DSF

again you are assuming I am aiming this a one perticular supplier when I'm not!

I am not saying suppliers need to improve their checkout systems when it comes to ordering! they need to be more upfront/Transparent about what the postage charges will be without having to get to the checkout/shopping cart!

it's not that hard to say you will be charged X amount per order for postage instead of having to get to the checkout to find out! so you can make your mind up about ordering from them in the first place instead of going up the garden path to only cancel the order!

and the most important part you are missing is most get their supplies from the same places and yet it's the postage part where we get turned over on where they want to make extra via the postage charges!

funkey monkey;88435 wrote:again you are assuming I am aiming this a one perticular supplier when I'm not!

Not "again", I did for postal charge but since then i've been stating a opinion which is obviously not inline with yours as to what is "upfront/Transparent".

funkey monkey;88435 wrote: it's not that hard to say you will be charged X amount per order for postage instead of having to get to the checkout to find out! so you can make your mind up about ordering from them in the first place instead of going up the garden path to only cancel the order!

I can only think of 2 that are like this one is CG as it free post and the other is BMS but display without vat added (not a fan of this). But personally I don't see the problem with hitting the basket to check total and then going back to shopping, have to do it on lots of other websites it's no biggie.

funkey monkey;88435 wrote: and the most important part you are missing is most get their supplies from the same places and yet it's the postage part where we get turned over on where they want to make extra via the postage charges!

Where they get them from has no relation to how much they charge for postage. How much they charge for the total cost of items including postage are more to do with how much they can import at a time there by getting a cheaper per unit price. How much it costs them to store them, how quickly and how many they sell, what deals they have with couriers, whether they choose to stock slower selling line to provide more choice for their consumers. There are lots of factors and to accuse suppliers "in general" as using postage to hike up there prices I think is unfair to them.

Unless you want to point fingers which I think is an entirely fair and justified thing to do.

galerion;88437 wrote:Not "again", I did for postal charge but since then i've been stating a opinion which is obviously not inline with yours as to what is "upfront/Transparent".

I can only think of 2 that are like this one is CG as it free post and the other is BMS but display without vat added (not a fan of this). But personally I don't see the problem with hitting the basket to check total and then going back to shopping, have to do it on lots of other websites it no biggie.

Where they get them from has no relation to how much they charge for postage. How much they charge for the total cost of items including postage are more to do with how much they can import at a time there by getting a cheaper per unit price. How much it costs them to store them, how quickly and how many they sell, what deals they have with couriers, whether they choose to stock slower selling line to provide more choice for their consumers. There are lots of factors and to accuse suppliers "in general" as using postage to hike up there prices I think is unfair to them.

Right that's it!

If you want to take me on then bring it on!

which point of you being a total XXXX (And that's me puting the X's instead of the auto swear kicking in) don't you understand that most who have been reading the post and replying can see the point of this post?

what is your problem? are you a supplier in disguise?

you are now making it a one person pers

funkey monkey;88438 wrote:Right that's it!

If you want to take me on then bring it on!

which point of you being a total XXXX (And that's me puting the X's instead of the auto swear kicking in) don't you understand that most who have been reading the post and replying can see the point of this post?

what is your problem? are you a supplier in disguise?

you are now making it a one person pers

Chap there is no reason to stress because I don't agree with the way you've gone about this thread go have a cup of tea and I won't post in it any more ok?

everyone has their own opinion and I will always repect that! but you was the one naming suppliers when people could have gone off and looked for themselves!

you made this personal with me with your replies! so don't tell me not to stress and have a cup of tea! you're the one that has tried to hijack this post in favour of one supplier who you kept naming!

Before this turns into a case of serious keyboard bravado, I want to interject. The reason you'll find that an ecommerce site won't give you the shipping cost until a certain point in the checkout is because there's no other way for it to do it. Unless you're logged in immediately, they don't know where they're shipping the goods so they can't tell you what the cost is. Same goes for the VAT. The taxation varies from territory to territory so it's unjust to display a typical UK VAT charge when the customer may be in the EU or another outlying territory. Were they to automatically charge VAT, they could easily lose overseas custom before they even got as far as the checkout if adding items to their cart showed the total including a taxation which wouldn't actually apply to them. The norm, therefore, is to show prices ex VAT and calculate any tax after the point where the customer has divulged their territory. This also applies to why there's tax on postage in some cases.

