Ohio Travel Bag ... Has Anyone Else Used Them Lately? *rant*

[Ferg]

I shouldn't even try to explain our end of this as several of you think those of us shipping a fairly high amount of product are gouging the customer. You are so wrong.

FYI: The Shipper in our instance, takes any and all phone and e-mail orders or questions, double checks all incoming orders for duplicates or bad addresses, does 100% of the billing for our company. Oh Yes! Almost forgot, she packages every single order that goes out. Most of you haven't got a clue as to what it is to package 500 to 750 packages per day for about 8 months of the year.

Twenty dollars an hour!!!! Good Lord folks she is worth ten times that!

BTW: She is my wife and may God Bless her every day of her life because I do.

ferg

[LTC]

...several of you think those of us shipping a fairly high amount of product are gouging the customer. You are so wrong.

i highly doubt it.

let's do a little math here using your own numbers and the overcharge on shipping as reported elsewhere.

so let's pick a good midrange package total per day of 625 packages. that is from your self-proclaimed "500-750 packages per day", as you stated in the previous post.

then let's say on the conservative side that you're overcharging people by $10 per package. i personally think it's quite a bit higher than that, but will err on the low end and say $10 per package.

...and since certain people can't be bothered to read the FIRST POST in this thread, HERE:

I usually use Ohio Travel Bag for my bulk buys on snaps, rivets, and screw posts.

However, here lately they're charging almost half the amount I pay for the items on shipping!

Is anyone else noticing this?

Today I ordered 3 items in bulk quantities that weighed less than 2 pounds for box and all. Shipping was almost $20! Any 'Savings' you make by purchasing their standard items ... you LOSE on shipping because they charge outrageously high prices for Standard UPS Shipping!

then let's say she works 10 hours a day. again erring in your favor as i'm betting that is lower too.

so...625 packages per day X $10 overcharge per package = $6250.00 gross profit just on shipping overages per day.

deduct her salary from that... $6250.00 - $200 (which was $20×10hrs.) = $6050.00 net profit..........just on how much people are getting overcharged.

i'll let everyone else draw their own conclusions from the math.

yeah. you make "a few cents" on shipping sometimes alright. even if you take into account shipping materials, that cost would be a miniscule part of that $6050.00 per day amount.

FYI: The Shipper in our instance, takes any and all phone and e-mail orders or questions, double checks all incoming orders for duplicates or bad addresses, does 100% of the billing for our company. Oh Yes! Almost forgot, she packages every single order that goes out. Most of you haven't got a clue as to what it is to package 500 to 750 packages per day for about 8 months of the year.

that's not a $20/hr. job. it's not exactly skilled labor.

Twenty dollars an hour!!!! Good Lord folks she is worth ten times that!

BTW: She is my wife and may God Bless her every day of her life because I do.

ferg

oh. i see. so you're letting your emotions dictate that we get gouged on shipping so SHE can get her $20/hr. got it. Edited April 28, 2014 by LTC

[TomG]

LTC - I think you are totally off base here. Ferg commented early in this thread that they use a flat rate to ship. He said he makes a few CENTS on some packages and loses a few CENTS on others.

Where did you come up with him overcharging $10 per package? The only place I saw it was another poster commenting about repair shops charging a hazmat or other $10-$20 fee. That sounds like an auto repair shop.

And if you have ever tried to ship that many packages per day AND get them right, you'd better have someone pretty sharp doing it. They can be well worth $20 an hour. Especially since the job it sounds like she is doing is Office Manager for a small company.

So, you are quick to judge Ferg, and claim he is gouging customers -- tell us how YOU charge for shipping? How many products do you produce? How do you differentiate between that $.25 envelope and the $2 box you have to use depending on quantity? Or the padding some items need that others might not?

Is my $3.50 fee for a leash overcharging?

I'd love to hear your solution

[electrathon]

Is my $3.50 fee for a leash overcharging?

I'd love to hear your solution

$3.50 for shipping, that costs $3.50? Then you are not overcharging. $3.50 handling on top of what it really costs to ship? Then yes, it absolutely is gouging, totally and completely.

The solution is very, very simple. Charge for shipping what it costs to ship.

Charge for the product what the product costs (with your prophet included) what you need to sell the product for. Handling is nothing more than part of the cost of the product, just like sweeping the floor in your shop. Do you have a floor sweeping fee added to your order after the person is told the price?

