Free Delivery Vs Paid Delivery

jimmy15

Hi guys,

In light of a discussion with another member I want to run a poll of sorts.

Something that really bugs me is the following scenario:
I am buying supplements off a site and their prices look really good.
I add a product to my cart, happy as larry, only then to be hit with a 5-7 Euro delivery charge. Bit of a Ryanair model to charging people, if you like. This seriously wrecks my head!!

I much prefer to know the full price up-front. I know sites that say free delivery obviously build a certain amount of delivery into their prices, but atleast you know straight away the cost you will be paying.

The question:
Do you prefer supplement sites whoes products are a bit more expensive but offer free delivery, that is they dont charge you any extra for delivery on top of what you pay for the product, or do you prefer supplement sites that offer apparantly cheaper product prices then hit you with delivery at the end...?

Al_Fernz

Who cares? I prefer the firm offering the lowest cost regardless of how they ask for it, assuming both products are the same quality.

brianthebard

Clearly you are paying for the delivery one way or the other so I don't see how you can find an issue there. Its not like the second site forces you to pay delivery, or that you can't cancel the order before you put in your details. :rolleyes:

jimmy15

Al_Fernz wrote: »

Who cares? I prefer the firm offering the lowest cost regardless of how they ask for it, assuming both products are the same quality.

So what you are saying, correct me if Im wrong, is that you would add the charge yourself and then compare the 2 prices to see which offers the best value.

If yes, same as me. I do however prefer if I dont have to do this and just know up-front.

cormie

The only time I have a problem with the delivery charge is when you have to register as a new customer to find it out and before doing this you have to check their t&c's and everything to find out if they even delivery to Ireland. This is particularly annoying when looking around for the best prices on a single product you want to buy so you could be looking at about 10 or 20 different sites, a huge amount of which you have to register on first to find out, who subsequently lose business because of this (from me anyway:pac:)

Al_Fernz

jimmy15 wrote: »

So what you are saying, correct me if Im wrong, is that you would add the charge yourself and then compare the 2 prices to see which offers the best value.

Company X have product A that costs €30
Company Y have product A that costs €20 + €5 for delivery.

My preference = Company Y > Company X

Hanley

If I'm going to be screwed, I wanna know if I'm being screwed.

I'd rather pay a tenner for delivery and get a range of products for 5% less than have an inbuilt delivery charge priced into everything I buy. Even if it works out at the same price as the place with "free" delivery.

Last time I ordered a considerable amount I went thru bulkpowders.co.uk. I actually can't remember when I ordered it, but I think it was some time in April. I think it cost €160 all in (including delivery) and I got 1kg of creatine, 1kg of glutamine, AAKG, 10kg of whey and 5kg of dextrose. The whey is perfect for postworkout, it's so cheap you can just throw a sh!t ton in. I like getting lots of protein in after a workout. I'd cry if I was spending €30 twice a month on RAM to achieve this. Even if it is the nicest tasting stuff ever.

rubadub

cormie wrote: »

The only time I have a problem with the delivery charge is when you have to register as a new customer....who subsequently lose business because of this (from me anyway:pac:)

That drives me mental, I have emailed a few and said they lost a potential customer because of their setup. I cannot understand the mentality of doing this. Radionics (shop selling electric components) used to give out CD catalogues and you needed a special code to get it working! Tesco online do this too, what the big secret? I can just walk in the shop and see prices. Then after registering on some sites, taking ages, you only THEN find they only delivery within the US.

I would prefer totally upfront about how they price, especially concerning multiple products.

