Shipping costs

Coyoteboy

Senior Member
Is it just me that thinks the cost of shipping is a tad high for within the UK? Its essentially a fiver and the parts arrive in a 20p jiffy bag via 1st class post. I wouldnt complain if I were a school ordering 50 at a time, but for a hobbyist who uses them occasionally I struggle to justify even bothering buying new ICs when i only need 1 or 2 of a couple of different ones to experiment with.

Maybe I should start ordering more of them, im not sure, I certainly seem to toast them regularly enough :) It just spoils the enjoyment of them really, when you buy 50 8ms and get hit with a doubling of the bill for shipping.
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
I know the problem well and it's not just Rev-Ed. For comparison, Rapid Online are 10% more expensive, Maplin 30% cheaper. Gone are the happy days when Tandy and Maplin actually sold components so it was easy and relatively cheap to buy one-off's. Think yourself lucky though, Fed-Ex to outside the EU runs to 113 GBP for an 08M, a 'more reasonable' 14 GBP if air mailed.

In defence of shipping costs, it's a combination of postage, packing and handling. Someone has to walk through stores, collate the order, put chips in anti-static tubes ( while some poor soul is in the backroom cutting tubes down to size ), run the envelope through the franking machine and that all takes time and costs money. Then someone has to go and post it or collection has to be paid for. Then someone has to check you actually did pay for what you ordered and that they did send it out. Just 5 minutes time costs nearly 50p at minimum legal wage.

It's probably also true that most P&P/S&H is set to encourage a bigger spend, as are free shipping offers and bulk discounts, but the unseen cost of small orders does pile up.

At least Rev-Ed don't ship using a 'cheap courier'. Miss their delivery and there's a good chance you'll have a 20 GBP travel bill on top when you have to go and pick the item up from their offices before the return it to sender deadline.
 
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Dippy

Moderator
I'll go along with hippy on that one.
Too many people think it costs nothing but the stamp to send things and yes it 'encourages' you to buy more and yes there is a small profit element - you wait til you run a business.

Of course, you could get an account with RS and carriage is free. Yup, even a quidsworth of transistors is sent free by carrier and usually next day. And if your trade with Farnell is good enough you can negotiate free delivery on anything.
 

MORA99

Senior Member
Shipping to EU is also pretty expensive, but its their choice.
Im mostly annoyed by their shipping being affected by price and not weight, or a combination of items.
So if you order 100x something the postage rises alot compared to the real postage price and the added work.
 

BrendanP

Senior Member
Try buying them from WES in the US. I get them sent here to Australia from the US and it cost around 6 dollars airmail. Plus they're dirt cheap to begin with.
 

Dippy

Moderator
Have a look at Amazon Market Place items (external vendors) if you want to see the biggest r**off.
You get charged carriage per item not per order - its a wonderful way to keep headline price down to silly prices and then charge shed loads for carriage. Nearly came a cropper t'other day as you don't get told carriage price until the very last stage. In my case it was £10 for the goods (10off @ £1 each) plus £75 carriage - I nearly pressed proceed, it was close. Never again.
Can anyone beat that for cunning practice? (I was going to use another phrase but didn't want a visit from any lawyers!)
 

demonicpicaxeguy

Senior Member
it is a bit insane and similar to the ebay practice where items are sold off for 99cents but the postage is anything up to $50, they try to rationionalise it by saying that they have to charge somthing for their time to package it and post it

reminds me of when i bought a power supply for a laptop on ebay for $7 and the seller was situated within 2 kms of where i'm living but insisted i paid $30 postage when i could have picked it up for less than $1 in fuel, it even said in the AD he had on ebay that local pickup was allowed, needless to say i told him where to go as i simply refuse to pay that for posting somthing 2km

generally when i order components from companies it's either from companies i already have an account with and the shipping is either free or a drop in the ocean in comparison to the order, or i try to use a sydney supplier and pick it up myself as i can drive from one end of the city to the other for a measley $5 dollas worth of fuel

in cases where companies try to rip people off on postage to give the illusion of a cheaper product ,common sense should be you simply don't buy from them and go somwhere else
 

Coyoteboy

Senior Member
I'm not averse to paying for shipping and handling but I know for a fact (used to work in a mail order bicycle parts shop that sent out ~100 parcels a day, ranging from whole bikes to single chain links) that these things can be done in a matter of minutes per order. We used to ship bike WHEELS at £5 for one and £7 for a pair, fully boxed and protected with royal mail - having an account with the postage people meant we always had a collection and got very cheap rates on postage, they also supplied the packing materials cheaper than most places too.

I just find it frustrating, i know Rev-ed is no worse than anyone else, but for low value, low weight, low size orders there really is no excuse for such costs from anyone, and although it does encourage higher purchase quantities, for me its currently making me consider scrapping the axe and doing my project with other methods, which is a shame. I was the post and packer and web designer/ maintainer at the same time, and pulled it off no problems for just over the min wage, without ever feeling rushed. All had to be checked for stock, packed, credit card charged, address written etc.

I guess they get enough educational sales to be able to say "like it or lump it" to the hobbyist, and thats their choice. I was/am just in a grumpy mood!
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
The cost of shipping within the UK and Fed-Ex within the EU doesn't seem to jump that much from ordering one to 10,000 PICAXE's. A problem for any seller is that the shipping agent is hitting them with minimum charges to make their profits.

I think it's almost impossible to set 'fair' shipping rates. Absorb shipping costs into each component ( "free shipping" ) and those prices are hiked dramatically and that will seriously hurt larger orders. Set shipping too low and the business sees a loss. With a small stock portfolio it's easier to collate and cost orders, when people want one of this, one of that, and they are all low mark-up low-value components it's much harder to apportion cost to. I suppose one could take a stopwatch to the actual job and only charge what it actually cost but then no one would know shipping costs up front.

