Also, despite how big the States is, y'alls shipping is still obscenely cheap compared to most places. Colour me jealous.
Internet retail dude here to tell you it's not really that cheap, but consumer perception on shipping is skewed to hell and probably won't ever be realistic again thanks to Amazon etc. who fucked it up for the rest of us.
After 20 years in biz and shipping out anywhere from 25k-40k parcels a year for 3/4 of that, you learn that UPS, FedEx and USPS are all raging assholes when it comes to doing you favors. Seriously, even when we'd have growth spurts, they'd be like "Well, let's bump your discounted pricing from 20% off to 20.8%, won't that be great?" right before they'd put another 2% increase into things a few months later.
Had to go to a shipping consolidator who was able to get us closer to 45% off the regular rates and about 60% off express services, and know what? It STILL costs me an average of $13 to send an 8 lb. box to most spots in the US by Ground and since my margins suck ass, I can't reduce my shipping any and stay viable.
Amazon and those who are supreme salespeople on how "big they'll be in the future" who can woo the shipping companies have managed to get closer to 80% or so off the regular rates. So, this means that the box I have to ship for about $13 rather than around $20 before discount, well, they're only paying about $4.50 for that same shipment. Which is why they can give "free" shipping since they pay so little for it, and because they're forcing suppliers to give them added discounts on product in order to get preferential placement many times. The main shippers add $3.50 more if you want shit delivered to your home rather than a business address, and if you live a few miles outside a major city? Well, get ready for another $2-4 in "rural delivery surcharge" shit that might make that $13 shipment jump over $15 in a heartbeat. If you ever want do to favors for the companies you like, have your shit shipped to your work whenever you can, because I can tell you, you'll save a few bucks in doing so.
More often, smaller companies doing cheap/low cost shipping can just do it because they work on bigger margins and subsidize their ship costs by covering part of it. Easy to do when you have a $10 item that you mark up to $30, hard to do when my $10 item only sells for $14-15 and you've got a staff who needs to get paid.
Shipping shit fucking sucks for most of us because we deal with people writing to bitch about why we're not doing what the world's largest internet retailer does, and when you try to explain it to them, they just think you're full of shit and take their biz elsewhere. Precisely why I'm planning a 2020 exit, until the day comes that shoppers have a grip on the reality of what the cost of doing business is and stop freaking out about having to pay actual cost for a service to get their fucking goods on their doorstep in a day or two for the ultimate in convenience, I don't want to deal with it.
/rant, sorry to bitch, but shipping cost stuff and the perception of costs just get under my skin.
Topic: Jamie Thomas savage asfffff thread deleted? (Read 66200 times)