Emilio84 Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 Will you be offering free shipping over a certain amount again any time soon? I'd love to place an order soon but I was waiting to see if that deal was going to make a comeback. Link to comment
SaltCritters Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 Nope. We dont plan on brining it back at the moment. We can offer much lower prices without it. Link to comment
JamieSheffield Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 Nope. We dont plan on brining it back at the moment. We can offer much lower prices without it. ...and my full shopping cart will remain that way until your server clears it... $70 for shipping, who cares how cheap the frags are? I loved my first order, but without free (or cheaper) shipping, it will certainly be my last... Thanks, Jamie Link to comment
SaltCritters Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 That is actual cost with our discount. We could bring back free shipping and double our prices again. Your total cost would end up being the same or more than what it is now. Link to comment
patback Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 Nope. We dont plan on brining it back at the moment. We can offer much lower prices without it. How can that be? If a company is able to make enough extra money from shipping to "lower the cost" of their goods, then it is possible to take away that obscene shipping amount and tack it on to the corals. I for one, along with a very large majority of reefers, don't purchase online because of the shippig costs. Unless you are buying hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of stuff, it just doesn't pay off. If evenly distributed through the corals though, that makes it much easier. Might I suggest, raising live stock and lowering shipping? Customers with not a lot of extra money to blow through WOULD like to buy 3 or 4 frags online and not pay 2-3 times the Amount for shipping. Whether that 70 dollars is going into actual coral, or shipping/ shipping supplies( and whatever else), to a customer, it is still 70 dollars being spent. I for one, would be much more willin to spend that extra money if I were getting somthing more out of it. Link to comment
SaltCritters Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 Before you had to spend $125 to get free shipping and Just about everything was atleast $10. So let's say you bought 13 $10 frags that would have been $130 shipped. Now most frags are $5 so 13 frags would cost you $65 and let's say shipping is $50. That's $15 less than with free shipping. Not only is it cheaper for the customer especially the customers that dont have $125 to spend. It allows us to have larger pieces at a dirt cheap price and more crazy sales. We have only had free shipping a few times and every time we do it sales DROP. Last September was our busiest month we have ever had in 4 years. We didn't have free shipping. We didn't even have discounted shipping. It was actual cost 35% higher than what it is now. Shipping still ends up costing us more than what we charge because the site doesn't figure in box size or cost of packing materials. The site just based it on weight. Link to comment
bhskicker18 Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 ...and my full shopping cart will remain that way until your server clears it... $70 for shipping, who cares how cheap the frags are? I loved my first order, but without free (or cheaper) shipping, it will certainly be my last... Thanks, Jamie The more you ship the lower the shipping price from UPS is. $70 is outragous from Indiana to New York, to Alabama its only $32. A discount from Salt Critters "might" help promote customers to buy more from them, but I'm not sure how much they sale/ship in a month. Most I personally would ever pay for shipping of fish, corals, inverts (not including live rock) would be $50 (and thats for extremely hard to find animals), but only then I would want a 14 day warranty. I'm sure most consumers on this site are the same way. My cousin and myself can get a 100 pound box of corals shipped from Bali to LAX then Delta Airlines from LAX to Memphis for about $190ish, that includes all fees and such. UPS says they have to increase prices due to fuel, which is funny because they are one of the most fuel efficient parcel services in the world. I know it sounds like I am trying to "bash" SaltCritters, but I am not, they are a good business with cheap prices Link to comment
CAmor07 Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 I agree with you pat, i buy off websites with lower shipping. Link to comment
patback Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 Don't get me wrong, after custimer reviews from people I know and seeing everything first hand, I've already got 15 or 20 frags I want. There is no doubt that this is one of the best websites to buy from health wise. That shipping just kills me though. Link to comment
