Looking for your input on brokerage fees.

[snarkys]

Originally Posted by fencer

ask your supplier not to use a courier service but insist on USPS or don't do business with them.

Believe me , we would do it if it made sense at all. USPS has a variety of issues from both customer and business standpoints. We are trying to find a way to let the customer have the best of both worlds.

1) USPS often charges more for postage than other services but the low brokerage fees make up for this. If there are no brokerage fees (like in option 2) it simply costs more.

2) USPS's tracking is next to worthless. Most the time it only says it left here and then updates that it has been delivered. This is no help when you are trying to figure out when a package is going to arrive. It also doesn't help when the package got held by customs and it has been two weeks with no delivery ...

3) Our experience is USPS is really unreliable. One shipment will arrive really fast and another shipped on the same day mysteriously takes three weeks. This can be pretty distressing it if is your new $500 skimmer.

4) International packages over a certain weight need to be hand delivered to a post office employee, this is typically all of our packages. Sometimes the wait there is 10 minutes and sometimes it is an hour, Most businesses simply don’t have time for this type of shinanigins.

5) the USPS’s API for integrating their shipping costs into a websites calculator is poor at best. Often results in the customer being both drastically over and under billed because of limited weight and box size options. It is also incapable of telling you that this item is to heavy or to large to be shipped with USPS

6) They also have size and weight limitations. USPS doesn’t take packages over approximately 2 cubic feet which isn’t that big and certainly doesn’t lend itself to our “bulk packaged” idea.

[snarkys]

Well this new program was approved for us and we should be able to implement it next week or the following.

To reiterate, taxes and duties will be charged during check out and paid for when you purchase the item. There will be zero brokerage fees and your package will arrive without any charges due.

In exchange packages will be shipped every Friday. If it is important that the product arrive quickly you can choose expedited service and it will ship same day.

[michika]

Awesome! I'm really pleased that you decided to do this. I'll be setting up an order soon for sure now.

Thank you!

[Skimmerking]

hey man i will say #2 too im looking at buying about 100lb of your rock from you. Im currently deployed to Afghanistan and will be home soon in about the mid sept time frame.. SO i guessing that 100 lbs of rock would be over the 200 dollar mark easy and then i would just pay for the shipping and the taxes right. please let me know when you get more bigger rock in since im rebuilding my reef .. here is another question for ya what is the instructions for curing the rock. can you just put it into the tank with other rock and fill your tank with your current live stock .

or do you have to fill the rock with salt water and cure it for 4-5 weeks

[mseepman]

I'm all for option 2 as well. Would this only apply for the under $200 orders or would it be for all orders? I just bought one of your RO/DI systems but would have spent some more money with you if I had not hit that $200 limit.