I was just perusing some old threads and read a comment how a member thought it was almost unheard of to charge a box fee. He either pays for it or charges it into the snake/whatever your selling prices. It is part of "having an online business" as he said.

I don't know, seems a little crazy. I mean if your selling a snake for $500 sure a $5 box with styrofoam etc. might be no biggie. In reality not everyone is selling a snake for that much. He also said that he normally fronts the shipping if it is over $50. Again, John Smith selling a snake for $50 is more than likely not going to forgo this practice for much longer if he plans on staying in business.

Now I mostly deal in insects(mealworms, supers, etc.) so shipping isn't as much as a snake would be. With that being said shouldn't the price of "shipping and handling" be somewhere? I mean if it costs $5 a box to correctly ship out a snake or 5k mealworms I'm certainly not going to eat $5 per order! If anything it is part of "having an online business". We're not talking about 40 cents in peanuts to ship out a book, a couple bucks an order adds up. Regardless if it is an extra few bucks in the shipping price or it is built into the animal price more than not the seller isn't going to eat it. It just makes no sense to me.

It is like the sellers who charge a set $40 or $50 to ship out a snake. It doesn't exactly cost that much every time and certainly the box price and handling and whatever else is accounted for in the price. If I charge a set $10 for shipping I might lose some when it is shipped 9 states away, but 80 miles from me it might be lower than $10.

The member acted as if he had never paid a box fee and that it wad bad business practice. I'm sure one way or another he has paid for a box whether he knows it or not.

Thoughts?