shipping charges

I just placed an order with you fine folk, probably my second or at most third from you over the years. The main item I wanted is very small, easily fits into an X-Small Canada Post flat rate box. Shipping was shown at a bit over $22, which I think is the the range of the next box size up; not the end of the world, nor something I would normally even bother to mention.

But...I would have added a second small item to my order, in fact had it in my cart. The two items together weigh practically nothing and would still have fit that X-small box...but the addition of the second item punched the shipping up to something like $43! The additional shipping charge almost matched the price of the item! I deleted it and stuck with my original single item.

Please understand, I am not #####ing here, just drawing your attention to the fact that your shipping policies may well be costing you business. I'm sure you aren't the only business with this problem...far from it...but your online store happens to be the one that caught my attention today.

This is something i've noticed with a few stores, usually a phone call to get an accurate shipping cost fixes it.

It is likely tied to the broken shipping rule setup at the back end of the website. I work for a company that sometimes ships item via Canada Post. Companies generally do not utilize flat rate box as all the shipping labels are created in Canada Post app or web portal because the company account will pay for the label. It sucks that we the customer have to pay that much money for even a small item.

I thought about calling, but even if they had been able to override their shipping charges as calculated by the website, it would have required a bunch of wasted time at my end and theirs. The additional item was sort of an impulse thing, and when it came up so expensive to ship it I just said "screw it!"

If some large retailer could come up with a solution to this issue it might result in a significant increase in the sale of add-ons, as opposed to "near-misses" like my case.

I don't even understand why everything needs a tracking number, many small items fit in a padded envelope. Yes sure no tracking but 99% of people are honest and 1% are crooks, so the 99 % pay for 1 %. Overcharged shipping plus charging full Canada Post insurance just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Plus, there are other couriers other than CP, UPS and Fedex but nobody seems to want to bother.

Lever Arms wanted like $35 shipping on a $6 spring. I called and they refused to use flat rate boxes, which have tracking. Expedited shipping only. Whatever that means. Bought it elsewhere. This a good way to lose lots of business.

If you have a Business account and generate your own labels etc you don't have the option to use flat rate boxes.

I know as a Snap Ship customer I can't use them (online label creation) and have to go and buy one at the post office or CP outlet.

Expedited or Regular Parcel with tracking and signature covers their asses with people claiming they didn't get the package.
If you want it quick Xpresspost goes by air but is more $$

scianna54 said:

I don't even understand why everything needs a tracking number, many small items fit in a padded envelope. Yes sure no tracking but 99% of people are honest and 1% are crooks, so the 99 % pay for 1 %. Overcharged shipping plus charging full Canada Post insurance just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Plus, there are other couriers other than CP, UPS and Fedex but nobody seems to want to bother.

Click to expand...

I really like your optimism that 99% of people are honest.

This would mean that the 1% of the people are Liberals. Now we all know most Liberals if not all of them are dishonest.

Again your optimism is great but not a reality in this current world we live in.

In the 80’s and 90’s when I was a police Constable, corruption amongst the members was probably 2-3%. Today, that number would be well over 10%, if not higher.

Canada Post employs plenty of thieves, liberals and left wing gun haters, make no mistake, you need a tracking number on every item that is shipped.

CP is a Trudeau Corporation, honestly does not fit in this corporation….

Small stuff is real expensive to ship. Wrap a set of dies up in their own box and create a label...bout 20 bucks to Manitoba...flat rate box...same thing but you can put 5 die sets in it for the same 20 bucks ! ONLY drawback with a FR box is a maximum of 100 bucks of coverage included !! You cannot add more coverage to it !

Yesterday's dilemma....FYI....IF...you happen to be shipping a couple of rifle stocks some where in Canada, DO NOT USE A LONG carton...lol
If ya do, add on anudder 25 bucks for OVERSIZE !! Turned my 30 dollar shipping cost into almost 72 time they added the turds salary and the fuel surcharges !

