Post: #1

You have a new product, a website and lots or orders. How do you set up the mail delivery side of the product?

- Lets say the product is the size of a laptop box and weighs 400 grams
- You have several 1000 orders between North America and also Europe
- You are based in Alberta
- You want to include shipping as part of the price for North America but no for other regions. They will have to cover the cost themselves
- You want it as simple as possible for both you and the customer

How do you set this up and roughly how much would it cost extra per order in Northern America?
How much would people from other regions pay on top of the base price. How can you calculate this automatically?

Thanks

Post: #2

That's exactly my area of expertise abeit from being based in the US. What's in the box?

Post: #3

Ill tell ya when it ships!

Want to break down how it works or if there any sort of add on to my website that can calculate it automatically.

Post: #4

I put out about 50 orders a day. My stuff is all light enough to go in first class envelopes for $2.05, however post office fucking blows. I try to avoid using them, I do for ebay and amazon as people are cheap and don't want to pay for Fedex, off those sites I'm exclusively Fedex.

At the end of the day I'm taking the loss if a package doesnt arrive so fuck customers who want to save $8 when I'm the one losing $500 if the order doesn't arrive. Also, USPS calling their "delivery confirmation" tracking is a joke. I field about 10 plus calls a day why isn't my package showing tracking and I have to explain to them delivery confirmation is not tracking, any scans that show are courtesy scans but not necessary.

USPS packages disapear good luck getting any luck finding them. They won't even open up a case til 30 days at which point good luck finding it. At one point I had 63 packages all sent one day which were lost. Apparently a truck broke down and these packages sat in the back for 8 months and eventually came back to me lol.

If you have any questions about shipping ask me I have dealt with it all. As far as logistics of order taking, keeping track of orders, entering info, etc. I use paypal for most everything which helps me keep track of stuff but I have over 100k in paypal holds so am thinking about leaving paypal in which case I need a system to enter my orders into, enter tracking info, automatically email customers tracking info and updates, etc.

Post: #5

In your case I would consider ShipWorks since you are in the US and our does all of the above

Post: #6

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Post: #7

Let's play the guessing game.

My money is on a new high tech chastity belt with GPS and wifi.

Post: #8

I have looked into stealth accounts and stuff a bit but honestly seems like too much work. I see you have to get all new cards, new address, start an llc with something that seems like a persons name, and at the end of the day potentially I'm asked for my social on top of EIN number and now all that work is for nothing.

Maybe you can chime in on how much of that you have to do but also recently been seeing people saying you even have to create additional user profiles on your computer one to manage each ebay and paypal account.

Is there a big risk of getting money tied up? I hear in order to stay stealth you can't always be draining your account but by not draining your account you risk potentially getting all that money tied up for months if you ever get it back

I do plan on looking into the stealth route or maybe even bringing on some partners for some litle hustles but for my actual business just not worth risking a ban and getting money locked up. I make good margins so I can deal with the holds as much as i hate someone else holding onto that much money

Post: #9

I wish I could help more but my expertise is from the US only.

I'm usually having people mail out 200-300 orders a day so I've been using UPS and sometimes USPS. I set up my site so shipping cost is based in time zone. The price to ship actually looks lower than it should but I include the insurance/little bit of shipping cost within the price of the product itself.

As far as me shipping to Canada well I know the general cost of shipping due to experience. At your weight and size you will find it quite easy to deal with that as there wont be any difference. Your biggest issue will be declaration of value when shipping to North America. If it's anything over 25-30 dollars they will tax the person receiving. I have yet to figure out the exact method to which they calculate the amount of tax on the receiver. So now you have two options if you're product cost will be over 30:
Lie on the custom form and declare it for 25 in hopes they will close over it.
Put the correct amount and let the customer know he will have to pay a tax to receive it.

I've insured products for 800 dollars and declared it for 25 and have not gotten caught. There have been times where I have been caught and the customer has had to pay for the taxes. Usually they end up refusing and the package gets sent back which means I just lost shipping cost and a potentially damaged/lost product.

Shipping to Europe cost even more and you will have to do the same declaration of value as you did for Canada.

I got all my labels and label makers from UPS so that was a breeze.

I do ship a lot to Canada so I hope I'm able to assist you..but I don't know much about canadien carriers. I can give you a good price number on what it cost to ship to a specific state.

On my phone so excuse my writing skills.

Post: #10

Thanks for the responses. Just to clear up one thing I will be shipping FROM Canada not TO Canada.

If I was to include the cost of shipping in the product for the US market is that the easiest way?
What would a safe figure be for mailing such a product to the US market -10, 20, 30 dollars?

Post: #11

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