Techsupplies postage costs

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booski

Senior Member
I don't know if this has been brought up before, I did do a search but couldn't find anything.

Just went onto Techsupplies to purchase a few odds and ends, couple of 14M2, few buttons, bit of cable and 3.5mm sockets and saw that instantly £2.50 postage was slapped on.
Even with just 2x 14M2 in the basket that £2.50 postage was on there. With 1 chip it was £1.50.

Now, I send out 1000 resistor kits 2nd class for 92p, first class is £1.09 and my family has always worked for the royal mail so I know somewhat about postage.
So, with this in mind, I can't help but think that £2.50 for 2 chips is slightly over the top.

Is there any particular reason for this or am I just being a party pooper?
 
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Haku

Senior Member
Order more 14m2's and the price of the postage per chip drops :)

Usually the price of postage increases in relation to the monetary value of the online cart, much easier than categorising items in an online store by how heavy/bulky they are to post.
 
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booski

Senior Member
Aye! I can see where your coming from Haku but surely though, as soon as you break the £2 barrier in your item sub total, to slap an extra £1 on for postage regardless is a bit steep IMHO. I can understand the reasoning for something a bit more expensive however

It's also a bit of a shame too cause the prices for some things are pretty competitive to major distributors like RS and even bits eBay
i.e. tactile switches are 6p each which is a really good price, and the 3.5mm stereo sockets are 8p which is fantastic compared to RS cheapest at 95p EACH. Just makes something that's a really good price look less attractive is all.

I will just have to order more and make use of the postage cost like you say :)
 
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booski

Senior Member
I did read those posts there and can understand the costs involved.

I just don't understand the £2 barrier is all.
 
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booski

Senior Member
Just went through my order with a fine toothed comb.
Slung on a 20X2 to play with and a few sockets :D
 
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g6ejd

Senior Member
We have to allow for the cost of a package too, otherwise it's a lost for TechSupplies and they are very quick at turning around orders so I'm happy with the service level and cost.
 
hippy

hippy

Ex-Staff (retired)
I can't locate the exact details but I recall the situation is that standard P&P charge is £2.50 for orders under £10 which I believe is comparable or better than most suppliers but we offer a discounted rate of £1.50 for small orders ( which I think is orders of £2 or less ).
 
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nick12ab

Senior Member
According to this page: http://www.techsupplies.co.uk/epages/Store.sf/sec5efa43027c/?ObjectPath=/Shops/Store.TechSupplies/Categories/CustomerInformation#Postage
UK postage charges are £2.50 for orders under £10, £4.50 for orders under £30 and £6.50 for orders over £30. Orders over £50 are sent by insured Special Delivery (or courier) for a charge of £8.00. You may also optionally choose to pay £8.00 for the next day 'Special Delivery' service on urgent smaller orders.
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Possibly out of date since it doesn't mention the £1.50 for small orders.
 
Technical

Technical

Technical Support
Staff member
booski said:
Just went onto Techsupplies to purchase a few odds and ends, couple of 14M2, few buttons, bit of cable and 3.5mm sockets and saw that instantly £2.50 postage was slapped on.
Even with just 2x 14M2 in the basket that £2.50 postage was on there. With 1 chip it was £1.50.

Now, I send out 1000 resistor kits 2nd class for 92p, first class is £1.09 and my family has always worked for the royal mail so I know somewhat about postage.
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We send first class and in a strong new padded envelope. You may be surprised at the raw cost of these alone e.g.
http://www.viking-direct.co.uk/a/pb/Sealed-Air-Mail-Lite-Plus-Bubble-Bags-White-G-4-240-x-330-mm-50-Per-Pack/pr=Q21&id=ML4/
In some cases of small customer orders the components cost less than the padded envelope they are posted in!

And as already mentioned, there are warehouse staff and other packaging costs as well (e.g. smaller plastic bags) - the price of the actual 'postage stamp' is a small part of the total equation.
 
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booski

Senior Member
wow, thats over 40p per Jiffy!

Ones I use cost 9p and a little smaller, but then I get mine from WAE+

But thanks for the info though Technical.

EDIT: saying that, bought a few Jiffys from them on the 20th of december, not been dispatched yet and I've now ran out...
 
