often and are geographically distant, so cost a lot more then say to Ireland or Australia, where they deliver to probably multiple times/day.
I hope that helps a bit! For my part, I only go to USPS.com when there's a postage increase to download the shipping cost tables to update my rates and to get priority mail packing materials delivered to me when I get low. Agreed, navigation there is NOT fun at all.
They need to consult with a human factors expert to make that site INTUITIVE. :-)