Question for vendors

[+ThePetersTrio]

I'm going back over my Paypal account activity for coin purchases. Several times I've made purchases for coins from the same vendor that shipped out at different times...as the coins came up for sale.

 

I'm wondering if there would be a way for buyers to have the option to combine purchases and have the coins shipped out - say at the end of the month or maybe even every other month - all at once to save on shipping/handling costs?

 

I realize that some people wouldn't want this - for instance, people buying for gifts or people hoping to get the jump on eBay sales - but with postage costs going up next week, I'd certainly be a happy customer to have this option to save some dough.

 

Thoughts from others?

 

Reactions from vendors?

 

I'm sure I haven't considered every angle here so please educate me.

[Hogwild Stuff]

Hogwild Stuff has looked at doing this, but there are at least three problems:

 

1. It means you will have to wait longer to get your coins. Some people don't care, but most like to get them as soon as possible.

 

2. It makes inventory control much more difficult.

 

3. It is just one more thing that can go wrong in the process of conceiving a coin, getting it made and finally shipped out to a customer.

 

4. While there might be some savings on the actual postage cost. Most of us would be forced to increase costs in some fashion, to pay for the additional labor of consolidating the orders.

 

The one thing HWS has done for a few customers is create a prepay plan where they make a deposit and then as coins come in they are shipped to those customers and the amount is then deducted from the balance. In those cases, sometime we can combine coins to save a bit on shipping. Though all of the people who do this are more concerned about just getting every new issue rather than saving on shipping.

[YemonYime]

As a fellow consumer I understand and sympathize with your suggestion, but we cannot expect any of these very small businesses to be as flexible as a company such as Amazon.com. They simply don't have the resources to facilitate such a practice, and no business can survive without covering their own costs. There's just no other realistic way to get your desired items from them to you.

 

Unless you come to GeoCoinFest! :)

[+Landsharkz]

Hogwild Stuff summed it up very well .

 

We have considered a 'coin club' where you commit to buying 1 of each or 2 of each in every finish and invoicing/shipping monthly but the inventory control and billing would be rather nightmarish because the figures would change every month.

 

I do have boxes here for locals who want 1 of everything. Every so often they pop by and we add it all up, but that doesn't work in the big picture.

 

If we come up with something that works we'll let you know.

[+Droo]

I like your notion for saving on resources. Having multiple orders shipped at different times means use and disposal of more materials than ultimately necessary. I'm all for conservation and better management of resources.

 

However from a vendour's standpoint you're asking for a Layaway system whereby you make your purchases over time and pick them up at certain intervals. The first problem is storage. The second is tracking.

 

Instead of getting a shipment of coins, stuffing them in mailers and sending them out you're adding 2 layers of complexity for the vendour which has to affect their cost of doing business. Whatever savings in shipping fees and conservation of resources is quickly offset by labour or handling costs.

 

While some companies that do a lot of pre-sales may be able to handle the tracking and storage problems of shipping orders being minted and shipped at slightly different times the combining of different orders to the pre-sale orders adds complexity and thus costs.

[+Eric K]

Another concern if the payments are made via paypal and you don't ship the items in a certain amount of time you are in breach of contract.

 

We have seen it happen here before at least two times when people were made aware they were paying for a presell item via paypal and then turned in the vendors to paypal for non delivery of the items and those vendors had their paypal accounts locked.

 

All it would take is one person to forget that they were waiting on an item to report that vendor to paypal to get that vendors account locked.

Edited May 6, 2008 by Eric K

[+forthferalz]

Just think about a really fat package of coins you have been waiting 3 months for and it gets lost in the mail too - ouch! But like dorkfishes series of coins perhaps it makes sense there to plan the thing for your customers.

 

Nude coins have something planned really well by karma. For an international customer this makes the greenhouse guilt thing slightly better. (her postage has to be the most reasonable out there.)

[+E.caballus]

I heartily agree with the desire to save on shipping fees and envelopes, but as others as said, the reality of logistics can make it quite challenging. I did have one coin company be so kind as to hold an order to combine with another pre-sale order. Then when the pre-sale coins came in, they ended up shipping one combined order as requested, plus a duplicate of the pre-sale order - so now I have extra coins that I either need to ship back or pay additionally for (we're still trying to figure that out).

[+ThePetersTrio]

Thanks for the replies. As I suspected, I hadn't considered all the problems that vendors face with the issue. I am certainly aware that our coin vendors aren't big companies like Amazon. I may be blonde but I'm not stupid.

 

I guess I was just sort of thinking out loud about how I could save some money and resources by combining orders for shipping.

 

I also wanted to let vendors know that anything they could come up with that would facilitate something like this would be very much appreciated by me - and likely other buyers as well.

 

Thanks!

[+Eartha]

I've heard talk in here that some people, who live near each other, order together and have them all shipped at once and meet up to divvy up the coins. Is there anyone near you that is an avid collector as well? Of course, then you have to be ordering from the same vendor for that to work. It does get complicated trying to save money, doesn't it?

[+ThePetersTrio]

I've heard talk in here that some people, who live near each other, order together and have them all shipped at once and meet up to divvy up the coins. Is there anyone near you that is an avid collector as well? Of course, then you have to be ordering from the same vendor for that to work. It does get complicated trying to save money, doesn't it?

 

Ain't that the truth! I'm doing all sorts of things I've never done before trying to save some money these days. When it costs $65 to fill up my tank and I'm spending on average an extra $30-40 a week on groceries - it's cutting into my coin fund!

 

I like your idea about finding someone nearby to go in on orders with - but I don't know any other coin junky around here..... YET!

[CoinSwag.com]

We have a few international customers that make a group purchase to help save on shipping. As fuel cost rise I only suspect that shipping cost will continue to increase. As eartha said if you have a group of local coin collectors get to gether and make group purchases and have them shipped together to save on high shipping cost.

[+dflye]

The new USPS rates are supposed to offer discounts for online and volume shippers, although that may be mainly targeted for Express Mail and not for Priority Mail (which is a steal when sending a bunch of coins in a flat rate envelope compared to any other method)

[+Eric K]

The new USPS rates are supposed to offer discounts for online and volume shippers, although that may be mainly targeted for Express Mail and not for Priority Mail (which is a steal when sending a bunch of coins in a flat rate envelope compared to any other method)

 

The postal clerk and my post office told me the other day that in their newsletter or magazine, or something that postal employees get, that International shipping is going to be done the same as domestic as far as packages.

 

That is irritiating since the post office still doesn't have a uniform way of determining a flat from a package and you can go to two different post offices and get two different rates!

Edited May 7, 2008 by Eric K