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Armp

Senior Member
I still remember the 'shock' :eek: when I first looked at ordering some 20M2, shipped by Fedex to US...

For 3 pieces : Parts £5.70 ; Shipping £42.00 ; VAT (?) £9.54 Total = £57.24 .

'Airmail' was only £4, still had VAT added, but no details of carrier? I've used generic 'airmail' for Far East orders and waited 4 weeks. And if I increased the order to 7 chips the shipping jumped to £12.50.

Edit :I ordered from a local supplier.
 
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Technical

Technical

Technical Support
Staff member
VAT is added dependent on country, so until we know what country you are in (before logging in) it will be shown.
Once logged in and your shipping country is then known to be outside the EU the VAT will be removed automatically.

As detailed in the shop, the lower cost airmail for the odd low value item is not tracked or insured.
The higher price for larger orders is a 'customer signs' 'Registered Airmail' service.
 
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Armp

Senior Member
But if I select "Airmail (Rest of World)" to calculate shipping surely that's sufficient to remove VAT?

FYI: No VAT, and a defined carrier, and an estimated delivery time would have secured this and subsequent orders from me.
 
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matherp

Senior Member
This is very much a perception issue but from years of experience managing in-house software development and support in large organisations, the mantra "perception is reality" has proven to be too accurate to be ignored.

Clearly Techsupplies have to cover their costs and make money but I think this thread and others historically illustrate that postage costs that "feel" unfair have a detrimental effect on perception and possibly sales. Personally, I would prefer costs other than the actual stamp to be rolled into the item cost and then a volume discount given for larger quantities. I buy a lot of components from RS where shipping is free - their individual item costs are often not the cheapest (understatement!) but when you add an item to your basket you know that that is all you will pay and you don't have to think about whether you have exceeded an arbitrary price which causes a step change in the postage.

Obviously all companies must determine their own business and pricing model but my instinct is that Techsupplies current model is probably not ideal. Certainly I will often buy small items elsewhere as it works out better to pay more for the item but benefit from cheaper postage.

Best regards

Peter
 
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srnet

Senior Member
There is the environmental angle of course. So called 'free delivery' encourages people to place more and smaller orders, wasteful of packing and losts of other stuff too.
 
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nick12ab

Senior Member
Many companies offer free delivery if you buy a certain amount of stuff as an incentive to buy more stuff from them - the cost of packaging gets paid for through the profit made on the order itself.

Rapid offers free delivery on orders over £30 ex. VAT and it comes delivered in a cardboard box with each item individually bagged and all items wrapped in paper packing. However, (for example) their OLED displays are much more expensive than those from Techsupplies and it also lacks the serial board/project board.
 
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mrburnette

Senior Member
I do not know how RevEd views sales since, as I understand, they are primarily in business as an educational company. If they were in the U.S. and similarly incorporated, my guess would be that product sales of small-quantities outside of the educational chain would be a cost of doing business that must be compensated fully, that is, they can incur no direct loss from this part of the business. Also, I suspect that they are not particularly interested in greatly expanding this part of the business as it distracts from their core business model.

I ran a small business for 13 years and was successful in generating a profitable business for 12 of those (1st year was mainly product development.) In any event, I am thankful to RevEd for allowing their products to be purchased in bulk by U.S. distributors and made available here; otherwise, international shipping would simply make the products prohibitively expensive.

- Ray
 
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srnet

Senior Member
mrburnette said:
international shipping would simply make the products prohibitively expensive
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You would thinks so, but there are ways and means.

I dont wish debate the issue of buying stuff from dodgy sellers on ebay, but you can for instance get a quite respectable LED torch delivered from 'China' for 99p, including postage. Sure if it dont work your stuffed and there is a chnace it may arrive in a week or 4 or never. But how do they do that ?
 
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mrburnette

Senior Member
srnet said:
You would thinks so, but there are ways and means.

<...>
But how do they do that ?
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Oh, I buy plenty of stuff from China... with this International economy and my limited play money (I'm retired) that my wife allows me to spend, the China option is worthwhile even when I factor in non-working product. Interestingly, I have never had a non-delivery, although I have waited a while on a few items (probably due to my own country's insane policies in Customs.) My last purchase was for 100 units of 555 ICs... for $10 American including shipping. I do not know how they do it... I've used 20 of the chips and they all have worked... even if the next 80 are DOA, I'm still in the green!

