Online shop/P&P

Submitted by chrisjdavies on 17 December, 2008 - 17:40.

Our new website will have an online shop.

When the Trust (before I got here) signed off on the functional spec, it didn't mention anything about how it would deal with the postage and packing costs.

When I challenged this, I was told 'that will be a change request, and we will have to provide you with a quote for this work'.

This got me fuming - who creates an online shop without P&P!!!!

I want to go back with all guns blazing, but am now also fighting with the Chief Exec and the Director of Fundraising on how it will work.

Having done a quick look around various sites, I have found the following ways of doing it:

* a flat £1.95 charge, no matter what you order
* a flat £3.50 charge, no matter what you order
* free P&P if your order totals less than £40, and a £4.98 charge if it is over £40
* a £5 charge if your order totals less than £50, and free if it is over £50
* a sliding scale for charges below £50, and free if over
* a £3 charge for up to £15 and £5 if over £15

My questions:

1. although it wasn't in the spec, do you think it's fair enough that I challenge the company on this and demand it for no charge - they were hired as 'experts' and the Trust were guided by them (until I came along 8 weeks ago)

2. if you have an online shop, how do you deal with P&P - and do your offline shopping costs match it?

Thanks

Chris Davies

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You don't say what is to be posted

Submitted by KeithGrinsted on 20 December, 2008 - 19:02.

So it is difficult to say whether your pricing is good or bad. It is not simply a matter of the postage costs but also the packaging don't forget.

It should be obvious to any experienced ecommerce web site company that P&P is part of the deal. If you had a contract with them I'd happily take a look at the wording - I have negotiated retrospectively for businesses and local authorities on mis-sold software packages in the past.

I have also worked with reputable ecommerce web designers who integrate web sites with back end accounting systems providing a seamless solution. So if you need another option let me know.

The other thing to consider is a local courier company that could provide you with a pricing structure for the items to be despatched. Saves you having to take everything down to the Post Office - depends how much you are likely to sell.

Hope this helps

Keith Grinsted
07841 312711
kgrinsted@premiercontact.co.uk
Premier Contact Ltd ...making your voice heard!
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Costing the postage

Submitted by Haworth Cat Rescue on 18 December, 2008 - 15:59.

Difficult one! We've sold on ebay for years and that is quite easy to work out, just add the P&P per item.

That is one way of doing it, our current small shop allows us to do that, so we don't end up charging £3.50 for something that costs £1.14 to post! And vice versa.

If that's not possible, and you want to charge a standard amount, then I would say to strike a balance (weight-wise) between the heaviest item and the lightest, assuming that you assume that your customers will only buy one item.

Perhaps the best thing would be to look at the Royal Mail website and try and work out an average price of your parcels using their PPI (I think it stands for Pricing in Proportion) whereby you pay a set amount based on the weight of parcels over a given period of time. This of course only works if you are selling a lot of items.

Personally, for a new shop, I'd go for a item-by-item postage charge and see how well you sell, then reassess it in a few months etc.

We currently have an off the shelf site, which has an integrated shop, and P&P is automatically there (you have to put the figures in, but it doesn't require any extra spec etc) so I would have thought it was standard.

(Dare I ask which company is doing your site? We are having our site developed - the proper one, not the off the shelf one - and we are having huge troubles with the company doing ours, and I wonder if it is the same one? (email me on haworth.catrescue@btinternet.com if you don't want to post their name here))

Sara

P&P is essential

Submitted by howardlake on 18 December, 2008 - 15:09.

While it's a shame that the spec didn't mention postage and packing, I think you're right in assuming that it's a fundamental part of any online commerce/shop set-up, unless your charity indicated it was only ever going to sell digital downloads, which I presume was not the case.