Looking for your input on brokerage fees.

[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.

[snarkys]

all orders : )

I am working on fixing the taxes and such on our site and it should be ready .

[fortheloveofcrabs]

Option 2 is the way to go, but is there a way to NOT use UPS. I've have 10 or packaged delivered by them from the US and Canada and not ONCE (I'm not kidding here) NOT ONCE in those 10 delivers have things gone correctly.

-I've heard it all, no one was home (when I was all day).

-The address doesn't exist (WHAT?!)

-Oh, sorry, I know this was direct overnight, but we accidentally put it on a train to Winnipeg (this was on an order of live rock from BC… Yeah…)

-The driver couldn’t’ find your buzzer number (Umm, compare the last name on the package and the names on the buzzer list at the front door – I’m on the only one with my last name in the building).

-One time I knew UPS was supposed to come that day, so I literally sat and watched the front gate for a UPS guy – then he showed up and dialed something on the buzzer system. My phone didn’t ring so I ran down just as he was ending the conversation with whoever he was talking too. He asked my why I wouldn’t buzz him in… Ummm, because you didn’t buzz me!!!! How hard is it to push four buttons?

Anyways, the list goes one… Moral of the story, I simply don’t shop from anyone that only ships UPS. I’ll pay more to use someone else.

Please offer an alternative shipping option…

(Sorry, I know this is a little off topic, but…)

[snarkys]

Well I can say that we get very few complaints about UPS here and the few we do get are generally about the brokerage or taxes which will be resolved with this change.

If you have had an issue 10 out of ten times i would say it has something to do with the way that UPS operates in your area or a crappy employee because this certainly doesn't represent the feedback we have received from our customers.

The only other option really is the postal service . I have detailed a few times in this thread why that simply just isn't an option. We do go out of our way to fulfill our customers needs but USPS just can not be done.

On a side note I believe all Canadian UPS shipments are guaranteed on time deliveries. If they are late they will refund your shipping costs, you should call your vendor next time UPS is late since this can be a substantial refund : )

[fortheloveofcrabs]

Originally Posted by snarkys

If you have had an issue 10 out of ten times i would say it has something to do with the way that UPS operates in your area or a crappy employee because this certainly doesn't represent the feedback we have received from our customers.)

So what you’re saying is UPS is fine, just not in Edmonton… Or Nanaimo (according to Christy). Are these valuable markets to you as a business owner? If they aren’t fine, I can appreciate that they are small markets.

Originally Posted by snarkys

The only other option really is the postal service . I have detailed a few times in this thread why that simply just isn't an option. We do go out of our way to fulfill our customers needs but USPS just can not be done.

There is no other option – even for an extra charge? There are only two couriers in your part of Minnesota? No FedEx, no DHL, no nothing? It’s very possible that in Golden Valley you are really limited as to whom you can ship with, it is just a shame that I’m excluded from your client base as a result; you are a quality on-line retailer with very competitive pricing.

Originally Posted by snarkys

On a side note I believe all Canadian UPS shipments are guaranteed on time deliveries. If they are late they will refund your shipping costs, you should call your vendor next time UPS is late since this can be a substantial refund : )

Yes they are. They are guaranteed to be delivered on the expected date of delivery. So if the package is supposed to come Monday, and you’re not home Monday, the new delivery date is set as Tuesday, and they try again. Fine.

So, if, say UPS says that the address doesn’t exist (I’d like to point out I live on the main downtown drag (Jasper Ave.) in Edmonton, not some back road), they call you, and bump the delivery date a day. If they put the package on a train to Winnipeg by accident, the new delivery date is postponed. I’d like to reiterate that this was a LIVE shipment, sent “Guaranteed next day by noon”. When I asked what “Guaranteed next day by noon” service meant, they told me that you get priority, and they guarantee to try to do everything in their power to make that happen – but sometimes “external” circumstances (apparently putting a box on a train is an external circumstance) interfere and the delivery date has to be changed.

I had arranged to take the day off of work to receive the shipment that never came, and had to later take a second day off to get the new shipment. Even if they had refunded the cost of shipping – would that have really made a difference?

In this particular situation, the retailer re-shipped a new batch of rock (Air Canada this time) and had to deal with UPS to be compensated for loss of the first shipment. I don’t know how it ended.

In all my troubles, not ONCE have I been refunded a penny - my packages were always delivered “on time”.

All I’m really trying to say is that we live in a world of choice. We all choose to keep fish tanks, and choose the products we use and buy. Please give us the option to choose our couriers – if it is at an extra cost to the buyer that is their choice.

If it’s not possible, it’s not possible, you sound like you have done your homework on this matter. It’s just too bad because it is a lose-lose situation for both you and I.

I really don’t mean to come off as crass or aggressive, it is just a very frustrating situation. Thank you reading, and taking the time to listen to your customers.

-Paul

[whosinpower]

This is great news! I just recieved an order from you guys a couple of days ago - and was rather taken aback at the cost of duty/gst. GST - I understand - we all have to pay taxes - but the amount of duty was a bit of a surprise. (order was over $200 - and the reasoning UPS gave me why it was so much more than $10 was a total farce)

I remain very impressed with the service you guys provide and the committment to your clients. Well done!!!! And THANKS ! I'll be sure to place more orders from you in the future.

[snarkys]

It is our sincere desire to end these "surprises" : )

I hope to get this done by the end of the weekend so we can start this next week but my list of things to do is really long : )

[snarkys]

Originally Posted by fortheloveofcrabs

So what you’re saying is UPS is fine, just not in Edmonton… Or Nanaimo (according to Christy). Are these valuable markets to you as a business owner? If they aren’t fine, I can appreciate that they are small markets.

There is no other option – even for an extra charge? There are only two couriers in your part of Minnesota? No FedEx, no DHL, no nothing? It’s very possible that in Golden Valley you are really limited as to whom you can ship with, it is just a shame that I’m excluded from your client base as a result; you are a quality on-line retailer with very competitive pricing.

-Paul

We try extremely hard to serve every ones needs as best we can and no customer group is to small . This shows in the fact that Canadian orders make up maybe 3-4% of our volume yet we are in constant negotiations with our shipping provider so we can offer unique services like this one where brokerage fees are reduced to the point that we can pay them for you and you have zero brokerage fees.

Here in the united states UPS has provided us an incredible service and they are our shipping partner. The only reason they will even speak to us on programs like this is because we do all of our domestic volume with them. In the US DHL is a total joke, there is no way we could possibly use them . Fed ex is really the same as UPS here but they don't have any programs to offer us that would reduce the brokerage fees and unless we did all of our domestic shipments with them the rates would be ridiculous.

We do value you telling us experiences like you have had and take this into consideration. This goes in conjunction with the experiences reported to us by the customers who have ordered from us. Complaints are very rare if you disregard the issues with understanding taxes duties and brokerage fees which this program completely solves.

This is a quote from a response i made earlier on why we are unable to offer the post office service.

Originally Posted by snarkys

Believe me , we would do it if it made sense at all. USPS has a variety of issues fromhttp://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=42859 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) the post office costs significantly 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. I feel like pulling my hair out by the time I leave there..

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.This also results in a ton of frustrating calls from us explaining you were not charged enough shipping because the package was too big/heavy. this obviously always goes bad ….

Trust me when i say we would use the post office if there was absolutely any way it could be done without headaches like these. Instead we do everything we can possibly do to make the alternatives as affordable and practical as possible.