I'll be honest... as an ecommerce software developer (something which I've been doing for sixteen years now), the shipping aspect is by far the toughest to write. There's no two clients who will use the same shipping method and rules. One may want to charge a per-product shipping price whereas others may want to charge a single flat rate. Others may prefer to charge individual prices until a certain threshold is reached and then place a ceiling on it so that the customer never pays more than a specific amount. Others may adopt a ship-by-weight method and may even include a ceiling with it. To write something which caters for all eventualities is very tough, and is only something that I managed to perfect a year ago. Until then, every client had their own custom shipping logic written, depending on what they wanted.

As for why certain suppliers charge more than others for shipping, it depends on their throughput. Those with smaller quantities being shipped will pay a higher premium while those throwing out hundreds of packages a day will have managed to secure ridiculously cheap deals with couriers who are happy to compromise on price for the promise of guaranteed revenue. I went to buy from someone the other night... can't remember who it was but I believe their only shipping option was £17.95 and that was only for a set of 7100DN inks. That's way too much, even for Special Delivery - which it wasn't.

With regard to surprise VAT charges once you reach the checkout.. if you're buying from a trade site (which I'm assuming we all are as it would be far too expensive to buy retail) then you will always have VAT added once you reach checkout. I do try to encourage my clients to state 'all prices are ex VAT' or 'all prices include VAT' depending on how they run their business, but most just don't bother. It annoys me, because I also don't like surprise VAT, but the annoyance only comes when I'm buying from a retailer so I expect that the cost on display is the full retail price and not a trade price that's ex VAT.

Anyway... that's the technical reasons behind why VAT is shown only after a certain point, and charging VAT on shipping is something that all my clients have done since I started. The option is there to switch it off entirely, or move it to beyond the taxation area so that VAT is only calculated on goods, but nobody has ever done this.

Arty,

I applaud you for the reply!

I really do understand what it's like with a site and how you manage the postal costs along with all the variables involved!

But I really can't see why the suppliers can't be upfront with the postage costs and let the buyers know if they will be paying for postage by each item added as a total weight instead of showing the goods at one price! then followed buy another cost for VAT and than adding the non VAT cost along with the VAT with the non descriptive reason for what you are being charged for before making your final order untal you get to the end of the checkout process!

Well, that's true... I do always encourage our clients to use the Shipping page (by default, all of our stores have one so there's no excuse) to explain how shipping is calculated, show any excess fees for specific postcodes, and explain how to obtain the cheapest possible shipping. I also encourage them to have a ceiling price so that their customers will never pay over a certain amount once their order reaches a specific total. Talking to clients is like talking to a stick though.

funkey monkey;88450 wrote:
But I really can't see why the suppliers can't be upfront with the postage costs and let the buyers know if they will be paying for postage by each item added as a total weight instead of showing the goods at one price! then followed buy another cost for VAT and than adding the non VAT cost along with the VAT with the non descriptive reason for what you are being charged for before making your final order untal you get to the end of the checkout process!

I've not read all this thread so I'm just commenting on this part. This is exactly what BMS do - they show the delivery cost on just about every page so as you add items the shipping costs will update immediately and you can select a country from this drop down list to see what costs might be. You don't have to go to the shopping cart to see the delivery costs.

Of course delivery costs vary in the UK (NI v Bournemouth are different) but if you are logged in then the mini cart on each page shows the lowest delivery cost for your specific postcode. This is all upfront and nothing is hidden away and therefore nothing should come as a surprise and you can easily manage your cart to ensure you optimise the amount in a basket prior to moving to the next delivery cost level. Again this is all explained in detail from a link on the main page labelled 'postage'.

Glad to see you replying Martin - one of the points raised earlier was that some people wanted to see the full cost inc VAT and delivery without going through the checkout. You're certainly better set up than a lot of suppliers websites.