From the customer side, shipping costs are rarely ideal, and certainly not on low-cost small orders ( and usually crippling when importing ), from the business side it's incredibly difficult to choose a pricing structure which can work fairly and evenly across the whole range of order types.
 

Dippy

Moderator
"..Absorb shipping costs into each component ( "free shipping" ) and those prices are hiked dramatically and that will seriously hurt larger orders" - that's why people like RS have price breaks, though I'm not pretending their prices are 'best'.
On the other hand, just having ready-to-go stock has a cost, ask an acountant.
Anyway, this could run and run so I'm off to post myself.

Joke:
Which is the odd one out?
A) A cheap accountant.
B) An expensive accountant.
c) A Unicorn.


Answer:
An expensive accountant - the other two are figments of your imagination.

Feel free to substitute Lawyer/Solicitor/Estate Agent where applicable.
 

moxhamj

New Member
Microzed here in Australia charge only $7.70 for shipping and that is a guaranteed delivery the next day. A pack of 10 08Ms is $49.50 so the total is $57.20 which is 25.20 pounds or 2 1/2 pounds per chip. Having spent a year 15 years ago building my own Z80 computer system that came out at about $150 per board and which still couldn't do as much as an 08M, I think picaxes represent excellent value. At this rate I'm looking forward to chips in 15 year's time being worth 5c and the customer getting paid for shipping :)
 

MORA99

Senior Member
The cost of shipping within the UK and Fed-Ex within the EU doesn't seem to jump that much from ordering one to 10,000 PICAXE's.
But fedex for EU is 50GBP+ for 1 picaxe.
Try with airmail, that rate is controlled by price not volume :(

The start price of 8.5gbp really means you cant order for less than 50 in parts to justify the postage, and if you go over 50 the postage just increases to almost double.
 

gengis

New Member
shipping scams

This shipping/handling practice is becoming more pervasive it seems.

They use the low cost of the item to rope you in, then hit you with shipping later in the game - sort of get you psyched first then up the ante.

One other twist to the scam is the low price / high shipping virtually guarantees that won't return a defective item. You may get the cost of the item refunded, but they already made a nice profit on "handling."

One remote control I wanted cost $3 or so - with a $17 shipping charge. If it doesn't work for me it is unlikely I'd return it since that would cost me $5 and they still keep the $17.

Just one more thing to be aware of when dealing with marketing companies I guess.
 

womai

Senior Member
Since somebody mentioned excessive shipping costs on Ebay - yes, sometimes it is meant as a rip-off (post an item with an alluring price and then make money on the shipping), but often there is a different and very valid reason doing it:

Ebay charges the seller a fee that is related to the sales price, but they do not charge a fee related to shipping. E.g. if I sell an item that is worth $100 for $10 and charge $90 for shipping, it is the same for the buyer than if I'd sold it for $90 with $10 shipping (in both cases the buyer has to fork over $100), but the seller fees are much lower in the former case than in the latter, and I may even split the difference and offer it for a smaller total cost.

So it's often just a case of playing the Ebay rules.

Wolfgang
 

manuka

Senior Member
I've been importing assorted ironmongery from UK & US for over 40 years- ranging from model aircraft to semiconductors & even complete ham radio transmitters,& well recall a far more major issue used to be organising payments. "5 bob" British Postal Notes = Argh! Modern electronic banking is an absolute breeze in comparison.

P & P has always been an issue down here in the remote South Seas, although it was proportionally less back in "slow boat to China" sea freight shipping days. Slow boat was right- it typically took 3 months round trip for a Tottenham Court Road order to arrive. Given the initial need had often arisen after reading an o'seas electronic mag- itself subject to shipping delays - it could be 6 months after an idea was published that parts were in my hot little hands. You maybe hence can appreciate what a joy modern communications are in comparison.

For colonials who have not pondered taxes I'll remind again that export orders form UK are VAT (17½%) exempt, while import orders are NZ/Aus GST (10-12½%) exempt if under NZ$400. The sweet spot seems to be about NZ/Aus$100 to almost nullify p&p costs. Significant orders can even work out cheaper than UK retail as a result, & a strategy (especially suiting schools) may be to bulk order & share out locally, much as I've just done with a crate of Electronic Gold Mine goodies.
 
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BeanieBots

Moderator
Thanks for the memory Stan:)
Spent many a happy hour strolling down Tottenham Court Road with 10 bob in my pocket wondering who to give it to. Just not the same now.
 

BrendanP

Senior Member
In Australia anything that comes in under $1000 is GST exempt. Not worth the bean counters while to sort it out I guess.
 

manuka

Senior Member
Thanks for the memory Stan:)
Spent many a happy hour strolling down Tottenham Court Road with 10 bob in my pocket wondering who to give it to. Just not the same now.
Nah- I paced up & down TCRd July 2006 & found the streets "slant' hadn't changed a bit,& tellingly "10 bob" (about 2 hours earnings in the '60s) would now go a lot further. I recall paying over this (mail order) for a single Si NPN to suit Clive Sinclair's projects (predating ZX81/Spectrums by ~15 years). Even last year you could get a decent memory stick for that, & now it'd be twice the capacity. In fact I recall seeing a strolling sandwich board man last year advertising hard drives & the like at prices not far removed from a cup of coffee!
 
I think shipping prices are over the roof for me....

It costs $30 AUD ($180 for FEDEX) just to get a $15 order over to Australia from the UK.
 
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Dippy

Moderator
Mmm... $30Aus = £14.
I think that's quite good to bring a small package across, unless they're bringing it by canoe and it takes 6 months.
 
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