Well folks, here’s the deal: the philosophy at HelloTraveler.com is that you should only have to pay shipping costs relative to what you ordered and where you are.
In other words, the shipping carriers charge by weight and distance (and to a lesser extent package dimension). So, if you order $20 worth of stickers and live in North Carolina, why should you have to pay the same amount to ship as someone who ordered a $20 scrapbook and lives in California? (we ship from Atlanta)
We believe the answer is that, “ you shouldn’t have to.” The weights and distances of the 2 examples given are completely different. This is why we use a website shipping calculator, so you pay only relative to your order.
Now, here comes the rub…….whereas more than 90% of the time all works fine, we’ve realized that some orders produce ridiculous shipping costs. Seems to happen when more than a dozen lightweight items are in a cart. Things like scrapbook papers, stickers, etc.
We have a good technical guy who know this particular e-commerce software quite well. But, whatever the glitch is…..it has proven difficult to correct. However, we haven’t given up!
Meantime, if you think the shipping cost provided seems nuts…like a $45 order is producing an $18 shipping cost…..please feel free to install the following in the Special Instructions Box when checking out: Please verify shipping rates and adjust.
We will be sure to do that and often do anyhow; plenty of customers will tell you.
Finally, it’s worth noting that there is alot more nuance to this shipping stuff than most people realize. The website calculators have no awareness of Flat Rate envelopes or boxes, for example. Please know that we always try to do our best and want our customers to get a fair shake.
Tags: Fed Ex, postage, shipping costs, shipping rates, USPS
This entry was posted
on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 3:52 PM and is filed under General Comments.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
The lowdown on shipping costs
Well folks, here’s the deal: the philosophy at HelloTraveler.com is that you should only have to pay shipping costs relative to what you ordered and where you are.
In other words, the shipping carriers charge by weight and distance (and to a lesser extent package dimension). So, if you order $20 worth of stickers and live in North Carolina, why should you have to pay the same amount to ship as someone who ordered a $20 scrapbook and lives in California? (we ship from Atlanta)
We believe the answer is that, “ you shouldn’t have to.” The weights and distances of the 2 examples given are completely different. This is why we use a website shipping calculator, so you pay only relative to your order.
Now, here comes the rub…….whereas more than 90% of the time all works fine, we’ve realized that some orders produce ridiculous shipping costs. Seems to happen when more than a dozen lightweight items are in a cart. Things like scrapbook papers, stickers, etc.
We have a good technical guy who know this particular e-commerce software quite well. But, whatever the glitch is…..it has proven difficult to correct. However, we haven’t given up!
Meantime, if you think the shipping cost provided seems nuts…like a $45 order is producing an $18 shipping cost…..please feel free to install the following in the Special Instructions Box when checking out: Please verify shipping rates and adjust.
We will be sure to do that and often do anyhow; plenty of customers will tell you.
Finally, it’s worth noting that there is alot more nuance to this shipping stuff than most people realize. The website calculators have no awareness of Flat Rate envelopes or boxes, for example. Please know that we always try to do our best and want our customers to get a fair shake.
Tags: Fed Ex, postage, shipping costs, shipping rates, USPS
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 3:52 PM and is filed under General Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.