This has never been an issue for me in the past. Once wrapped and protected, I usually nest them together facing opposite each other(fore end on fore end) did the same thing this time...had the box wrapped..taped up to water proof it, so it was too late to undo it last nite, and I'm 30 mins one way from the PO.

Next time IF the need arises for me again, I'll use two boxes, one on top of the other, taped together. Keep the OAL of the package just over the stocks length.

jjohnwm said:

I just placed an order with you fine folk, probably my second or at most third from you over the years. The main item I wanted is very small, easily fits into an X-Small Canada Post flat rate box. Shipping was shown at a bit over $22, which I think is the the range of the next box size up; not the end of the world, nor something I would normally even bother to mention.

But...I would have added a second small item to my order, in fact had it in my cart. The two items together weigh practically nothing and would still have fit that X-small box...but the addition of the second item punched the shipping up to something like $43! The additional shipping charge almost matched the price of the item! I deleted it and stuck with my original single item.

Please understand, I am not #####ing here, just drawing your attention to the fact that your shipping policies may well be costing you business. I'm sure you aren't the only business with this problem...far from it...but your online store happens to be the one that caught my attention today.

Click to expand...

Vewdu explained it best.
P/U the phone and talk to a real human.....

Paul_T said:

If you have a Business account and generate your own labels etc you don't have the option to use flat rate boxes.

I know as a Snap Ship customer I can't use them (online label creation) and have to go and buy one at the post office or CP outlet.

Click to expand...

I have a Small Business account as well, but only use it when shipping long guns or other stuff too large for flat rate boxes. For the small stuff I have switched over just buying the boxes, as it has always proven to be less expensive than the shipping charge figured out on the CP calculator. Just because you have the Snap Ship option doesn't mean you must use it for everything.

kevin g said:

Small stuff is real expensive to ship. Wrap a set of dies up in their own box and create a label...bout 20 bucks to Manitoba...flat rate box...same thing but you can put 5 die sets in it for the same 20 bucks ! ONLY drawback with a FR box is a maximum of 100 bucks of coverage included !! You cannot add more coverage to it !

Yesterday's dilemma....FYI....IF...you happen to be shipping a couple of rifle stocks some where in Canada, DO NOT USE A LONG carton...lol
If ya do, add on anudder 25 bucks for OVERSIZE !! Turned my 30 dollar shipping cost into almost 72 time they added the turds salary and the fuel surcharges !

This has never been an issue for me in the past. Once wrapped and protected, I usually nest them together facing opposite each other(fore end on fore end) did the same thing this time...had the box wrapped..taped up to water proof it, so it was too late to undo it last nite, and I'm 30 mins one way from the PO.

Next time IF the need arises for me again, I'll use two boxes, one on top of the other, taped together. Keep the OAL of the package just over the stocks length.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the lack of optional insurance beyond $100 can be a concern for some packages. And the recent increase in oversize charges is a killer. I still have a bunch of U-Line boxes and original manufacturer boxes that I use for shipping, but I always break down firearms to make them fit under the 1-meter length and then re-cut and re-fold the boxes I have to squeeze under the maximum. It can be a PITA but saving the oversize charge makes me feel better.

A shorter/wider box would appear to be less firearm-like and hopefully less likely to attract unwanted attention and possible vandalism while in transit. And I don't have stats to prove it but I'm sure that it would be less prone to accidental damage as well.

FLHTCUI said:

Vewdu explained it best.
P/U the phone and talk to a real human.....

Click to expand...

I know that's the answer...but in many cases (like this one) it's easier just to remove the impulse item and carry on.

The odd part is that in the past, I would tend to snoop around a website in case there were other items I might want, which could be added to the same package and would thus save me shipping overall.

Now...it's quite the opposite. This tiny box containing a couple small items will cost me $X to ship...but if I remove an item or two, the same tiny box will cost less. It's not weight...the entire order would have amounted to a few ounces. A by-product of our reliance on automation and computers? Poor policy decisions at the retail level? Doesn't matter what the explanation is; the upshot is that it will cost businesses some sales.