I just always put in a 'plug' for our forum members such as PH Anderson who is an authorized distributor and one that I have had 100% satisfaction using. I believe Peter when he says that our support of his small business helps him help us. It's a small thing.

- Ray
 
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Armp

Senior Member
mrburnette said:
I just always put in a 'plug' for our forum members such as PH Anderson who is an authorized distributor and one that I have had 100% satisfaction using. I believe Peter when he says that our support of his small business helps him help us.
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100% agree - excellent service, fair price.
 
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SAborn

Senior Member
I too will give a "plug" to PH Anderson and his quality service, Its lots of the little things he do that makes him stand out.

Example...... you buy a Kiwi board from Peter and it comes with instructions and All the components, i bought a Kiwi board from (nameless) supplier Z and all i got was a bare board only, not even an IC socket. (almost the same price)

Example 2...... I placed an order for several lots of 20x2 chips and paid the fee, i then received a credit paid back to Paypal from Peter prior to shipping, I dont know why, but i must have been overcharged for shipping or a discount was give due to the order size.

Its these small extra benefits that we do appreciate, while his costs are as competitive or better than other suppliers.
Shipping is about 10 days for delivery.

Keep up the good service Peter.
 
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Haku

Senior Member
srnet said:
you can for instance get a quite respectable LED torch delivered from 'China' for 99p, including postage. Sure if it dont work your stuffed and there is a chnace it may arrive in a week or 4 or never.
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I got some 99p torches from China, for a single AA torch they work pretty darn well, though they're not a match for my Photon Freedom Micro keychain torches which run on 2x CR2016's.

But how do they do that ?
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Shipping containers.

I saw a one-off tv show about them last year and they said that the sheer number of shipping containers a single ship is able to carry means that it costs more money for the electrical retailer to deliver it to your home from their depot than it did to ship it from China to the UK.
 
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booski

Senior Member
I bought a universal remote from china, 99p including a battery and free shipping and I've yet to find a TV that it doesn't work on, including picaxe too.
But to supply anything from china is ridiculously cheap, for example, the supplier I purchase resistors from sells them at an incredible value for money price.
However, because I purchase in such large numbers, they instantly become incredibly heavy and the actual courier service always ends up costing more than what the resistors do!
Cost me $151 to fly the last lot over express!

It's all supply and demand, in china, the places where things are mass produced are very tightly knitted together and there is so much demand that there is so much supplied, and hence the price for posting items reduces.

Haku said:
Shipping containers.

I saw a one-off tv show about them last year and they said that the sheer number of shipping containers a single ship is able to carry means that it costs more money for the electrical retailer to deliver it to your home from their depot than it did to ship it from China to the UK.
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I've unloaded a few containers from china as a few 'one off' days for a local agency, Takes 3 hours + to unload it with 3 people and everything is so tightly packed and crammed into them it's unreal.
 
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srnet

Senior Member
Ah thats how they do it, 'just like that' as TC used to say.

Even if they were selling jiffy bags of air, I am still amazed you can get a jiffy bag sent from China for 99p.
 
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Paix

Senior Member
It would certainly cost a lot more to send the same empty Jiffy bag in the opposite direction. I really ought to get out a standard small Jiffy bag, address it to somewhere in China and check it out at the local, fairly clued up, Post Office.to see what they think I should be paying :)
 
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westaust55

Moderator
I have looked at purchasing components out of the US but the imposed cost for packaging and shipment are relatively high &#8211; particularly as many US companies seemingly only use courier services which add greatly to the cost (along the lines of US$20 to US$50 shipping for a few chips). Even within Australia, the likes of Farnell have a courier only service at AUD$20 (mail delivery has not been an option) and I have had to &#8220;bite the bullet&#8221; a couple of times.
For many electronic components, Futurlec (with front offices in Sydney, Aust and New York in the US) who dispatch out of a warehouse in Thailand are ideal. For anything from 1 component (I never buy that little) to a good handful of components (eg 50 assorted IC&#8217;s) the postage and packing charge is AUD$4 for mail which takes around 7 to 10 days which I can live with.
 
