Kifaru Shipping Charges

Felix40 said:
It doesnt take any extra time. Thats what Im saying. You have to put your stuff in a box and label it one way or another. Unless the sytem they use now is just to pile up everything that was sold that day and then the ups guy sorts and boxes it all and makes sure the right stuff goes to the right place.
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The problem is how do you decide what to bill the customer... The website needs code to be able to do that.
 
COlineman78 said:
And if they just sold T-Shirts I'm sure they could offer cheaper shipping. If your wife does it manually like your previously said, then it certainly isn't done at checkout. Now if it was done via an invoice like EBay offers then yes but that's not at checkout. Hunt to Eat uses a standard e-commerce plugin, most likely to a open source backend like Drupal, but their shipping costs are much more definitive and scale linearly with number of items. Kifaru also couldn't use a standard e-commerce site out of the box due to the complex customization involved in frames and offering so many color and fabric options. And you're probably right, they probably don't care too much about offering cheaper shipping right now for small orders. From what I've seen of their order fulfillment system it is already extremely manual and could do with some serious streamlining. I could see them dropping some coin in the not too distant future to make things more efficient.
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You could use the first couple of the sku not the entire thing for the shipping, color and material wouldn't matter, which is built into the back end of their SKU's.

In the grand scheme 11 bucks is not the end of the world, and i do not think its a money thing, as I have had them ship me things on their dime as well, but it just seems excessive at times.
 
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COlineman78 said:
True... MtnOps now discontinued their free shipping with $100+ and I haven't made an order since. Been waiting till my supply is decimated so I can make a big order.
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We can add that to the list of things that blows my mind in 2017, along with outdated shipping costs. People that pay more for whey protein and such because its marketed to hunters.
 
COlineman78 said:
True... MtnOps now discontinued their free shipping with $100+ and I haven't made an order since. Been waiting till my supply is decimated so I can make a big order.
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Colineman78, I don't know if you have found what you need at Wilderness Athlete (or if it would compare to what you get from MtnOps), but they have free shipping if you purchase under their "loyalty plan" in which you can decide how often you want the items shipped and the quantity. You can cancel at any time just by logging onto your account page, so you don't have to call them to cancel. I have been using it, and I save $$$ on shipping for the items that I use regularly, and I was ordering monthly before the Loyalty Program.
 
Went to go purchase just a hat but couldn't bring myself to pay nearly 45$ after all was said and done


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tipsntails7 said:
You could use the first couple of the sku not the entire thing for the shipping, color and material wouldn't matter, which is built into the back end of their SKU's.

In the grand scheme 11 bucks is not the end of the world, and i do not think its a money thing, as I have had them ship me things on their dime as well, but it just seems excessive at times.
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I agree to a point, but my point is that it's still custom code. Mapping a SKU to weight and volume and then putting in weight and volume thresholds for shipping methods. Like I said, it's done by some other small retailers that have more predictable linearity either between weight and volume or quantity and volume. For example if I'm hunt to eat I know I can fit 2, maybe 3 shirts in a flat rate box; but any more than that I have to go to freight pricing, which USPS is on par or even a little more expensive than UPS/FedEx. I am sure some of the e-commerce products out there do support it out of the box, but if Kifaru's that's all that matters as switching to a different e-commerce tool would be even more costly. I agree that it's not that all that complicated to automate, but custom software is expensive. All the shipping providers have public APIs that you can query an address with an estimated package size and weight and get cost, but again more custom code. I just don't think it's worth it to them to spend the money for the few small orders they may be losing over $6 in possible saving by providing a cheaper shipping method.
 
COlineman78 said:
I agree to a point, but my point is that it's still custom code. Mapping a SKU to weight and volume and then putting in weight and volume thresholds for shipping methods. Like I said, it's done by some other small retailers that have more predictable linearity either between weight and volume or quantity and volume. For example if I'm hunt to eat I know I can fit 2, maybe 3 shirts in a flat rate box; but any more than that I have to go to freight pricing, which USPS is on par or even a little more expensive than UPS/FedEx. I am sure some of the e-commerce products out there do support it out of the box, but if Kifaru's that's all that matters as switching to a different e-commerce tool would be even more costly. I agree that it's not that all that complicated to automate, but custom software is expensive. All the shipping providers have public APIs that you can query an address with an estimated package size and weight and get cost, but again more custom code. I just don't think it's worth it to them to spend the money for the few small orders they may be losing over $6 in possible saving by providing a cheaper shipping method.
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Agreed, although it doesn't mean I have to like it


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Interesting discussion of the ecommerce side of things.

I can say that I'm like others have have backed out of smaller purchases due to the shipping charges. Unfortunately I don't make large purchases all that often so the small things mostly never got purchased. Hell, I only finally got a couple Kifaru shirts because I stopped by their storefront.

