Websites and minimum order for carriage paid

[Ray Stafford]

Hi All

A quick question. Most websites have some kind of delivery charge for small orders. This reflects the fact that there is a minimum cost of picking, packing and shipping an order, and organisations don't want a £10 overhead on a £5 sale.

However, it is clearly a barrier sometimes - you see something you want, its well priced and you need it now, but it only costs £20, and you either have to pay £10 delivery charge, or order £80 worth of stuff you don't necessarily need.

There are some websites that offer a solution to this - Amazon Prime would be a good example. Or a wine site I belong to does this - Laithwaites unlimited

In both cases, you pay an annual fixed fee up front in return for unlimited free delivery for the rest of the year, even on smaller orders.

Its one of the ideas in the bucket for the 2nd generation release of our website, and I wondered what you guys thought. Would you / other plumbers be likely to use it? I think that we would have to price it at around £50. I don't think we could do it on the timed deliveries, which are quite expensive, but its usually the larger orders (like boilers) that are time sensitive. If you just want to buy a box of rubber gloves, it doesn't really matter if it comes tomorrow or the next day.

Thoughts appreciated.

 

[Ray Stafford]

I prefer to go into the Littlehampton branch, guaranteed to get a crap 5 year old joke from Steve, and your coffee keeps me regular :asshole:

5 year old? Has he updated his joke book then?

 

[TBServices]

I'd pay for it.

I wanted 3 pairs of pump valves and a box of black mambas from you Ray, but once you add the shipping on, the savings to be made from your excellent prices would have been wiped out, and I'm not in a position to buy £100 worth of van stock right now. And tbh, even if I was, I'm not the kind of person who would.

So yes, great idea and I'm sure the option would attract a lot of orders from a lot more people.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Thanks all.

I understand that its not a service that everyone would take up.

Thinking about it, we would probably still need a minimum to avoid the type of p1ss taking that Kev was talking about, but it could be as low as £10 or even £5. Or maybe we just rely on a "fair use" clause, and reserve the right to refund and cancel the service for the occasional to55er.

For those of you that would take it up, would you prefer to pay a lump sum once a year (say £48 for the sake of argument) or a monthly standing charge of £4?

The former would be a lower admin overhead, but I can see that some people, particularly those who don't know us, might be put off by being asked to stump up the whole lot in one go, and might prefer something that they could cancel if they didn't use it.

Again, your thoughts much appreciated.

 

[TBServices]

Monthly seems fair provided it doesn't cost any more than the one off fee, and you keep the bargains coming.

How are you going to manage the emails when the site comes out of beta? There won't be enough stock if they stay as they are now

 

[Ray Stafford]

How are you going to manage the emails when the site comes out of beta? There won't be enough stock if they stay as they are now

We don't plan a "big launch" campaign. The next step will be to open up the mailing list to all our existing customers, but probably in batches, so that we can manage demand and fulfilment. After that, we will probably just rely mostly on word of mouth, this forum sponsoship, and by adding references to the ecommerce site in our existing marketing channels (for instance in the Gassafe mag). Tony, our telemarketer, now asks permission to add people to the mailing list when he talks to them.

We aren't a "get rich quick" outfit, and I am happy to spend years building it up steadily, so long as we keep the service and value up.

The offers are sometimes underwritten by us, and sometimes by the manufacturer. Until I can accurately gauge demand, I wanted to keep it small - but as we get a better feel for it, we will be able to negotiate larger deals with the manufacturers.

The limit per customer will remain, because I want this to be for genuine customers, not chancers who just buy off our deals and then put them on ebay, undercutting proper tradesmen trying to make a margin on materials.

 

[Chalked]

We don't plan a "big launch" campaign. The next step will be to open up the mailing list to all our existing customers, but probably in batches, so that we can manage demand and fulfilment. After that, we will probably just rely mostly on word of mouth, this forum sponsoship, and by adding references to the ecommerce site in our existing marketing channels (for instance in the Gassafe mag). Tony, our telemarketer, now asks permission to add people to the mailing list when he talks to them.

We aren't a "get rich quick" outfit, and I am happy to spend years building it up steadily, so long as we keep the service and value up.

The offers are sometimes underwritten by us, and sometimes by the manufacturer. Until I can accurately gauge demand, I wanted to keep it small - but as we get a better feel for it, we will be able to negotiate larger deals with the manufacturers.

The limit per customer will remain, because I want this to be for genuine customers, not chancers who just buy off our deals and then put them on ebay, undercutting proper tradesmen trying to make a margin on materials.

you really talk some sense there mate.

 

[Killy Bing]

Ray could you do it as a perk too, if your account clears 5k a month or something then you get it for the next month?

Minimum order of £10 is reasonable i think, minus a few copper fittings (which would be taking the p!ss) its easy to pop over that.

 

[Nostrum]

If your clearing 5k a month are you really going to be bothered about £4?

 

[Killy Bing]

If your clearing 5k a month are you really going to be bothered about £4?

depends, the perks are there if you want to use it then
incentive

 

[Ray Stafford]

If your clearing 5k a month are you really going to be bothered about £4?

Its a funny old world, and people get bugged by the oddest things.

Since we launched the beta test of the website, we have taken 122 orders. Of these, more than 100 are miles over the carriage paid limit, so it clearly isn't having any effect. However, there are only 2 of the 122 where the purchaser has opted to pay carriage, and about 16 or 17 that are just over the carriage paid limit.

There are also more than 20 abandoned carts with items totalling less than £50. There are only a handful of abandoned carts with order values over £100.

It was this that made me think that we needed to find a better solution that the blunt instrument of the £100 threshold.

 

[Roger Welton]

Although you are probably making as much as you are losing as folk bump up there spend to clear the £100 threshold.

 

[Simon F]

What would work better for me for the odd order is to have a lower threshold.
BES postage is £4-95 plus vat
or spend over £40 before vat, so £48-00 free post.

I do regularly put an order in for £50/60
if your threshold was £50 that could make the difference.

 

[mjt]

I find that if ordering to be delivered to my home other than to site I am reticent because I'm
Not home to collect and have the hassle of arranging pick up etc so therefore revert to merchants who are local which is a shame as it deflects from the cheaper prices

 

[Nostrum]

Does that mean you have seen my abandoned shopping cart with 1 8 pence washer in it?

i couldn't justify the carriage cost.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Does that mean you have seen my abandoned shopping cart with 1 8 pence washer in it?

Nope, your discarded cart has the rubber gimp suit with the standard cod-piece. You left it there after trading down to the rubber gimp suit with the small cod-piece.