Shipping has just gotten out of hand since 2020. I’m looking at picking up a couple axle carts for a project I’m building. The carts are $132 each. So no big deal. Add to cart. $172 in shipping inside the US. Then I still have to go across the line to pick them up and pay more taxes at the border. And there is nothing oversized about them. They completely disassemble and fit in a smaller box.

UPS is far cheaper than Canada Post for small business. Any business not using UPS is losing out for themselves and their customers. Non-issue sending firearms or Ammo. My small business rate is 40% off retail pricing and I only ship a few items a week.

jjohnwm said:

I have a Small Business account as well, but only use it when shipping long guns or other stuff too large for flat rate boxes. For the small stuff I have switched over just buying the boxes, as it has always proven to be less expensive than the shipping charge figured out on the CP calculator. Just because you have the Snap Ship option doesn't mean you must use it for everything.

Click to expand...

Fair enough, but you and I are not running a business that ships potentially hundreds of items per week. Snap Ship is how they do it for the ease, and everything is recorded within your account.

I do exactly like you do now, flat rate boxes for small stuff, knowing the limitations on insurance.

jjohnwm said:

I just placed an order with you fine folk, probably my second or at most third from you over the years. The main item I wanted is very small, easily fits into an X-Small Canada Post flat rate box. Shipping was shown at a bit over $22, which I think is the the range of the next box size up; not the end of the world, nor something I would normally even bother to mention.

But...I would have added a second small item to my order, in fact had it in my cart. The two items together weigh practically nothing and would still have fit that X-small box...but the addition of the second item punched the shipping up to something like $43! The additional shipping charge almost matched the price of the item! I deleted it and stuck with my original single item.

Please understand, I am not #####ing here, just drawing your attention to the fact that your shipping policies may well be costing you business. I'm sure you aren't the only business with this problem...far from it...but your online store happens to be the one that caught my attention today.

Click to expand...

Hey there, thanks for bringing this to our attention. Could you please let me know which items you were trying to purchase and we can take a look. There could be a number of reasons for the shipping to have jumped up, it could be an incorrectly configured size or weight on a product, an item that would be classified as dangerous goods which would mean we had to use Purolator, to name a few.

As others have mentioned here, it's really difficult to deal with flat rate as a commercial customer of Canada Post, the boxes don't always fit items of that size, plus we then have the holding cost of pre-purchasing flat-rate boxes, plus insurance, and then the issue of tracking and having all shipments available within 1 portal to be able to go back to and review later if there are issues with the shipment. Canada Post offers us discounts on rates based on volume, so if we split up that volume, that then makes the other shipments more expensive. We do not markup our shipping, we charge what Canada Post/Purolator charge us.

Please let me know the item(s) in question, feel free to PM if you don't want to share here, we're happy to look into it and hopefully get to the bottom of it.

Warren

reliablegun said:

Hey there, thanks for bringing this to our attention. Could you please let me know which items you were trying to purchase and we can take a look. There could be a number of reasons for the shipping to have jumped up, it could be an incorrectly configured size or weight on a product, an item that would be classified as dangerous goods which would mean we had to use Purolator, to name a few.

As others have mentioned here, it's really difficult to deal with flat rate as a commercial customer of Canada Post, the boxes don't always fit items of that size, plus we then have the holding cost of pre-purchasing flat-rate boxes, plus insurance, and then the issue of tracking and having all shipments available within 1 portal to be able to go back to and review later if there are issues with the shipment. Canada Post offers us discounts on rates based on volume, so if we split up that volume, that then makes the other shipments more expensive. We do not markup our shipping, we charge what Canada Post/Purolator charge us.

Please let me know the item(s) in question, feel free to PM if you don't want to share here, we're happy to look into it and hopefully get to the bottom of it.

Warren

Click to expand...

Thank you! Wasn't expecting that, but appreciate it. PM heading your way with details.