I think it's a catch 22. Shipping and the logistics aren't cheap but consumers are frugal when it comes to expensive shipping for more inexpensive items. I think the big takeaway here is that people are wanting to purchase things but don't because of the shipping costs. Justifiable or not, the shipping fees are costing (pun intended) Kifaru sales. If Kifaru deems those lost sales acceptable and in their best interest in order to maintain their margins and logistics processes, then that is most definitely their rightful choice as a business. However, I do wonder if they are aware of how many missed sales actually occur.

Also, out of curiosity, I went onto 1shotgear's site to see that they charged for shipping of Kifaru stuff and it appears they are out of everything.
 
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I love me some Kifaru, but defending their shipping prices is laughable. COlineman you are fighting a losing battle, but Aron will appreciate your loyalty. Kifaru is in dire need of updating their shipping options as they are far behind the times and losing business because of it. I am sure there are orders that become larger just so the shipping costs seems reasonable, but I would imagine they lose more than they get.
 
I bought some used pull outs , loved em . When i looked into buying more straight from Them shipping costs pushed me to another vendor


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I know I've bought webbing, buckles, sliders, etc elsewhere because I am not paying $11 on shipping for a $4 part. I actually want to get a hat, but unless they have a free shipping sale, there is no way I am going to pay a 50% markup for something I could send in the mail for about $3. Sorry kifaru! Ps: if anyone is making an order in the Phoenix area, I'll take a gray mesh-back cap and I'll cover $2 of your shipping costs!
 
I am NOT going to judge Kifaru's shipping charges. I average an item from them every 2 or 3 years and it's usually something costing more than $100. What they charge for shipping is their business and has very little impact on me.

But stop and think about something: Many companies (which don't primarily target small, single-item sales) see these small sales as almost a necessary evil...akin to selling a single piece of candy. Sure, they do the sale but compare boxing and shipping fifty items selling at $15 vs one item at $750. I'll opinionate that higher shipping costs on small items reflect either 1) a company's ambivalence about the value of these small orders or 2) the company's need to offset the in-house costs of dealing with shipping many smaller orders. It's likely a little of both in many cases. Of course the company could simply add $5 to the selling price of every item and then charge a correspondingly smaller price for shipping. I KNOW this gets done a huge amount of the time on small item web sales. It's somehow mentally easier to accept paying a higher cost on the item...the thing of actual value...even if the end sale price is the same.

I've owned and operated a landscape contracting business for decades. If a customer asks us for delivery of 10 bags of mulch to their home the delivery charge will be the same as if they ordered 40 bags. We will sell you a single shrub or 10 shrubs...the per-shrub price is the same. But ask us to deliver and plant just ONE shrub (vs 10) and you'll quickly see how much more you're paying on a per-shrub basis. All companies which sell product have overhead...fixed and variable...per transaction. The fixed costs have to be respected on small transactions when the numbers really climb.
 
We've got people working on it now and COlineman isn't that far off (it'll be closer to 10K), but it is expensive.



tipsntails7 said:
I could give a shit about the shipping costs, it costs what it costs, but thats a ridiculous statement to make. 20K..... you could build an entire new website for less then that.

Only certain things would qualify and it's not like they have a ton of stuff.


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^^^^^^
This is what makes a great company, addressing the issue. Side note, thumbs up for my Kifaru CS experience thus far. I recently ordered a frame and pack (Reckoning). The Nomad 2 came out right after I placed my order, I called to get some info because I thought I might want to change my order. Quick conversation with Aaron and he told me I'd "look like the damn Clampets" if I went with the Nomad 2 for what I'd be using it for. Personally, I appreciate the humor in customer service, no reason for things to be so rigid. Thanks Aaron!!
 
Thanks for all the comments everyone!

We've got people working on these issues today and the smaller item shipping issue should be fixed shortly.

The prices for UPS large items won't be changing, but the prices of USPS shipping on small items will be. We ran a lot of numbers over the last few days and the cost of shipping smaller items is our only real glitch.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we have a couple people working on our system today to help it differentiate between items under a pound and allow for USPS first class shipping (the cheapest option) for anything small. The issue we've had (I'm not an expert at this, so keep that in mind) is that we can't offer First Class shipping for large items (USPS won't allow it), but should be offering it for small items since that's the cheapest option. So when you order something small it charges you a higher amount because the system won't allow for a First Class option because it defaults to what the options are for large items.

I probably hacked that explanation up pretty bad, but we are working on it and the cost for shipping smaller items should be fixed after today.

Sorry for the inconvenience on this stuff and we appreciate the support from everyone!
 
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