Engraving Supplier Shipping Cost???

[Don Williams Michigan]

Today I received a package from one of my regular engraving suppliers. I buy from them because they have a warehouse in Detroit.

The box measures 6.5" x 4.5" x 4.5" and weighs less than 2 lbs. Total cost of the order was $30.95 and my shipping was $14.09?

This was not expedited shipping but ground shipping. I cannot believe that my shipping should be almost 50% of the order total.

The entire order could have been shipped in a small USPS priority box for $5.80.

I spend a few thousand dollars with this supplier each year. Am I wrong for being upset about this?

Please move this if I am in the wrong Forum.

[Mike Null]

Don

this topic just came up a few days ago in this thread. http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?200950-Shipping-Costs

[Mike Troncalli]

Don,

I ship packages almost everyday. UPS to residential ground. Shipping usually runs anywhere from about $9.00 to $14.00. And if your supplier added in any handling costs that will drive the price up as well. I just try to wait until I can place a large order and of course make sure all of my prices can handle "extra" expenses like shipping. 99% of my business is wholesale so I don't make a huge profit on the items, but then I usually require a minimum amount per order anyway..

[Don Williams Michigan]

I did see that first thread but I guess I was just venting. I ship multiple times per week and always try to find the lowest price for my customers. I guess the small size of the order just amplified things for me. The funny thing was I called the company to inquire about the charge and the person on the phone actually told me that the cost of the box was included which helped drive up the price. Really, I would be shocked if they were paying more than 50 cents for the box they sent the order in.

[Mike Troncalli]

I agree about the box issue. They should never had said that you were paying for it.. That is just the cost of doing business. But many companies do throw in a handling fee. I usually just round up my shipping to the next half dollar and do a minimum of $7.50 to my commercial customers. That pretty much covers the box, and packaging materials, etc.

[Martin Boekers]

I feel your pain Don..... I started the last thread on this, it seems through the years I have gotten used to my vendors and how they charged for shipping,
recently some have creeping up quite a bit, and I have expressed my displeasure. I usually order $400 - $600 at a time, I try to get the discount shiipping when I can.
but after getting burned for 14 items I paid $80ea, they charged $45ea shipping without any warning, I NOW ask from all. Recently I oredered some items from Marco using their online
system, first it didn't say what the item cost, then when I ordered it and hit send, it didn't confirm the order. Soooo I called them up to find out if they got the order, well I was told
I had to call the Corporate office as all the orders go through them. They get the online order then they stack em up until someone enters them in manually.......GIVE me a break!
I again expressed my displeasure with their system, so much for that.... I said if it becomes too difficult to place orders then I can look elseware. The operator appologized and I asked her
"If you were ordering a product online and that company didn't give you the price you were paying would you continue to order it?" She said No and I said my point exactly...

[Joe Pelonio]

I never charge for boxes, as I never pay for them. When anyone in the family orders from Amazon or elsewhere I save and re-use. Adding handling charges to the shipping is common but is really just adding to their profit, when a minimum wage employee spends 5 minutes taping it up.

I rarely pay shipping, since there are local suppliers for most everything, but some items can be found on EBay with free shipping, and other online vendors will ship free with a minimum purchase. For example name badge magnets, I may order 250 and take close to a year to use them up but they take up little space.

[Mike Null]

Last year I shipped about 220 packages to one customer with locations all over the US and Canada. It was my practice and with agreement from the customer that I add packaging costs to the UPS fee. Last year I added $1.00 per shipment to the actual UPS fee I paid. This year I have raised it to $1.50.

Your carton may cost .55 but it will cost nearly that much to get it shipped to from Uline.

With other customers I charge the UPS retail rate. I only use USPS on low value local shipments.

[Dan Hintz]

I never charge for boxes, as I never pay for them. When anyone in the family orders from Amazon or elsewhere I save and re-use. Adding handling charges to the shipping is common but is really just adding to their profit, when a minimum wage employee spends 5 minutes taping it up.

Let's say that employee is paid $10/hr to do nothing but box up stuff and move it to shipping. That employee actually costs them $20/hr after you add in FICA and all of the other little fees that go along with having employees. That 5 minutes just cost the business $1.75, and its more than likely it was 10-15 minutes for the employee to grab all of the items in your order, get them situated in a box, taped, and to the shipping dock (bringing the cost very quickly to $5)... so I don't begrudge them a few dollars for a "handling fee". If you wanted to be fair, they should charge larger orders a larger handling fee, yet they'll often times give it to you free if your order is above a certain amount. Someone is subsidizing that cost, be it the business or the smaller customers.



