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View Full Version : Shipping charges from the Grizzly catalog?? Doesn't make sense!!!



Clarence Martin
01-20-2015, 11:47 AM
Took a look at 2 different sharpening stones from the Grizzly website. They are almost the same size . The ONLY difference is the price.

One sharpening stone is $23.95 and the other one is $89.95. Again , almost the same size , just a different price.

SO.......

Why is the shipping charges $7.95 for the cheaper one, and $14.95 for the stone selling for $89.95 ?

If it is the same size and weight, why are they basing the shipping charge on the product's selling price ?

Note on the shipping prices, Looked at them on the website, the last number on the amount was cut off on the screen. So, it is either a 5 or a 9 . Not sure which.

Matt Day
01-20-2015, 12:14 PM
Shipping Insurance maybe?

Jerome Stanek
01-20-2015, 12:22 PM
Shipping Insurance maybe?

If it is shipped UPS they give you $100 worth of insurance

Matt Day
01-20-2015, 12:33 PM
There are also plenty of other stores that charge based on price. They don't make sense either I guess, but that just might be the way it goes.

Joe Hillmann
01-20-2015, 12:42 PM
It is very easy to set up shipping for an online store based on the cost. On some things the company comes out ahead and on some they loose.

To set up shipping based on the actual cost you have to go through every single item you sell and figure out what size the box will be you will ship it in and what it will weigh when all packaged up. If you only have a few items that isn't so bad but if you have thousands of items it is a lot of work.

Art Mann
01-20-2015, 1:15 PM
If you count the number of unique items in a Grizzly catalog, that might answer the question as to why they don't evaluate and calculate an exact cost of shipping for each item. Of course, most companies boost their profits by charging more for shipping and handling than it actually costs. I wouldn't be surprised if Grizzly is one of those companies. You just have to be smart and take that into account when pricing equipment. On the other hand, Grizzly charges less for their shipping of large stationary power tools than places like Rockler or Woodcraft.

Yonak Hawkins
01-20-2015, 2:14 PM
Say I make an item which I sell to my customer, who then sells it wholesale to a customer, who sells it retail. I sell it for $8.00 and it has $2.00 of wood in it. My customer, the wholesaler, doubles his price to the retailer and the retailer doubles his price, selling it for $32.00 on the internet.

Now, if the price for wood suddenly surges and I have to pay $2.50, I add the increase to the price of the item. After all, the labor has not increased.

..But the wholesaler still doubles his price and the retailer does the same. The price for the item is now $2.00 more for a 50¢ increase in materials. It seems to me if the others would do what I do and pass along the actual increase, as they don't have exponentially increasing expenses, we all might sell more and all make out better. It drives me crazy.

roger wiegand
01-20-2015, 2:47 PM
Basing pricing strictly on cost of goods is a pretty unsophisticated pricing model (in the economic sense), and pretty much no one sets prices that way. Instead you ideally want to price based on value delivered to the customer, so you charge the most you can to optimize profit (profit per unit x number of units sold). Typically then you don't charge more because your cost of goods has gone up, though you might if your customers perceive that things have gotten more expensive and they are now willing to pay more for your product. This is how a drug that costs $100 in raw materials, or $1000 with all of the R&D costs layered in can sell for $80,000-- it brings a lot of value to the customer. Suppliers of products with little demand get crunched because they can't raise prices to recover increased cost and have probably already lowered prices as far as they can to get and keep customers. Pricing is really one of the hardest problems any business has.

Yonak Hawkins
01-20-2015, 3:21 PM
While I'm certain you know and have fairly related pricing theory, roger, price just isn't independent of cost in my case, sophisticated or not. Indeed, my customer has told me with no uncertainty : "That's the way it's done. I double my price. He (the retailer) doubles his price."

I still don't understand why, if $16.00 is enough return at a certain cost, why isn't $16.00 enough return when costs increase ? The profit remains the same.

Kent A Bathurst
01-20-2015, 4:04 PM
It is very easy to set up shipping for an online store based on the cost.

This is the reason.

May not be "rational" from an analytical standpoint, but it is dead simple to do, and requires no complicated data elements nor calculations [H x W X D; weight; circumference; max length; freight class; all those other bits that go into UPS's and FedEx's and LTL shippers' rate calcs].

It happens a lot - like from Amazon non-prime items coming from a 3d party. As just one example from last week, I buy AA and AAA batteries that way [in "bulk" - pkgs of 20 or so]. Dink around with quantities to find the ship rate break-point, and add order items as needed to fill up one rate class without bumping into the next.

Erik Loza
01-20-2015, 5:01 PM
....most companies boost their profits by charging more for shipping and handling than it actually costs...

As a guy who ships big machinery via common carrier (LTL) for a living, I can 100% guarantee you that it costs what it costs to get a given machine from Point A to Point B and that cost is never "free" or some really low, fixed number like "$75", for example. The customer is paying for it one way or the other and if a seller can ship, say, a large bandsaw across the US for some low, fixed number, you can pretty much be guaranteed that there is already several hundred dollars built into the price you are paying in order to cover that.

Erik Loza
Minimax

John Coloccia
01-20-2015, 5:32 PM
As someone who's business is mostly from online sales, I can sympathize with the problems of calculating shipping costs for small items. What I'd LIKE to be able to do is charge my price, and then charge actual shipping costs, including materials, but that's just so complicated that it's impractical. Also, a lot of people are turned off by these additional charges being tacked on AFTER the order, and without a chance to review them.

