Shipping Costs - Yet another way we are getting screwed...

[alabamatacomaguy]

Credit card fees to small business a decade ago were around 1%. Debit was cheaper for business to run back then. Now in many cases it’s 3% no matter what to small business owner.


Another ducked up thing is businesses over the last decade have to pay more fees to banks to get cash for change to give to customers and pay fees if depositing much cash.

 

[fjbj40]

Didn’t T promise to get rid of cc high interest rates.

I use Easyship to ship stuff, it’s frequently 50% less than using the shippers website.
I sent a package to Slovenia, 7x7x4, 1.5 pounds. FedEx and usps wanted just over $200. Identical service from usps through Easyship was just over $100.

Just like everything now, shopping around and often not using the company specific website saves you money.

I needed exhaust for my 5th gen 4R, not available and no knowledge when was Toyotas word. Looked at aftermarket stuff. Borla was over $1k. Got the same system off Walmart for $700.

 

[DrRock]

I'll chime in with another positive experience with Pirate Ship. My local UPS store wanted to charge me 450$ to ship some headers from CT to NY State. They claimed it was due to "size". Went to Pirate Ship and it was 68$. Crazy.

 

[Sajan]

I'll chime in with another positive experience with Pirate Ship. My local UPS store wanted to charge me 450$ to sip some headers from CT to NY State. They claimed it was due to "size". Went to Pirate Ship and it was 68$. Crazy.

UPS Store: Uses Retail Rates, which are the highest tier of UPS pricing. These rates are designed for walk-in customers who do not have a shipping account or a regular pickup schedule.

UPS.com: If you have a free UPS My Choice account or a business account, you typically get Account Rates or promotional "Digital Redemptions" that are almost always lower than the retail counter price.

If you use sites like Pirate Ship or Stamps.com, you are accessing "Commercial Pricing" (the same rates huge retailers get). These rates can be 40–60% cheaper than what the UPS Store counter will quote you.

I used to go to the UPS store to ship small items back in the days for returns. and I was shocked at 15-20 shipping rates. Thats when I found pirateship.

 

[CruiserTrash]

I will say that the shipping cost game is real. While shipping costs have gotten more expensive, I see lots of places charging crazy sums way beyond that. I ship stuff almost daily with my little side hustle, I know what it costs. When I need something for my personal truck and I see a shipping cost that I know is double, triple, or more ... I'm not very happy about it. If you need to cover your costs, raise the product price to where it needs to be. Don't let me get the item in my cart and then hit me with a blindside punch on shipping when I'm checking out.

This isn't a shameless plug for my own endeavor - more of a "behind the curtain" look - but I have to say I keep shipping costs to almost exactly what it costs me. My shipping calculations are done automatically by the web shop hosting platform based on some parameters I've defined and it can be plus or minus a few bucks. When it's a small variance I let it go - sometimes a customer might be paying $1.50 over my shipping costs, sometimes I'm eating $2 on shipping - neither are worth anybody's time emailing back and forth, I just send the package. If a customer gets way overcharged for shipping, or if they underpaid by a lot, then I start emailing. If there's a $10 overpayment I'm refunding that, for example. On the flip side, earlier this week the auto-calculation charged somebody $10 for shipping that was going to cost me $30 and I emailed about that too. The guy was very understanding and sent over the remainder. I'm just trying to be fair to customers and myself. At the end of the day if a customer got severly undercharged and didn't want to pay the difference, guess what - I'll just eat it and send the package. $20 or whatever isn't the end of the world and not worth arguing over, and it's definitely not worth potentially making an enemy or getting a bad rap in the community. And the customer appreciates it. Most of the time people are very understanding though.

Shipping rant over!

 

[OTRAMM]

From the small business side of things I can't see tacking on a credit card fee. Those fees are no different than any other expense the business pays. We just factor it in to our cost of doing business. We also don't do shop supplies. Just factor it in. On the shipping I'm wondering if the shipping materials are getting rolled in as part of the shipping cost. When we were still building stainless exhaust the cost f\to pack them up was crazy high between the large box, bubble wrap etc. I built that in to the shipping cost rather than the product cost since the guy getting it installed here didn't cause me to buy packing materials. At the end of the day it's all a balancing act of which bucket you put things in.

 

[Sajan]

From the small business side of things I can't see tacking on a credit card fee. Those fees are no different than any other expense the business pays. We just factor it in to our cost of doing business. We also don't do shop supplies. Just factor it in.