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inglewoodpete

Senior Member
westaust55 said:
For many electronic components, Futurlec (with front offices in Sydney, Aust and New York in the US) who dispatch out of a warehouse in Thailand are ideal. For anything from 1 component (I never buy that little) to a good handful of components (eg 50 assorted IC&#8217;s) the postage and packing charge is AUD$4 for mail which takes around 7 to 10 days which I can live with.
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My last experience with Futurlec was not that good. The order (~A$120) was dispatched over 3 weeks after my money was accepted and the delivery took over 3 weeks as well. I didn't have doubts about receiving the goods after they had been dispatched but I sure was keen to get my hands on my components after 7 weeks!

On the China costs: having been there recently, I can say that their labour costs are probably less than 10% of Australia's. Manual handling is probably the biggest costs of western countries.
 
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westaust55

Moderator
inglewoodpete said:
My last experience with Futurlec was not that good. The order (~A$120) was dispatched over 3 weeks after my money was accepted and the delivery took over 3 weeks as well.
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The 3 weeks to shipment seems very long for Futurlec. Did they report they were out of stock on an items. I fell foul of that a long time back now.
Last order was placed via the net on 31-12-2011 and I received an email on 3-1-2012 stating it was shipped.
From my back statement, the funds were reserved on 2-1-2012 and withdrawn from my account on 5-1-2012 (2 days after shipment).

Manual handling is probably the biggest costs of western countries.
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Not just manual handling. Even at an engineering level (brainpower more than manual in many cases) the high cost of labour has our clients demanding we work with "low cost centres" in other regions of the world for engineering design to reduce overall project design costs.
 
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booski

Senior Member
Is that so?

Can't say I've ever seen that before. Can't even remember how I went about getting an account.
 
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atholr

New Member
This is a very interesting thread for those of us that live at the other end of the universe. Some of us are very sensitive to postage charges.

Regarding the labour involved in counting out the order and putting it in the small plastic bags that Tech Supplies do, I am not sure if they have a physical "shopfront" in Bath, but if they did and I went in there to "buy a few chips etc" I would think that this would be included in the cost of the transaction. Therefore the only extra cost of posting other than the stamp is the padded bag they use for the outer.

Local distributors of Rev-Ed products in NZ are rip-off price and it is much cheaper to get it direct from the UK however the postage they use to NZ is Airsure which is tracked airmail but NOT sign-for. I would like a choice of whether I paid for this extra service over and above normal airmail.

Re transit time; I have had orders from Tech Supplies take 3 week and other orders from them or from Canada, Thailand or from Hong Kong in 6 days. I have never had an order not show up.
 
hippy

hippy

Ex-Staff (retired)
atholr said:
Regarding the labour involved in counting out the order and putting it in the small plastic bags that Tech Supplies do, I am not sure if they have a physical "shopfront" in Bath, but if they did and I went in there to "buy a few chips etc" I would think that this would be included in the cost of the transaction. Therefore the only extra cost of posting other than the stamp is the padded bag they use for the outer.
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Rev-Ed do not have a shop front service but the difference in over the counter sales and posted items is more than just the bag. The bag has to be labelled, the label has to be printed, postage labels have be created and attached, computer systems have to be updated for order completion, subsequent tracking, auditing and so on, and not least the item has to make its way into the postal system.

I don't know the full details but there are always costs, direct and indirect, which may be overlooked or seem insignificant but do add up.
 
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srnet

Senior Member
Its not difficult to choose a particular cost of business, whatever it may be, and demonstrate that its somehow excessive or could be reduced.

The reality is that businesses use many methods (Ryan Air for instance) to get money out of us or aportion charges, and if you take away (or reduce) one charge the business has to recover the money from somewhere else.

Rev Ed could reduce postage costs of course, but the money would just need to be recovered from us in some other way.

Does anyone really believe that delivery can be 'free' ?
 
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SAborn

Senior Member
There can be a up side to product charges offset into shipping charges.
I made enquiries today with customs about import duties and taxes, and here in Oz there is a $1000.00 limit before duties and taxes apply, but shipping costs dont factor into the $1000.00 limit, only the value of the goods.

Even though i think GBP 60.00 is excessive for shipping of a few 100 chips, it still works out cheaper for me to do smaller orders and remain under the $1000.00 limit than larger orders and pay the GST tax and import duties, + broker fees etc, etc.
 
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