What I end up doing is shipping most items for free in the US, because I have a very good idea of what it costs to ship and it's just built into the price. On some sales, I make a few extra bucks, and some sales I loose a few extra bucks. Some customers pay more than strictly necessary, and others pay a little less. Really, everyone pays a bit less in the end because if I have to implement some complex solution, guess who ultimately has to pay for it? For outside the US, the customer must contact me and get actual shipping costs before ordering, and I charge my actual costs minus the shipping allowance built into the product.

But I'm a small operation and I can do this sort of thing. With a huge operation, I don't know how else to pull it off other than charge a flat rate based on weight or price, and then if something slips through the cracks as ridiculously outrageous, take that on a case by case basis and fix it by hand.

Art Mann
01-20-2015, 6:11 PM
As a guy who ships big machinery via common carrier (LTL) for a living, I can 100% guarantee you that it costs what it costs to get a given machine from Point A to Point B and that cost is never "free" or some really low, fixed number like "$75", for example. The customer is paying for it one way or the other and if a seller can ship, say, a large bandsaw across the US for some low, fixed number, you can pretty much be guaranteed that there is already several hundred dollars built into the price you are paying in order to cover that.

Erik Loza
Minimax

I agree with you on Grizzly heavy equipment shipping costs. They seem low to me too. The original conversation was about sharpening stones and that is the sort of product to which I was referring. My comment was meant to illustrate the inconsistency in Grizzly's shipping pricing.

Companies similar to yours generally advertise their equipment prices without including shipping, handling and any applicable sales tax. To me, that is a useless number. The only cost I care about is how much am I going to have to pay to get a particular machine set up and working in my shop. At least Grizzly makes it is easy to determine that number. I don't even have to call anyone to get a quote.

Kent A Bathurst
01-21-2015, 12:29 AM
With a huge operation, I don't know how else to pull it off other than charge a flat rate based on weight or price...

Oh - trust me - it can be done. But you need some serious bucks invested in propeller-heads to develop and maintain your systems, and you need to include the same algorithms used by the shipping companies you use/offer- in effect, you are calculating the $$ the same way they do when you give it to them - And those are not necessarily static. And you have to do it in real time, with an acceptable response time to the on-line customer.

It ain't cheap to set up, nor maintain. In the end, it is simply not an efficient allocation of resources - no ROI for being dead-nuts. Your version is effective - you should, I would hope, net to zero on the over/under charges.

Interesting to note that in my dealings with McMaster-Carr, they always add the shipping after the fact, and include it on the invoice - I never know what the $$ is until it has shipped.

Frederick Skelly
01-21-2015, 7:11 AM
Oh - trust me - it can be done. But you need some serious bucks invested in propeller-heads to develop and maintain your systems

Propeller heads, Mr. Bathurst? Really? :)

OK, Im almost afraid to ask, but WHAT is a propeller head Sir? :)

John Coloccia
01-21-2015, 8:18 AM
Propeller heads, Mr. Bathurst? Really? :)

OK, Im almost afraid to ask, but WHAT is a propeller head Sir? :)

https://www.genstockphoto.com/items/geeky-looking-man-wearing-glasses-propeller-hat/

Kent A Bathurst
01-21-2015, 10:43 AM
https://www.genstockphoto.com/items/geeky-looking-man-wearing-glasses-propeller-hat/



You got it. The computer geeks.

Just for the record, I were one for some years. CIO F-1000 company. That label was hung by the Chmn of the Bd.

Ken Combs
01-21-2015, 11:24 AM
Oh - trust me - it can be done. But you need some serious bucks invested in propeller-heads to develop and maintain your systems, and you need to include the same algorithms used by the shipping companies you use/offer- in effect, you are calculating the $$ the same way they do when you give it to them - And those are not necessarily static. And you have to do it in real time, with an acceptable response time to the on-line customer.

It ain't cheap to set up, nor maintain. In the end, it is simply not an efficient allocation of resources - no ROI for being dead-nuts. Your version is effective - you should, I would hope, net to zero on the over/under charges.

Interesting to note that in my dealings with McMaster-Carr, they always add the shipping after the fact, and include it on the invoice - I never know what the $$ is until it has shipped.

Yep, that's true, and eBay does it very well. I've sold over 1000 items there and the shipping calculation system is excellent. It allows the seller and buyer see the price in the listing. and, the seller can add handling charges when setting up the listing.

FYI, the calculator is available, without listing here:
http://www.ebay.com/shp/Calculator

It always works for me, just be sure weights and dimensions are accurate.

Brian Elfert
01-21-2015, 2:12 PM
Grizzly still has the mail order catalog philosophy of charging for shipping. To make ordering easier before the Internet catalogs often had standard shipping rates based strictly on the total dollar value of the order. Grizzly's shipping rates are listed at http://www.grizzly.com/shipping The customer comes out way ahead if they order something that is cheap and very heavy. The customer doesn't make out so well if they order something that is expensive and very light.

There are hundreds or thousands of online stores that calculate shipping costs based on the weight of the item and the distance the item has to travel. It is somewhat rare to find a website that still bases shipping costs strictly on dollar value of the order. When adding a new item to the online store it isn't that hard to add the weight and possibly the dimensions for calculating shipping.

Frederick Skelly
01-21-2015, 10:12 PM
You got it. The computer geeks.

Just for the record, I were one for some years. CIO F-1000 company. That label was hung by the Chmn of the Bd.

Too funny! I'll repeat that one!