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About 30% of shopping carts are
abandoned when the customer finds out what the shipping will cost
be. We'd like to keep that from happening if possible with us
by explaining our shipping system.
Online vendors have a myriad of ways to
calculating Shipping and Handling. After much
research, we decided on actual online
USPS
Priority 2-3 Day Mail rates plus a minimum handling charge
which covers the things that would be identical whether we're shipping 1
plant or many, many more. Our shipping costs are EXACTLY
what the USPS charges for Priority Mail and in fact the USPS actually
calculates the shipping cost live online and then our handling cost is
added.
The Packing Costs are covered in the
plants price with a *6 plant or more order: - boxes,
stakes, rubber bands, spaghnum moss, plastic bags, labor to pull, wrap
and box the orders. BUT if you only order 1 plant for
example, there is insufficient money to cover packing the order.
$1.00 won't even pay for the box!
For orders of less than 6 plants we
have a Minimum Handling Charge on a sliding scale:
The Minimum $6.75 Handling Charge
covers shipping 1 plant: The above packing costs PLUS Office time
to download, process, print, and file the order, time spent reading and
writing E-Mails, office supplies
(maintaining printers, printer toner, paper etc) labor for paperwork,
filing, printing shipping & care labels,
and plastic shipping pouch. These items/costs are virtually the
same regardless of whether you order 1 plant or many. Handling charges
also cover shipping labels and plastic pouches AND the folks to apply
them. These activities take the same
time for 1 plant or 6 hence the minimum charge.
Sliding Packing and Handling Charge for 5 plants or
less -
1 plant $6.75 Handling
2 plants $5.40 Handling
3 plants $4.05 Handling
4 plants $2.70 Handling
5 plants $1.35 Handling
6 plants or more 35 cents per plant flat
rate for handling -
at this point, there's enough plants with
the dollar built into the plant price for packing supplies along with 35
cent per plant handling to put us a break even
SMALL ORDERS
Small orders still aren't, nor will ever be,
cost efficient from S&H standpoint per plant for the buyer OR for the
shipper but we still allow the purchase of as little as one plant. If
you only want 1 plant, even with the minimum $6.75 Handling cost, it's still
less expensive than being forced to buy 2 or more plants or place a minimum monetary
order ($30 or
$40 minimum isn't unusual in the trade).
Many vendors force you to
place a minimum plant order. $30 or $40 isn't unusual.
We don't force you to purchase any number of plants or spend any dollar
amount on an order, but obviously we can't lose money shipping just a
few plants with insufficient handling funds to actually process and ship
the order.
2. A quart plant,
BOXED and PACKED
weighs an average of 1.7 pounds.
The true weight varies some by plant and season. In summer, our plants weigh more because
we have the soil totally saturated before shipping. Some plants
have more foliage, some have more woody stems and weigh more.
After weighing many, many orders, we arrived at 1.7 pound per plant
boxed on the average. Obviously plants weigh less when they arrive
-- plants use up some of the moisture and some simply evaporates in
transit, especially in summer.
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