Thank you.

On a completely unrelated note, I stopped going to concerts because I refuse to pay these ridiculous ticketmaster fees.

 

[Ouiser]

From the small business side of things I can't see tacking on a credit card fee. Those fees are no different than any other expense the business pays. We just factor it in to our cost of doing business.

Yes, the customer pays it either way. That's why I haven't done it yet.

 

[OGBeno]

From the small business side of things I can't see tacking on a credit card fee. Those fees are no different than any other expense the business pays. We just factor it in to our cost of doing business. We also don't do shop supplies. Just factor it in. On the shipping I'm wondering if the shipping materials are getting rolled in as part of the shipping cost. When we were still building stainless exhaust the cost f\to pack them up was crazy high between the large box, bubble wrap etc. I built that in to the shipping cost rather than the product cost since the guy getting it installed here didn't cause me to buy packing materials. At the end of the day it's all a balancing act of which bucket you put things in.

Exactly. You are still charging the 3%+ fees per transaction and you are still charging for shop supplies, they are just rolled into labor time or parts costs. Same same.

Same with tariffs. A $30K+ hit is not something a small shop can absorb. I prefer the transparency of how small businesses are getting fũcked.

This also pushed clients to pay with other methods which is good for us and I can waive the CC fees. That’s a win-win.

 

[OTRAMM]

Exactly. You are still charging the 3%+ fees per transaction and you are still charging for shop supplies, they are just rolled into labor time or parts costs. Same same.

Same with tariffs. A $30K+ hit is not something a small shop can absorb. I prefer the transparency of how small businesses are getting fũcked.

This also pushed clients to pay with other methods which is good for us and I can waive the CC fees. That’s a win-win.

I guess where I was going was, we don't separate them out and give someone something to be mad about. They're still getting paid, they just aren't lined out, front and center. We also switched over to estimating per job as a complete repair and not breaking down parts and labor. We know how much we need to make per billable hour to keep the doors open. Whether that goes in the labor bucket or parts bucket we still need to hit that minimum. It's constantly walking that fine line of trying to charge enough to keep the shop open, but not too much to run folks off. It's getting harder to walk that line with the cost of everything increasing, especially with most people's Cruisers falling in the "fun" money category as opposed to a necessity.

 

[OGBeno]

I guess where I was going was, we don't separate them out and give someone something to be mad about. They're still getting paid, they just aren't lined out, front and center. We also switched over to estimating per job as a complete repair and not breaking down parts and labor. We know how much we need to make per billable hour to keep the doors open. Whether that goes in the labor bucket or parts bucket we still need to hit that minimum. It's constantly walking that fine line of trying to charge enough to keep the shop open, but not too much to run folks off. It's getting harder to walk that line with the cost of everything increasing, especially with most people's Cruisers falling in the "fun" money category as opposed to a necessity.

Totally agree, Ryan.

 

[Sajan]

Belmetric and their shipping costs...love the products but damn.

 

[OTRAMM]

Belmetric and their shipping costs...love the products but damn.

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You do realize that they have to pay someone to pick and pack that 5 dollars worth of gaskets. That's not unreasonable when you account for time/materials and the actual cost of the shipping.

 

[DrRock]

You do realize that they have to pay someone to pick and pack that 5 dollars worth of gaskets. That's not unreasonable when you account for time/materials and the actual cost of the shipping.

From my perspective I agree with this if the vendor explicitly calls out "Shipping and Handling". This way I know they are adding this to a shipment so it might incentivize me to purchase more in order to amortize the handling cost over more items. Example being the vendor states 10.00 handling plus x for shipping, then it's clear.

 

[Sajan]

From my perspective I agree with this if the vendor explicitly calls out "Shipping and Handling". This way I know they are adding this to a shipment so it might incentivize me to purchase more in order to amortize the handling cost over more items. Example being the vendor states 10.00 handling plus x for shipping, then it's clear.

Right.
Processing fee. Handling fee. If my 2 washers are such a burden, then state it explicitly.

 

[knuckle47]

I have gone online for my Land Cruiser parts frequently in the last 5 years to buy a few smaller parts and pieces. Then I go to the cart and look at the total and found I would delete it all. If my little pieces can fit into an envelope and I’m paying $16.00 for a few stamps…I’ll put it off and wait until my other parts would justify a $30 shipping fee based on weight and size and add it in.

Yes some places are paying a shipping department to have a hired guy picking and packing ..they’re also many that don’t. My money, my call…petty?