I try to take this with a sense of humor but it gets old and I am cranky this week-
Some simple facts:
1. I can not ship a feather across the street for less than $9 to a residential address via UPS or Fedex anymore. Commercial addresses are a whole different thing but not too many of my customers live in a warehouse. And before you get on the USPS horse, go check it out. You are in good shape with them UNTIL you get to about 2-3 lbs or the mid sized flat rate (which is close to $11 and will not fit a lg hide). They aint as cheap as they used to be. Small flat rate box and boxes east of the Mississippi line under 3 lbs work out pretty well. Now if I could get reliable mail pickup I would have it made!
2. One way or another you are paying for shipping everywhere. I have often considered just raising the prices of everything and doing $5 flat shipping. Seems easy enough and I doubt many would notice. But thats just not how I like to do it. Others will offer you a low shipping and good pricing and then hit you real hard on some items. Nothing wrong with that, it all math's out in the end but again, not the way I prefer to do it.
3. I now have a 6.99 flat rate ground shipping. Guess what! Some times it costs me $5.25 USPS and other times the lowest price I can get for an item is $10. Had a customer order 15 rat cages last night with 6.99 shipping. Cost me about $40. After crunching thousands of transactions I figured out that I come out about even in the 6.75 - 7.25 range. No price increase due to the shipping. Works for me. Still not happy??
4. We now have quite a few dealers selling many of our products, like hides, nation wide so that it is more convenient for you to walk in to an LLL near you and get the one hide and not pay any shipping! Some of you seem to think that is an insult to your dignity or something? How about just take advantage of it with a smile?
On top of all of that my costs for freight inbound have gone up dramatically yet I have managed, in part through strategies like this, to NOT raise any price in quite some time. Might seem real simple behind your keyboard to tell other people what it ought to cost, until you have to get it, warehouse it, sell it, box it and ship it.
Just my .02 worth.
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