When I first started my business 10+ years ago, I could ship stuff via FedEx or about $7 to nearly anywhere in the CONUS... that price covered shipping, box, and packing material. Now I'm hovering around $12-15 just to ship these days. Fuel costs went up, among other things, and that translated into a major hit to me. It was no longer financially feasible to try and sell a $15 item when the shipping cost would double the end price. That is one of the reasons I got out of the retail LED business... high shipping costs (for ME!).

[Frank barry]

Hi all


I do think the best way to look at it is total cost in that way you keep it simple and when you look at the mark up some suppliers have it is pretty sweet indeed that is why I import most of what I use directly from the manufacturer as I believe it gives me a good return yes I do hold more stock than I would like but it wont go out of date so that in no problem for me and I can always sell some as is and still make a return on them

[Liesl Dexheimer]

Don, I feel your pain. I ordered two dies for hotstamping last week. They were relatively small (about 2.75 x 0.75) and they were shipped in about a 6x9 in bubble wrapped envelope. Total cost for shipping was approx $14.00 since they sent it UPS ground. I'm on the east coast & this was sent out in the midwest so I understand it will cost a little more $ but I must admit I was a little shocked at the price. It probably would have been about 1/2 as much if shipped by USPS instead. Luckily I had bulked up on what I charged my customer for the die but I could have profited a little more had shipping not been so much.

[Mike Troncalli]

Dan, Good post...

Couple of other items as well.. We also drop ship for web customers. We charge a $2.50 drop ship fee, as I have explained to them it takes just as long to tape a box, go to the computer and enter the shipping information, print the label, etc... for 1 item as it does for 10. I have never had anybody complain about the fee. Also, (And I need to check again), but when you enter your info into the UPS system and print your label, you get the price. But if you have ever compared the shipping price to the actual invoice????? The shipping price that they show when printing the label doesn't show the "fuel surcharge" on your bill...AND funny enough as I am typing this post I checked one of my invoices and found out that they are charging me a "residential fee" for one of my commercial address customers... HMMM... I know WHO I'll be calling today...

[Martin Boekers]

Let's say that employee is paid $10/hr to do nothing but box up stuff and move it to shipping. That employee actually costs them $20/hr after you add in FICA and all of the other little fees that go along with having employees. That 5 minutes just cost the business $1.75, and its more than likely it was 10-15 minutes for the employee to grab all of the items in your order, get them situated in a box, taped, and to the shipping dock (bringing the cost very quickly to $5)... so I don't begrudge them a few dollars for a "handling fee". If you wanted to be fair, they should charge larger orders a larger handling fee, yet they'll often times give it to you free if your order is above a certain amount. Someone is subsidizing that cost, be it the business or the smaller customers.


When I first started my business 10+ years ago, I could ship stuff via FedEx or about $7 to nearly anywhere in the CONUS... that price covered shipping, box, and packing material. Now I'm hovering around $12-15 just to ship these days. Fuel costs went up, among other things, and that translated into a major hit to me. It was no longer financially feasible to try and sell a $15 item when the shipping cost would double the end price. That is one of the reasons I got out of the retail LED business... high shipping costs (for ME!).


Dan, I don't begrudge anyone chargeing a fee for handling, that is a business expense. Some mark up the product to cover it other charge seperate.
That is one of the hardest things for me to figure in. Each time shipping may be different depending upon the number of items I order. I wonder
how my clients would react if they say an extra fee on their invoice for handling? We have to make the cost up somewhere. We usually put it in our pricing
as an average.

As for charging more far larger orders.... I don't think that would go over well with my clients as they expect discounts for larger orders, as I think most
of us do. Do your customers that say order 25 nametags subsiditize those that order 1000? If JDS makes $5 for a piece of $15 for a piece of acrylic, if I
order 100 pieces then they make $500, I think that is where the discounted per piece and shipping come in. They make less per piece, but they get larger orders in,
so it's part of marketing. I order more pieces than I need at the time to get the discount. That's why a majority of my inventory is purchased from
them.
That and customer service and quality of product.

I don't have an issue paying shipping cost, I do have an issue when I feel I am taking advantage of, at the least if a vendor is aware they are are charging a larger
than may be expected amount because of size or weight, then the purchaser should be made aware of it and not shocked that a 20lb item that cost $85 will be charged
$45 for shipping.

