Maybe the wrong section but postage?

[dazzul]

Im also with SMO, £1.80 for a Mug & Phone Cases for 58p and my best selling items cost only 33p to send.

I believe by having such low postage costs im passing the savings directly onto my customers, before i had such cheap postage, i used to pass of the postage on at COST price, you should never attempt to make money from postage just cover costs.

[FlyingAl]

Share the luv guys, where do these rates come from, franking..... sorcery?

[smo]

Simples - Royal Mail Online Business Account (OBA as its known)

I never have to leave my office for deliveries, collections or supplies. Post is delivered in the morning (haha), collected in the afternoon and if I need bags, tags, zip ties etc. they are ordered online for free and delivered to my door (by a courier usually, how ironic!).

Rates are +VAT but as we claim that back it makes no difference. Far cheaper than franking and no silly machine or hidious ink costs etc.

[FlyingAl]

aaaah, thanks smo, how the other half live no use for me, sigh!

[socialgiraffe]

you should never attempt to make money from postage just cover costs

Disagree here, sorry

Many of my customers are on 30 or 60 day credit terms which is pretty standard for business customers. I use City link for my day to day couriers who operate 14 day credit terms, which again is standard for most of the overnight couriers.

My City link bill each week is about £300-400+

If I just passed the cost on, I would essentially be up to £1000-1600 per month out of pocket until the invoices were paid. Simply passing on the cost is not good business sense unless the customer is prepared to pay upfront. As most overnights are done by weight the minimum I add on is £5.00 per delivery and increase it on a sliding scale depending on the weight sent.

Passing on the cost of a courier is the same as passing on the cost of a blank. So presumably you charge £1.00 (approx) for 1 mug

[dazzul]

:p Theres always one hahaha

Im in a slight different boat all my customers pay in advance maybe becasue of the trade i came from before i was here, or im just mad. I only started this when people became hard to chase for payment due to failing businesses. I do love the public more :p

RM's OBA are done in a similar by weight and we do have to pay on a 30 day period but as ive already taken payment i dont have the problem you describe.
If you were taking your payments upfront would you then agree to not make extra from it?

SMO, the one thing i cant get to grips is THEY hate sending bags out, then when they do i only get a weeks supply, i just befriended the local postmaster he now supplys my sacks, but still use RM for everything else get it while its FREE . On the other hand i drop all my mail off to the local post office daily (its 15 doors down).

[socialgiraffe]

Hi Dazzul

If only I could have pro forma customers

If I did have pro forma I think I would still charge more than I am being charged. Probably not as much but still more. As an example I currently pay £6.00 for up to 20 kilos on an overnight with City Link. This is charged out at £11.00. If I were to have pro forma then I may knock it down to £9.00 but that would be as low as I go.

It may seem excessive but sometimes I can find packing and labeling etc etc can take longer than the bloomin job!

[smo]

The old mail sack issue is a pain in the backside! I got told off by RM's head office for asking for 200 bags at a time on their online system when they said I must use it. Thankfully we've always had excellent collection posties who bring a "bag of bags" (or 2) whenever we ask so we dont have to deal with beaurocratic crap through the online request system.

[smo]

The old mail sack issue is a pain in the backside! I got told off by RM's head office for asking for 200 bags at a time on their online system when they said I must use it. Thankfully we've always had excellent collection posties who bring a "bag of bags" (or 2) whenever we ask so we dont have to deal with beaurocratic crap through the online request system.

Incidentally on the postage charging question, we post everything for free and never charge for postage or packaging! (This is going to change soon, my postage bill is over 30K!)

[dazzul]

I do admit today all my orders did take two of us an hour.

There just silly with the sacks!