SaltCritters Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 Not real sure where your getting this $70 for shipping. I just put 13 Bleading heart Acan frags in the cart and had it quote a shipping price to 90210 CA (Ca is usually the most exspensive pace for us to ship since its so far away) and shipping is $62.91 for next day air. Bringing the total to $127.91 Shipping the same acan frags to 10010 New York via Next day air is $56.56 bringing the total to $121.56 I placed an order with saltcritters a few weeks ago and got free shipping for a $130 order. The prices I paid are the same as the prices that are on your site today for similar items. I clearly got a great deal. Most things are $10-$15. It looks like your shipping costs are correct. Fed-ex and UPS both look like it's $70 to ship a 2lb box of water from Indiana to San Francisco in overnight. It's a shame that transport costs are rising so high that it's becoming prohibitively expensive to ship livestock. You might want to consider a flat rate for shipping like liveaquaria. People might be willing to load up on product if they know that they are going to pay a flat rate for shipping anyway and it saves the shock of finding a $70 (or moe) shipping charge when they go to check out. I ordered a black clownfish from liveaquaria a few weeks ago and added two neon gobies because I knew I was paying shipping anyway. The order that I received from saltcriters was packed amazingly well, bags were all vacuum sealed, double bagged, and had the perfect amount of water. It's the first time I've ordered coral online and have every single thing survive. Your customer service is top notch as well. Thanks for a phenomenal experience. We tried flat rate shipping a while back and got all sorts of complaints from people that lived in the surrounding states because it ended up costing them alot more. we had a Pole on our facebook page last year asking if people prefered the Free shipping or Calculated shipping and the calculated shipping votes almost doubled the free shipping votes. Ill have to see if i can find it. Thanks! Glad you liked your goodies and they are doing good Link to comment
Jacob042426 Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 You should offer a flat rate and cheaper shipping to surrounding states like coral morphologic, reef gardener, and a couple other vendors does. I live in Miami, so shipping from coral morphologic costs $15 Link to comment
SaltCritters Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 You should offer a flat rate and cheaper shipping to surrounding states like coral morphologic, reef gardener, and a couple other vendors does. I live in Miami, so shipping from coral morphologic costs $15 Ground shipping to 43202 OH for those 13 acan frags is $11. cheaper than a flat rate Link to comment
Jacob042426 Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 Ground shipping to 43202 OH for those 13 acan frags is $11. cheaper than a flat rate What about Miami? Link to comment
SaltCritters Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 What about Miami? for 13 acan frags next day air to 33107 FL would be $60.44 bringing the total to $125.44 I did basically the same thing. Your site said about $65 to ship. I checked Fed-Ex and UPS to see what it would cost to ship about 2 lbs of water (1 liter) because I thought that was roughly the weight the frags would be. My point was that your shipping is reasonable based on the cost of shipping through UPS. The shipping costs from UPS and Fed-Ex are the issue, and that's nothing that saltcritters can control. It costs $70 to ship a 2 lb box via UPS overnight from Indiana to San Francisco. That's $35/lb! I can fly myself and my carry-on luggage the same route for $375 or $1.88/lb. The problem is that your potential customers don't appreciate the costs that are required to ship, because UPS and Fed-Ex are charging prices that are insanely and illogically expensive! Yep shipping is nuts i agree but like you said we can't really do anything abuot it. We do our best to keep the boxes as small as we can to keep the shipping cost as low as we can. The prices on our site include our almost 40% discount even. You shuold be around monday morning when i get the UPS bill lol. I scream every time. Link to comment
SaltCritters Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 LOL. Yes, your boxes are extremely efficient and expertly packed from my experience. Your prices are really low and everything was as good or better than it looked in the pics on the site. I do hope to order again from you guys! Link to comment
Deleted User 3 Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 I agree with you pat, i buy off websites with lower shipping. Me too. For me it sucks, because my LFS store doesn't sell jack here for SW anything, and the nearest place is 1 hr away, so either I pay outrageous amounts for shipping or I drive 1 hr. Either way I wont be able to order. So sad for me Link to comment
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