Delivery charges - should companies charge them

calleyw

Of course the items jump off the shelf in to a box which then tapes itself up and then sticks a delivery note on.

All packing material is free

And there is no charge for royal mail to come and collect from you :rolleyes:

To me delivery charges or postage and packing charges to be more accurate. Are more than just the cost of delivery itself. It includes the time of a member of staff to pick it and pack it. The cost of the packing materials plus the cost to send it to me.

I really don't think most people know how cut throat it is out there on the internet.

Just look at Ebay. Now if you sell books of media you have to offer free P +P as first choice for the uk. Oh guess what happened, all the prices went up to cover the cost of P + P. That is all that would happen if all companies offered free P + P.


Yours

Calley

dampdaveski

Nothing in life is FREE
If I buy materials for my company I get free shipping if the order is over £300. This is because in the profit margin for this company there will be an allowance for shipping. If I spend less than £300 there isn't enough in the profit margin to cover the cost of delivery so they charge a bit more.
If it's classed as free delivery then the cost has been included in the price. OR there is a sufficiently HIGH mark up on the product (it's neither here or there tbh)
There are exceptions with your bigger volume mail order companies etc but they have the muscle to demand cheaper prices from the carriers AND can work on much lower margins because they have the volume sales (at least that's the theory! ;-) ).
It's not rocket science if you think about it!

bitemebankers

Just look at Ebay. Now if you sell books of media you have to offer free P +P as first choice for the uk. Oh guess what happened, all the prices went up to cover the cost of P + P. That is all that would happen if all companies offered free P + P.

Well, quite. What a total farce that was, all designed to make eBay look better value against Amazon and Play on google searches. eBay = greedBay

vyle

bitemebankers wrote: »

Well, quite. What a total farce that was, all designed to make eBay look better value against Amazon and Play on google searches. eBay = greedBay

Ebay's P+P rules are really annoying now. I was selling something that was in a large box and ebay only let me charge £3 for P+P.

It cost me £8.60 to post it, and then extra for the paper to wrap it. I only made 25p from that sale once charges had been taken out. If I didn't have a megarider bus ticket I would have been very much out of pocket.

DCFC79

vyle wrote: »

Ebay's P+P rules are really annoying now. I was selling something that was in a large box and ebay only let me charge £3 for P+P.

It cost me £8.60 to post it, and then extra for the paper to wrap it. I only made 25p from that sale once charges had been taken out. If I didn't have a megarider bus ticket I would have been very much out of pocket.

Is the £3 flat fee now for anything on ebay

vyle

DCFC79 wrote: »

Is the £3 flat fee now for anything on ebay

I think it depends on the category, so something like fine china will probably allow more postage to be charged, but for an action figure, it was £3 max, even though it was in a massive box and needed lots of protection to stop the box getting damaged.

Blacksheep1979

The op is a fool if they think they ever get 'free delivery' - it's got to be paid for somehow and if it's shown as free will be factored into the price you pay for the items. This in turn may make items more expensive as where before you might have paid for a delivery based on size/weight now it is factored in for every item you buy so buying lots of stuff in one sitting you may be paying for several deliveries.

custardy

vyle wrote: »

Ebay's P+P rules are really annoying now. I was selling something that was in a large box and ebay only let me charge £3 for P+P.

It cost me £8.60 to post it, and then extra for the paper to wrap it. I only made 25p from that sale once charges had been taken out. If I didn't have a megarider bus ticket I would have been very much out of pocket.

well then you add £6 to your starting price

RobertoMoir

Ivory_Tinkler wrote: »

Catalogue prices are usually higher anyway so by shopping online you can usually find a product cheaper even when adding P&P.

I'm glad to hear someone else thinks that. I bet it isn't every day that someone raises the example of catalogues as how to do remote shopping. Their prices clearly have enough margin built in that they're not so much "building post into the main price" as levying their own tax on bad maths skills.

ThinkingOfLinking

Of course I don't like paying the delivery charges but thinking about it, the bus is over £3 return into town anyway and this saves me getting out of bed, etc.