RE: [Harp-L] Re:shipping costs

["Ian Chadwick" <ichadwick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Easton [mailto:diachrome@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 4:51 PM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Harp-L] Re:shipping costs

Shipping fees can be somewhat tricky for a small time vendor to figure out.
4 things figure into shipping costs. The destination or zone, how fast you
want it to  gets there, weight of product and insurance value of product.

The cheapest shipping to Canada is via USPS with no insurance declaration.
I made the mistake of using UPS to return a customers fixed chrome to Canada
and it ended up costing him over $50 in shipping fees.  There was the fee
for me to insure and ship it up to Canada then UPS charged him another fee
in Canada.

Needless to say I've never used UPS on international shipping  again.
If a customer is willing to risk no insurance, a 1lb package to Canada is
around $4 USD.

If anybody is making money it's the damn shipping companies. I've insured
packages with USPS and had then mark it fragile only to see them toss it in
a bin on the floor across the room.  Fricking morons!

mike
-------------
I know all too well the costs of shipping even small items - I run a UPS
Store in Canada. So I appreciate when vendors offer choices - mail or
courier, which speed (standard, express) and with/without insurance. Let the
buyer determine which he or she prefers. Might seem complicated, but it may
make the difference between a sale or not. I would have purchased one or two
harps from Coast 2 Coast this week if the shipping was reasonable, but with
only one option that cost as much or more than a single harp, it makes it
too expensive (even with our dollar at par). I don't mind waiting for the
slower mail service if it saves me $10-$20 (money I can use to buy more
harps!).

Most of the eBay sellers I use offer choices for mail or courier. If I
really need something in a hurry, I can use an express service.

With UPS, the nasty surprise at the receiver's end is the brokerage fee
charged for the privilege of doing the paperwork to get your package through
customs. With express service, the brokerage fee is built into the cost -
but it's a LOT higher than ground (standard) service. I recently got a
Strumstick sent by UPS - the instrument cost me $100 but the brokerage fee
was $39. Add onto that the federal and provincial taxes and I paid another
$55! I won't UPS ground service again to ship across the border because of
their excessive brokerage fees (and I own a UPS store!).

Ian
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ian Chadwick
Web: www.ianchadwick.com
Forum & blog: www.ianchadwick.com/forum/
Email: ichadwick@xxxxxxxxxxxx
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~