What to charge for postage?

[ctrlaura]

Hi, I'm new to posting on the forum but have been lurking for a while and am finding the forum extremely useful.

I am in the process of setting up an online equestrian goods store selling everything from horse care items to saddlery and riding clothing.

Our online store is being built using Zencart.

All these items can vary greatly in weight and size. Also, some of the items we hold in stock and others we have to order and pay carriage on from our suppliers.

I am struggling to work out what we should charge for postage, has anyone any pointers on what I need to think about?

Obviously in the first instance we will be using Royal mail.

I have looked at all other online retailers and they tend to differ from free delivery on all items to £6.99 standard delivery.

Many Thanks for any suggestions...

 

[gemd89]

Just look at what your average weight will be and charge a flat rate with free delivery over a certain amount.

What about your competitiors, what do they charge for postage?

Gemma

 

[Highland Park]

Stating the obvious I suppose, but if you charge less postage than it costs then you are reducing your profit margin - check that it can stand it. Competitors have the same problem but perhaps deal with it differently, e.g. higher margins, cheaper bulk deals with courier companies, etc.

Check the Royal Mail website since each service has different maxima for weight AND size.

 

[alanc]

This always seems to be a difficult question and the one that divides online stores. One pattern I've observed is that shops with a wide variety of products weights tend to charge postage by weight (as opposed to a flat rate). Smaller shops do the same because they are not comfortable with the gains & losses of a flat-rate system. Free postage is always attractive to the customer, but unless you're getting rock-bottom prices o n delivery, the cost will show up in the item price.

You need to set up a spreadsheet to list the cost price, selling price, postage cost, postage charge for all, or a selection of your products. Factor in VAT and you'll be able to see whether you're making money or not. Once you've set up a spreadsheet, you can play with different pricing models.

 

[stylistichosting]

I would suggest using delivery levels, maybe structured as follows:

1: Cheapest price, apply to cheapest to ship products
2: Normal Price
3: Expensive delivery for heavy items
4: Free delivery

Then you just manually you choose the level for each product.

 

[SpeedyExpressCouriers]

A number of postage options would be good, check what your competitors charge and check what you will be charged.

May use

Sameday
1 Day
3 Days
5 Days
7 - 10 Days

 

[seasonsonline]

Either don't charge shipping and absorb the costs elsewhere, or simply charge a fair price.

We give retail free shipping, but our trade members pay a fair price based solely on the weight of goods.

Within the design of your website it would be a very good idea to incorporate some method of adjustment for shipping. We have the ability to set shipping prices by weight or price (cost of order), and this is a priceless tool to have. Also, it needs to have the ability to be edited, as prices change from time to time.

 

[arcon5]

We charge actual shipping cost + £1 to cover packaging and 'self-insuring' for items damaged in transit.

Postage is then capped at £4.85 and the extra it costs for larger orders is covered by us. If they want a 24hr service then +£4.

Seems fair to both parties like this.

Another way to do it is if it costs £1.50 to post and your price is £5 then charge £6.50 for one or £5.75 where buying 2+ to encourage larger orders.

Personally I hate it when companies offer only next day delivery@£7.50 for example or if I want a small, lightweight item costing about £10 to get to checkout and see delivery is by courier for £5.99.

But it all depends on what your selling......

 

[livigno08]

We struggled with this one as well.
We ended up giving free delivery for all UK orders because after checking out the competition we found we could still be competitive even absorbing the cost of delivery.
The most expensive items we sell tend to be worth less than £41 so the standard Royal Mail insurance is enough.
Our average shipping costs are about £3.50 per parcel using 1st class recorded delivery.
For Europe, we only use Airsure, not international signed for because the tracking is better (but still not up to much!) and we offer free delivery for orders above £100.
For orders under £100 we ask the customer to pay a percentage of the shippnig costs depending on how much they have spent with us.
For example, if someone spends up to £10 we charge them 100% of the shipping costs, if they spend between £10.01 - £20 we charge them 90%, £20.01 - £30 = 80%. You get the idea

If we we're sending more than 100 parcels per week we could get them all sent by UPS for about £3 per parcel which would be so much better than Royal Mail. Their tracking is the best I've seen but we're only doing 30 per week so we need to up our game a bit!

Hope this is of some help!

 

[ctrlaura]

Thank You all for your ideas. I'm glad this isn't straightforward as I thought I was missing something!

We definitely want to offer free delivery in the local area and for if you spend over a certain amount, we are thinking for this to be £50 at the moment, but we will re-evaluate this when up and running.

Our products vary greatly in weight and size, from a 20gram hoofpick to a 10kg Wheelbarrow! The prices also vary from 10p to £250!

I'm going to have a good read through your suggestions and work out the best way for us.

I shall let you know what we decide and how it goes!

Thanks again