[TomG]

$3.50 for shipping, that costs $3.50? Then you are not overcharging. $3.50 handling on top of what it really costs to ship? Then yes, it absolutely is gouging, totally and completely.

The solution is very, very simple. Charge for shipping what it costs to ship.

Charge for the product what the product costs (with your prophet included) what you need to sell the product for. Handling is nothing more than part of the cost of the product, just like sweeping the floor in your shop. Do you have a floor sweeping fee added to your order after the person is told the price?

I agree with you - in theory. That would be very nice to do. But at some point, you have to average it out. I think a part of the problem here is the word "handling".

For the majority of sellers, "handling" is not just the time spent packaging, but also the supplies to do so.

Here's part of the problem with most of us charging exact 'postage' costs.

1) Lots of folks - tens of thousands - sell on Etsy and other venues. That service does not have a mechanism to add shipping based on weight and destination - 2 factors needed to calculate it. You have to list 1 cost per item.

2) My main website however, does do a live calculation. As long as I have the product weight correct, it does a pretty good job of calculating the costs and gives the buyer the option of shipping via several methods. But it does a poor job when I have to use different packaging based on quantity

How do you add any real costs into each individual product? Shipping has legitimate costs over the actual postage.

I have items that range from less than 1 ounce to several pounds at times.

Say someone orders a bookmark. That fits into a regular 1st class letter envelope. A regular postage stamp covers it. So what is that now? 47 cents? But, if they order 4 or 5 of them, I can no longer send them in that envelope. I now have to use a 75 cent envelope and postage jumps top $1.93.

If I have added the 10 cents into each bookmark for my envelope costs, I've lost 35 cents on that sale. Plus, they are so light, the website software has no mechanism to know I now have to use an envelope that is more expensive to ship. So, I have also lost another $1.46.

If I were to take manual orders, I could do all of the custom shipping cost stuff. But not with my shopping carts

BUT - again, I agree with you and LTC about gouging on handling in some instances. EBay is a MAJOR example of this. I can not tell you how often I have seen a $10 item that weights 6 ounces and the seller has a $18 S&H fee, for example. That's a ripoff.

So, Honest question here - how do you go about including - packaging, packing slip paper, labels, ink to print them, wear and tear on the printer, tape, gas to drop off at PO or shipper, time to do so, etc. into each individual product when it varies by product?

Effectively, that is.

And I agree that if it take 5 minutes to do all the prep, packaging, etc, and I want to make $20/hour, that's $1.67 in shipping labor and I could just add that to the cost of each item.

Ohio Travel Bag - whose S&H fees started all of this - is a very good company to do business from. I have been using them for years and have never had any issue with them myself. As I mentioned earlier, you can ask them to use the cheapest shipping method and they will do so. Yes, they really do need to fix their website to allow customers to select the best shipping method for them.

Oh, BTW, that leash costs about $2.95 in postage on average, plus the envelope ($.75) plus the other supplies, so, no, I don't make a profit on shipping, in that case anyway.

Later

[Ferg]

I won't tell my wife that she is of lower quality. Some folks just have their head in the sand. Do not mouth off about things you have no understanding of to begin with.

Thank you "TomG", I couldn't have said it better.

When I said a few cents that is what I meant. Where the heck did the $10.00 add on come from?

We have been shipping product since 1977. I believe we know what we are doing. Also, we wholesale everything we manufacture, how long do you think we would have been in business if we were gouging our customers. Another thing, every one of our items is wrapped in bubble wrap, any vacant space is packed with excelsior.

Did I forget to mention, shipping materials and boxes we have to buy, about ten thousand, are figured into the price of the item not shipping cost.

Folks do tend to read what they want the written word to say and not actual print.

ferg

[JLSleather]

I would have done the math the other way around. If someone is shipping 625 packages (middle of the estimated), and gets $20/hour (I won't debate it - just going with what was stated), and works at it (to be generous) 10 hours a day...

That's $200 / day in 'shipping labor'. That's an added cost (average) of $200/625 = 32¢ per package (your numbers, not mine).

Shipping charges + cost of box + cost of packing / tape / etc. + labor cost = actual cost. Anything above that is profit, and I don't know why someone would dispute that. Profit is DEFINED as $$ received less cost of goods (really, ask the IRS).

