It says there is an automatic 30% off right now on shipping, BUT it seems to be double the cost! I want to order 15 bags of glass filler (15 pounds), and 1 bag of mohair(1/4 ounce). And the Shipping cost is $30??? I know that all that can be put into the large flat rate box, and that costs $16.85 with a 70 pound weight limit. Not sure why the extra $13 is needed.
Last time I ordered glass filler I ordered at least 20 1 pound bags and they all came in one of the large priority boxes. Maybe it was a priority box, but not a flat rate. I still think 15 would fit in a flat rate.
i also thought that shipping was kinda higher than normal? but my only guess is that shipping costs have risen again … i think shipping was 13. for one kit and a pair of eyes. (that was even with the 30% off!)
Our shipping is automatically 30% off of the Post Office retail pricing (what it would cost if you went directly to the post office). It is automatic.
You can easily verify this for yourself. First, look at the top of our pages, above the menu bar. You will see something like this (but of course, with your own cart contents recorded instead of the zeros shown):
[list]My Order: 0 items // Boxed Weight: 0 oz. // Subtotal (without shipping): $0.00 [/list:u:15pe4ohu]
Now go to http://www.usps.com and look up the rate to ship that weight from Salt Lake City, Utah (USA) to your own location. Look at the “Express Mail” rate for international shipments, and the “Priority” rate for USA domestic shipments. You will see that we are actually charging 30% less than the Post Office retail pricing. We charge less for shipping than it costs us.
The website doesn’t know anything about Flat Rate boxes, though. If we can save on shipping by shipping in a Flat Rate box, we will do so, and we will issue a Gift Certificate to you for the shipping savings (we do not otherwise discount the Flat Rate shipping prices, though, because they are already discounted).
The warehouse will not know if they can use a flat rate box or not until they actually try to pack the order. Also, we have learned from sad experience that there is an upper weight limit for flat rate boxes of around 15 pounds or so-- boxes packed heavier than that tend to break apart during shipping. There is absolutely no way you can ship 70 pounds in a flat rate box. That’s nothing but post office marketing fluff. If you try to ship anywhere near that much in a flat rat box, it will fall apart during shipping, and it will not reach it’s destination. The flat rate boxes are relatively flimsy, and around 15 pounds or so is about all you can reliably ship in one. We’ve done 25 pounds in them before, but the failure rate at that weight was probably about 1/4 of the shipments fell apart. 15 pounds is about the limit-- and occasionally up to about 20 pounds, depending on exactly what is being shipped.
I think if the shipment contents were more uniformly sized so that less shipping stresses were placed on the shipping box, you could go quite a bit heavier than 15 pounds. For example, I think Jack Johnston, at artdolls.com, can get away with heavier flat rate shipments, because his polymer clay bricks are uniformly sized and shaped, plus it generally isn’t a big deal if a bar of clay gets a dent in it during shipment-- the contents aren’t going to spill out for him. But for internal contents that are not uniformly sized to more-or-less exactly fit the box without creating stress points on and around the box, 15 to 20 pounds is about it, and often 15 pounds is about it. It will fall apart if you go much beyond that. Those boxes are flimsy.
Also, if the shipping warehouse is faced between the following two choices: (1) ship in one larger box, or (2) ship in two boxes, with one or more of them a flat rate box, we’ve found that in almost every case, shipping in the larger box, and only using one box, is cheaper than the flat rate route of multiple boxes. So there are times when a customer might think a flat rate box could have been used, when it simply wasn’t cost effective to do so.
But back to the original question: yes, our shipping is automatically 30% off of the Post Office retail pricing (what it would cost if you went directly to the post office). It is automatic. And you can easily verify this yourself. But the website doesn’t know anything about flat rate boxes when it calculates shipping.
Nevin Pratt
CEO, Bountiful Baby
The shipping cost did go down about $6 once I go to the very last screen to pay for my order. I just wish I knew sooner the exact shipping, because if I knew it would drop $6, I would have added either more filler or something else I needed since I was ordering on a tight budget this time. Thank you for your response Nevin. BB has always been the best at Customer Service!
It can only give an exact shipping quote once it knows exactly where you are. To tell it where you are, you can either log in with the Login link in the menu bar, or else you can begin the checkout process. You don’t have to finish the checkout process, but you need to far enough to tell it where you are. Once you have done that, you can go back and continue shopping if you wish.
Also, you can watch the “Boxed Weight” indicator above the menu bar. It will tell you what your cart contents are calculated to weigh when shipped. Realize that the post office prices change at every pound, so you can watch how many more ounces you have before hitting the next pound increment.
Hope this helps!
Nevin Pratt
CEO, Bountiful Baby
Just amazed sometimes, Nevin, at the thought and the time you put in to respond to our crazy questions. I’ve been learning the hard way that the post office mailing regulations are crazy. Seems like I can mail a box for one price, priority and then the next week go to mail a lighter box the same way only to be told it is twice as much or can’t be mailed that way. Like this last week when I tried to mail a large brown envelope with signature confirmation, was told it had to be in one of their priority mail envelopes to have signature confirmation, change everything over to their envelope, go to pay for it with signature confirmation, only to be told by the woman at the counter who has been standing there the whole time watching me (small PO!) that I can’t do signature confirmation on the priority mail envelope, just tracking. HUH! But you just said… Gave up with her stare and just sent it with tracking and priority. Kicking self all the way home… So congratulations, BB, for dealing with them on a regular basis without losing your minds…well, I take that back, according to some people I know, you guys are crazy for selling doll parts!