Shipping companies

Hey all,
I shop frequently and have been using Reptile Express and Ship your Reptiles, depending on the price. I've also used reptiles 2 you a few times in the past.

I charge exact shipping basically, and have had many people complain that it's too high even though I compare what's cheapest through these 3 sites.

I just discovered Herps.com for shipping and was wondering how reliable they are and if anyone's used it .

What company do you ship through? How much does it cost you? I understand setting a standard shipping fee but I've had some crazy high prices sending to the opposite cost before.

What do you do?

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

Rising shipping costs are just a part of doing business. I typically charge a flat fee($50) for shipping anywhere in the lower 48. This means I'm usually paying anywhere from $10-20 out of pocket, depending on destination for my 7x7x7 boxes for young colubrids. I view it similarly to extended payment plans, holds due to weather, etc. I don't charge folks extra when I have to keep an animal longer and feed it weekly. I also generally don't mark up prices on animals I've grown out for a few extra months either as I tend to take my time picking keepers. These are all costs that are probably better thought out beforehand and included into your animal pricing. Nobody likes added fees so if you stick to listing "to your door" prices, I feel a lot less time ends up being wasted for buyers and sellers alike.

As for what shipping company I use, I'm a devoted reptiles2you customer. I could probably write a lengthy essay on the reasons why(having used all 3 of the big ones a fair bit) but it can pretty well be summed up with 2 words - Debbie Price. When I was first testing the waters at reptiles2you, I had a shipment get delayed in transit. I didn't even know their was a delay before Debbie called me on the phone. She also called the recipient to see if they wanted to change their delivery options or continue waiting at home for the late shipment. She was in contact with me, the recipient and FedEx the whole time and even put in for a refund(which I received) since FedEx was going to be late with the delivery. I didn't have to lift a finger. I now have zero stress with animals in transit knowing that Debbie is behind the scenes keeping an eye on things. Hard to put a price tag on that.

Most breeders will absorb some of the cost of shipping and offer a flat rate, if you want to remain competitive it will be the cost of doing business.

Based on their site Herp.com which is a pretty new company uses UPS therefore you cannot ship snakes, snake shipping is against UPS TOS.