I just ordered those old patterns from Tandy, they're on closeout. Don't know if I'll ever use 'em, but whatever. Shipping was $12.99, which i found EXTREME for a few packets that will TOTAL about the size of a spiral notebook. I had to force myself not to cancel the (online) order just for principle, since I know that package is going to cost about $3 to ship up here. This kind of thing causes me to limit the times I would order from them. And if they 'stood up' and so staunchly defended their "right" to gouge me with the shipping, I wouldn't buy from them at all.

In the end, if you're okay with the total amount for what you're buying (price + shipping) then there shouldn't be a problem.

OH, I should add -- I don't pay "extra" for insurance on my packages. The SHIPPER is responsible for insuring the package. This is a standard SCAM by sellers. Seriously, if a package is lost or damaged, that's THE SHIPPER'S responsiblilty. If I don't get what I paid for, I'd just have my credit card company reverse the charges. Anybody wondering about this issue .. here's the ENGLISH version. You are entitled by law to either your PURCHASED ITEM or your MONEY. You do not forfeit either one by not purchasing "insurance" (again, that's a HUSTLE intended for anyone who can be sucked in by it)

Edited April 28, 2014 by JLSleather

[LTC]

This kind of thing causes me to limit the times I would order from them. And if they 'stood up' and so staunchly defended their "right" to gouge me with the shipping, I wouldn't buy from them at all.

exactly correct.

also spot on about the insurance scam.

[TomG]

I would have done the math the other way around. If someone is shipping 625 packages (middle of the estimated), and gets $20/hour (I won't debate it - just going with what was stated), and works at it (to be generous) 10 hours a day...

That's $200 / day in 'shipping labor'. That's an added cost (average) of $200/625 = 32¢ per package (your numbers, not mine).

Shipping charges + cost of box + cost of packing / tape / etc. + labor cost = actual cost. Anything above that is profit, and I don't know why someone would dispute that. Profit is DEFINED as $$ received less cost of goods (really, ask the IRS).

I just ordered those old patterns from Tandy, they're on closeout. Don't know if I'll ever use 'em, but whatever. Shipping was $12.99, which i found EXTREME for a few packets that will TOTAL about the size of a spiral notebook. I had to force myself not to cancel the (online) order just for principle, since I know that package is going to cost about $3 to ship up here. This kind of thing causes me to limit the times I would order from them. And if they 'stood up' and so staunchly defended their "right" to gouge me with the shipping, I wouldn't buy from them at all.

In the end, if you're okay with the total amount for what you're buying (price + shipping) then there shouldn't be a problem.

OH, I should add -- I don't pay "extra" for insurance on my packages. The SHIPPER is responsible for insuring the package. This is a standard SCAM by sellers. Seriously, if a package is lost or damaged, that's THE SHIPPER'S responsiblilty. If I don't get what I paid for, I'd just have my credit card company reverse the charges. Anybody wondering about this issue .. here's the ENGLISH version. You are entitled by law to either your PURCHASED ITEM or your MONEY. You do not forfeit either one by not purchasing "insurance" (again, that's a HUSTLE intended for anyone who can be sucked in by it)

And that is pretty much exactly what I was saying. I think the issue started with offense over the word "handling". Your formula is exactly correct. It's just that most businesses lump everything after "Shipping costs" in the Handling part of it.

I also have a major problem paying the excessive handling charges. I don't have a problem paying reasonable ones. And by reasonable, I mean a dollar or 2.

I do realize that there are many, many costs to ship items out that some might not consider. This is more true for large volume businesses than us small, home-based or mom & pop ones. I don't need a crew of people to pick drive a forklift across a warehouse to pull my order, pallets to store them on temporarily, very expensive inventory and control software to direct things, etc.

And all of those things have to be paid for somewhere in the system... It's a cost of doing business and comes out of the selling price of an item or in a handling charge.... but.. we're gonna pay it. Otherwise, the company goes out of business.

But, I have a hard time envisioning that handling cost being $8 - $10 for a small flat rate box of buckles or a first class envelope of patterns.

And yeah, insurance is to protect the sender, not the buyer.....If it isn;t, then why does the sender have to file the claim???

[ChuckBurrows]

• so it's gouging o take into consideration cost of materials and labor - have you ever done a time cost analysis? It's called accounting and to cover one's costs (no one is talking about making a profit except those calling others gougers...

as always I reckon opinions are like backsides...

in over 40 years of doing custom leather and knife work I have NEVER had a customer complain about shipping costs - in fact many adda few bucks on top of my charge to cover hidden costs....