Suppliers Postage & VAT Rates

[pisquee]

We're currently working with an e-commerce company to put our brand onto a new website. They say from their research on the 50-60 e-commerce sites that they work on/run, one of the main causes of abandoned checkouts on websites is surprise surcharges such as postage costs - they say that they see better sales on websites which have inclusive postage per product, rather than it be an addition at the end, even if the pricing of the website with inclusive postage actually works out more expensive, eg, £40+£2.95 postage will not sell as well as a product at £45 with postage included.

[funkey monkey]

Funny how none of the suppliers have replied to this thread when their sites where part of my test along with non suppliers of this site were as well?

Now I know suppliers which are not on this forum couldn't reply but I would have expected suppliers that are to defend their postage costs?

[daviddeer]

Funny how none of the suppliers have replied to this thread when their sites where part of my test along with non suppliers of this site were as well?

Now I know suppliers which are not on this forum couldn't reply but I would have expected suppliers that are to defend their postage costs?

Perhaps it costs too much to POST lol!

[purpledragon]

Funny how none of the suppliers have replied to this thread when their sites where part of my test along with non suppliers of this site were as well?

Now I know suppliers which are not on this forum couldn't reply but I would have expected suppliers that are to defend their postage costs?

why should they ? first off im sure they are chuffed to bits knowing that someones come along and messed their stats with abandoned carts ok it may be one click but its still a waste of their time should they choose to look into such issues, also why justify it if you dont like the cost of the postage dont pay it simple but do consider that some suppliers may not have the same deals going with postal companies as others . I recently posted a question on how to get the cheapest postage on bulk items i had to send 800 pillowcases to a customer it cost me 50 quid the company that supplied me with the pillowcases in the first place only charged me 20 quid . i doubt it was because they like my dashing good looks and witty charm its probably more a case of they have a better deal going with the postal company than i could get all though the dashing good looks probably helped! at the end of the day what ever postage you are charged im sure in one way or another you are paying for it . look at ebay the amount of people offering free postage has risen quite a bit but coincidently the average price of the items have also risen about the same cost of the postage , so theres no such thing as free postage it just gets added to the product.
at the end of the day you know what supplier you use , you know what their postage costs are and if you have any business sense you will have factored this into what you charge your customer

[pisquee]

I'm sure they are chuffed to bits knowing that someone's come along and messed their stats with abandoned carts. OK it may be one click but its still a waste of their time should they choose to look into such issues

If they look at their abandoned carts stats, hopefully they will realise that one of the reasons is because of the postage charges - not necessarily because they are high, but because you can't even get the final price until you do, and only then can you compare costs with other suppliers.

[funkey monkey]

why should they ? first off im sure they are chuffed to bits knowing that someones come along and messed their stats with abandoned carts ok it may be one click but its still a waste of their time should they choose to look into such issues, also why justify it if you dont like the cost of the postage dont pay it simple but do consider that some suppliers may not have the same deals going with postal companies as others . I recently posted a question on how to get the cheapest postage on bulk items i had to send 800 pillowcases to a customer it cost me 50 quid the company that supplied me with the pillowcases in the first place only charged me 20 quid . i doubt it was because they like my dashing good looks and witty charm its probably more a case of they have a better deal going with the postal company than i could get all though the dashing good looks probably helped! at the end of the day what ever postage you are charged im sure in one way or another you are paying for it . look at ebay the amount of people offering free postage has risen quite a bit but coincidently the average price of the items have also risen about the same cost of the postage , so theres no such thing as free postage it just gets added to the product.
at the end of the day you know what supplier you use , you know what their postage costs are and if you have any business sense you will have factored this into what you charge your customer

The point I was making is if the postage costs are made clear when you look on the site you can make your choice there and then if you want to buy from them instead of getting all the way to the checkout to find the postage is going to cost an extra £20 - £40+ more along with most selling the same blanks but using the postage to charge extra to bump up the profits! and I know we are customers just like our own customers and it's up to us if we choose to buy from that supplier?

But at the end of the day they need us like we need them which is a case of don't bite the hand that feeds you!

[pisquee]

I wonder if it's a limitation of the shopping cart system, or the suppliers back end systems, that it can't calculate the shipping 'til the end? (anyone know how these things work?)
It's almost as annoying as suppliers whose websites aren't tied to the stock levels, so you are able to order more than they have, which unfortunately seems to be the majority of suppliers.

[funkey monkey]

I'd like to think it was that but there are enough off the shelf systems cart and site wise that can over come that but they also have options in the backend/admin side for the postages costs to not just add the postage cost for each item as a singel total cost to be added as a final total cost as if you had bought each item on their own.

But that is no excuse not to put it somewhere on the site to say if your order under this amount the postage will be this? and if you order over this amount it will be this?

They know what they are doing with postage costs just like we all do when making our prices up for the items!

[purpledragon]

I wonder if it's a limitation of the shopping cart system, or the suppliers back end systems, that it can't calculate the shipping 'til the end? (anyone know how these things work?)
It's almost as annoying as suppliers whose web tied to the stock levels, so you are able to order more than they have, which unfortunately seems to be the majority of suppliers.

Theres something in that, my sites shopping cart has a couple of choices i can use to calculate postage either weight or by the item but theres the problem after all i can send 2 mugs for same price as 1 so should i choose to charge by weight? But then if i consider an umbrella well that weighs less than 2 mugs but royal mail dont accept them so i have to use courier do i decide to lose on this ? I cant have it both ways . Its very difficult when selling such a variaty of items.
Funky i take your point and if we were talking joe public id agree my point was that we as maufacturers tend to buy our raw materials ie mug blanks etc from the same place everytime so you tend to know what you are likly to be charged for postage

[socialgiraffe]

i doubt it was because they like my dashing good looks and witty charm

I doubt it also

though the dashing good looks probably helped!

No it never


What sites are you referring to Funky Monkey? None that I know of do not publish their courier/postage charges.

postage is going to cost an extra £20 - £40+

What an earth were you buying! A pallet of mugs only costs £50.00