[Bert Kemp]

What I found out yesterday enraged me a little. I was waiting for a package from TN shipped USPS . I checked tracking on Sunday it said departed Phoenix 9:32am. Well I assumed(yes I know)that it was going from Phoenix to my local PO, So when it wasn't delivered on Monday I went to PO to see if the truck was late and it didn't make my mail truck . They said no it hasn't got to the PO yet. So I asked were it was they said that it goes from Phoenix to the County hub then to your local. I said what,!! So basicly what happens is the truck with my package drove right past my PO another 70 miles to a PO unloaded scanned and loaded on to another truck to be driven back 70 miles to my PO. This happens with all mail coming to my PO from Phoenix. You wonder why the po is going broke and they keep raising prices. Talk about inefficiency .

[Dan Hintz]

What I found out yesterday enraged me a little. I was waiting for a package from TN shipped USPS . I checked tracking on Sunday it said departed Phoenix 9:32am. Well I assumed(yes I know)that it was going from Phoenix to my local PO, So when it wasn't delivered on Monday I went to PO to see if the truck was late and it didn't make my mail truck . They said no it hasn't got to the PO yet. So I asked were it was they said that it goes from Phoenix to the County hub then to your local. I said what,!! So basicly what happens is the truck with my package drove right past my PO another 70 miles to a PO unloaded scanned and loaded on to another truck to be driven back 70 miles to my PO. This happens with all mail coming to my PO from Phoenix. You wonder why the po is going broke and they keep raising prices. Talk about inefficiency .

No, it's actually more efficient to do it as described... they break out each section of the world into smaller and smaller sections, and the shipments get broken out in the same way. To go directly from one large hub to every mailbox within a 300 miles radius would be way too slow and costly. It takes extra time for your particular package, but the overall cost for the post office to move things this way is lower.

[Albert Nix]

I know where you are coming from!!! But remember their are more than one way to recover operating cost. Used to the mark up on goods was enough to cover boxes and freight. Now suppliers are so competitive they would scare you off if they added it in. I know I go through 3K - 4K in boxes tape a year so it makes a difference in your bottom line.

[Tim Bateson]

There is a massive UPS Hub just a couple miles south of me. However my zip code is within the delivery area well north of here. The system works most of the time, but once in awhile, I see a package tracking that says it's out for delivery from the closer hub. What happens is they realize it's the wrong delivery area, back to the hub, sent north and the next day gets delivered.

Sometimes - like yesterday I see a package was on the truck at 06:30 am for delivery. This morning it's on the truck... again. I guess they missed a 99 lb package the size of flat screen TV. It's a new drywall lift - been dry walling 8 ft ceilings in my new workshop & it's not that easy without one of these puppies, but that's for a future thread.

[brian fithian]

I recently ordered a 100ct box of 1" Brass S Hooks for a couple of projects. The cost of those hooks was $32.97. The box was 3" long, 1 1/2" wide, 1"" thick. When they e mailed my invoice, it was a total of $49.32.......$16.35 FOR SHIPPING a 1lb box you can fit in a shirt pocket. Just went to Lowes and bought some more S Hooks, three to a pack. 99 hooks ended up costing $35.64

[Liesl Dexheimer]

What I found out yesterday enraged me a little. I was waiting for a package from TN shipped USPS . I checked tracking on Sunday it said departed Phoenix 9:32am. Well I assumed(yes I know)that it was going from Phoenix to my local PO, So when it wasn't delivered on Monday I went to PO to see if the truck was late and it didn't make my mail truck . They said no it hasn't got to the PO yet. So I asked were it was they said that it goes from Phoenix to the County hub then to your local. I said what,!! So basicly what happens is the truck with my package drove right past my PO another 70 miles to a PO unloaded scanned and loaded on to another truck to be driven back 70 miles to my PO. This happens with all mail coming to my PO from Phoenix. You wonder why the po is going broke and they keep raising prices. Talk about inefficiency .

I know what you mean. Even if I mail something locally it has to go through Providence, RI (which wayyyy out of the way, about 40 miles from here).

[Don Williams Michigan]

Well I have sent a couple of E mails back and forth to the company in question. I was impressed with how quickly they responded to my concerns. Basically, I gave them my example and said that on occasion, it would be nice to have options? What I suggested was give me the option of choosing USPS priority mail for certain orders. I ship using USPS priority mail almost daily. It includes package tracking and the boxes are free. Even if the company in question placed a $2.00 surcharge for choosing the priority option, I would have saved more than $6.00 in shipping on my small order! I do try to economize and place large orders whenever possible. However, I needed samples for a customer and did not have a choice.