In my work they planned on putting passworded pdfs of service manuals online, I asked
"why the password"
-to stop competitors downloading them and looking at them
"so how does anybody get them"
-they just ring up reception and ask for the password
"so anybody can get them, and you just make it more difficult for genuine people too"
-ehhhh

There was a whole other load of things wrong with the website design, they were blindly following others (crap) layouts, I got to talk to the webdesigner and it was obvious she did not browse many websites, and just accepted annoying features, using the logic "if it is so bad why is everybody doing it"

Hanley wrote: »

Last time I ordered a considerable amount I went thru bulkpowders.co.uk

They have a good enough setup. I think they charge a fixed post charge up to a certain weight, maybe 25kg. My ideal site would let you first pick your country of delivery, then when you start adding stuff to the basket you see the postage price increasing right away.

This topic came up recently before and I posted

I prefer open postage policies, there is no such thing as "free post". If I find a place with "free post" there is no incentive to buy many items at once. If I have to pay a post fee I like to get my moneys worth and so usually search well and find a few items to get, they all become cheaper per unit as the post is split. I ring/email mates to see if they want something from whatever the shop is. So in the long run the shop can make more profit and offer stuff cheaper. chainreactioncycles.com offer "free post", I have bought somethings and then an hour later copped on I needed something else, I feel bad that they lose out by having to pay postage twice when it could have gone in 1 parcel, I feel bad since I will buy from them again, and want them to be able to offer me stuff as cheap as possible.

I also do not like paying for nextday deliveries if there is a potentially cheaper option, though within Ireland next day can be standard. I prefer having the option of slow post, like dvdpacific have.


Also for ebay users who get pissed off at high postage...

Seller A & Seller B. They both buy an item for €100. They want to make €50 profit on the sale. Postage of the item costs €50. Ebay take around 4% of the sale value

Seller A lists his item as buyitnow for 1cent, postage €200. This means he will make €50 profit (and the 1cent of which ebay take 4%).

Seller B lists his item with the real postage €50, now to still get his €50 profit he has to charge €156.25. Ebay take 4% of his 156.25 leaving him with €150.

So for sellers working on the same margin you can see how the ones charging high postage can afford to offer you an item at a lower cost. I have seen the same seller with 2 auctions for the same product, one with high post the other with low, which were working on this principle.

So if you want the pay the extra €6.25 to ebay so you feel you are not being ripped off, then go right ahead.

EileenG

Hanley wrote: »

t 1kg of creatine, 1kg of glutamine, AAKG, 10kg of whey and 5kg of dextrose.

You bought dextrose mail order???? Are you nuts? Every supermarket has it for half nothing.

Hanley

EileenG wrote: »

You bought dextrose mail order???? Are you nuts? Every supermarket has it for half nothing.

I only found that out afterwards.... In my defence, it was a tenner for 5kg and didn't increase my delivery charge. I dunno how that compares to here. I do have a whopper big tub to store it all in now if I buy it here in future.

EileenG

Fair enough. It averages 1 euro for 500g most shops. If it doesn't add to your postage, fine. Most sites I deal with charge postage on weight, and the postage on 5kg would be hefty!

rubadub

EileenG wrote: »

You bought dextrose mail order???? Are you nuts? Every supermarket has it for half nothing.

Checking that site 5kg is around €12.50. In the supermarkets glucose (usually in the babyfood section) is around €1.10 for 500g now.

But as I already mentioned, when ordering from bulkpowders the postage is fixed up to a high weight, therefore it probably would have remained the same whether getting the dextrose or not. Therefore €12.50 is the real "landed cost", so not much more than the supermarket.

Other places would be a lot more expensive, some people are still buying it in chemists. Also many read too many US sites/books and think they have to get dextrose, while glucose is essentially the same thing, but more popular in europe.

Also the tubs you get from bulkpowders are very good quality, I got big strong foodgrade tubs of protein, a tub that quality would actually almost cost as much empty. Handy to have around the house.

You also have to weigh up the costs of buying in normal shops, this is not really the case for glucose since you are likely to be in a supermarket. But if somebody is considering travelling all the way to a remote supplement store then the expenses of bus/petrol/time can be a lot more than the convenience of getting stuff delivered. I get it all sent to work.

EDIT: only see the previous 2 posts now!