Originally Posted by Rebecca VLQ

I refuse to buy from places that do that. It makes me feel like they could charge my credit card no matter what. And they're trying to be sneaky and make the customer commit...as in, "Well I'm already THIS far..."

I like free shipping deals, even though I know it's not really free. With Fabric.com, the $35 = free shipping is the perfect price point. $50 is kinda a deal breaker, even though I've been known to drop that much in one shopping trip. I laugh at shops that say $75 or $100 = free shipping.

I also like the ones that do flat rate up to so many yards. I usually max out the flat-rate on that, but that could also max out how big of an order you get. Like $5 flat rate shipping for up to 10 yards, for example. I'd get the 10 yards, but if I normally will buy up to 13 yards, I'd probably not get the extra 3 yards because it would result in an extra $5-6 in shipping, kwim?

Originally Posted by QKO

Thanks for the advice, but I've been running an online cart for four years and have shipped many thousands of orders, so I'm not exactly new at the game. I also do all my own cart modifications and programming, so I do know my way around the USPS shipping API's.

Our cart incorporates the USPS shipping calculators, and they are, as you stated, accurate, but that's provided one of two conditions exist; you're either only shipping one or two items at a time, or you're charging a handling charge that takes care of all your additional packaging and paperwork weights.

Let me give you an example: We know exactly what our fabrics weigh; batiks weigh less, heavy fabrics more, and we put those weights into our product records, then they go into the shipping calculator at sale time. We also know what our packaging materials weigh, so we need to add that to our product weights, since our customers prefer we don't add handling charges.

So, let's say one yard of fabric weighs 8 ounces, and the packaging material for that weighs 3 ounces (you have to pay to ship the envelope, paperwork, internal packaging, etc too.)

So, you set your weight at 11 ounces for a yard. Now, someone orders two yards. You give the estimator the total weight, now 22 ounces, when actually you only have one set of shipping materials, so you're off by 3 ounces. Now multiply that by 10, for ten different one-yard cuts ordered. Now your shipping estimate is off by 30 ounces from actual weight (probably about 24 ounces because you have heavier packaging) and your USPS shipping estimator has overestimated shipping costs by several dollars or more, depending on destination.

See the problem? No way around it, because you still need to estimate packaging accurately for small orders. So you're not exactly "golden."

We have customers that order lots of small amounts of different items, for instance, 20 half-yard cuts. Their actual shipping cost can be many dollars below the estimate, particularly on international orders where the estimate can exceed the 4 pound limit for International First Class parcel, where the actual weight does not.

Our regular customers know how our system works, and that we adjust the charges down to actual when we ship. But a first-time customer doesn't, and often abandons her cart during checkout when the shipping charges are overestimated.

If you can come up with a solution to this problem that doesn't involve a separate package-weight charge (i.e. a handling charge) the entire online selling world, at least the people who sell multiple items shipped together, wants to know about it.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking seriously about going to flat rate shipping, at least for USA orders...

Originally Posted by QKO

Believe me, retiring for a second time is looking really attractive at this point. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Originally Posted by Fiber Artist

Free shipping is good.When I go shopping at stores I spend gas,wear and tear on truck and buying more than I need or planned.Everything costs money and shipping is part of that.