Free Shipping @ BPL

[Ryan Jordan]

Terms & Conditions:

* Sale valid until 12/7/08 11:59 PM U.S. MST
* Free shipping coupon may be used one time per customer
* Free shipping coupon is not valid when an online subscription is in shopping cart, in combination with other coupons, or when flammable fuels or sale items are in the shopping cart.
* Minimum order subtotal $49.00
* Shipping method will be USPS Priority Mail or FEDEX Ground at our discretion.
* Valid for domestic orders only.

[Derek Goffin]

Ryan you dont say US only

[Bill B]

The ad says that the free shipping can't be used with other coupons, but can it be used with the Print Magazine Refund?

[Peter Atkinson]

Yes, if it's free to the UK I'll be making some purchases :)

[Ben Gardner]

Australia too….. :)

[Steven Evans]

I entered the code but no free shipping :(

I guess it's US only…

[nanook ofthenorth]

Too bad, if BPL made it affordable to order internationally I would buy from them more but their current rates are exorbitant.
Its disappointing that BPL is unwilling to offer the same level of customer service to its international community that it is willing to offer to its national one. At least charge us actual shipping – or in cases like these offer a discount. We also paid for our memberships.

[Christopher Holden]

Shipping commercial items overseas can often incur exorbitant shipping and handling charges, tariffs, long delays creating a customer service nightmare, unexpected rate hikes and much more time in filling out customs forms, not required on domestic shipping. Also, "actual shipping" does not factor in time required to deal with logistical nuisance.
I am not employed by, nor do I represent BPL, but I understand that the time and costs that go into international shipments are a much bigger inconvenience than domestic shipping. Please try to understand that these factors play into why the rates and delivery times are not the same.

[Fred eric]

tried my luck with the coupon, and it didnt work but i wasnt really surprised.
anyway i needed that 1,1 pot, and the 24$ shipping is a bit lower that what i usualy pay when i buy something in the US.

[nanook ofthenorth]

Chris, as a Canadian I understand that it is more expensive to ship internationaly then domestically. However I feel that the real costs are not as high as BPL or some other stores would have you belive. Shipping is not that expensive. If they need a person at the post office to fill out customs forms shipments, then is that not a job already filled in the form of the shipper?
Besides the parcels could be saved up and sent weekly to save man hours, this policy could be then made clear on the website.
Alternatively BPL could easily – as they used to do – take my order and then get back to me regarding actual shipping costs. Backcountry.com has an interesting system where actual international shipping costs are calculated at check-out and through them, for less money, I get faster service, insurance and my customs fees are already prepaid in my shipping. I would welcome BPL adopting this model.
Furthermore if it say costs BPL 5 dollars on average to ship domestically and they are willing to waive this to members for a time in the form of free US shipping – then why are us international members refused similar savings on our higher shipping? I payed for my membership like you did, why am I not getting similar value out of it?

I think that my objection stems form the fact that a large (3lb) order costs the same (17.50 for USPS) to ship to Canada as would a 3 oz. PRO 90 balaclava. For the 3lb order I think the cost was reasonable – albeit maybe a little high. But what about the 3 oz order that fits in a mailing sleeve? To me for that order the 17.50 flat fee is exorbitant.
Interestingly enough the actual shipping cost to BPL for the 3 lb order was only 10-11 dollars, I would wonder about the actual cost to ship the balaclava. I think we know where the rest goes.

The reality is that the amount charged for international shipping does not IMO reflect the actual costs of the service. And if it does then BPL suffers a image problem regarding its international members.
What I think is unfortunate is that in these tough economic times BPL is failing to exploit its international market in such a way as to maximize orders and thus profits.

[Ashley Brown]

I never consider buying anything from BPL because the international shipping costs to Australia are prohibitively high. It's their loss (and mine, if I want anything only sold at BPL!).

Many other gear stores and cottage makers charge reasonable shipping fees, at or close to the actual shipping cost. There are a few though (eg. BPL, Moosejaw) that I feel charge unreasonable shipping charges for their international customers.

Anyway, BPL can charge whatever it thinks is reasonable to cover its costs. But I won't be buying anything from them until they make things a bit more reasonable for me as an international customer.

I think it's probably something that just hasn't been looked at very carefully yet. Maybe there haven't been too many complaints. But I'm sure they are missing out on a reasonable amount of business because of it, and they would not be losing money on shipping if they lowered their prices somewhat.

Perhaps someone from BPL would care to comment… Ryan?

[Lynn Tramper]

MiniBull Design's International shipping policy

Anything above ~US$30, shipping is $3, just like domestic charge. For smaller orders shipping is $5.

For the record, the last package Tinny sent me cost me $3, but the Actual cost was $8.30. This guy really wants to sell his stuff. And he is having record sales…

[David Olsen]

Some good points.

Here are some things to consider from
a sellers point of view.

One hassle I run into shipping outside the US is that the
local Post Office Requires me to hand deliver the package
and get the customs forms stamped.
It is a 14 mile round trip. Not to mention standing in line.

Credit card services will sometimes charge an extra
fee of a dollar or two for exchange rates etc. One merchant
service required I pay an extra $500 a year just to take
credit cards from overseas.

I use a different service now.

Also insurance and tracking is not available to some
countries through USPS (and were not talking Borneo here).
So there are extra risks to shipping out of the country.

So shipping outside the USA adds to the cost and complexity.

[Christopher Holden]

"For the record, the last package Tinny sent me cost me $3, but the Actual cost was $8.30. This guy really wants to sell his stuff. And he is having record sales…"

It appears that Tinny finds it worthwhile to do this. Not all sellers do.

[Christopher Holden]

" If they need a person at the post office to fill out customs forms shipments, then is that not a job already filled in the form of the shipper? "

Sure, the job of assigning that task to the shipper is resolved, but time is money. How much time does it take to fill out customs forms and deliver to post office? Is the PO across the street, or an hour away? Your concept of "actual shipping" does not factor in the time it takes to perform the task and what the overhead cost is to cover an hour (or whatever it takes) of that employee's time.
Being a customer, this is easy to overlook. In managing a business, it's something to account for if you want to be profitable.

[Derek Goffin]

One hassle I run into shipping outside the US is that the
local Post Office Requires me to hand deliver the package
and get the customs forms stamped.
It is a 14 mile round trip. Not to mention standing in line. quote David Olsen

The USPS website says that Free Carrier pickup is available for its Priority Mail International PMI. That surely means the postman picks it up when he delivers the mail. PMI is $35.63 for up to 20 pounds to UK. It alomost seems worthwhile collecting say UK parcels and getting them distributed in the UK.

[Steven Evans]

Shipping is weird…when I was sending those axes, it was costing me about $30 to ship one within Can/US and about $60 to anywhere else in the world. It was the same price to Australia as Spain and UK…I tried a number of different companies and that was the cheapest that would "include a tracking number". That being said, I have had Brett send me numerous items from Japan and it's 5 bucks (plus a beer!) and it takes a few days…time to open a shipping company.

[Arapiles .]

"One hassle I run into shipping outside the US is that the
local Post Office Requires me to hand deliver the package
and get the customs forms stamped.
It is a 14 mile round trip. Not to mention standing in line."

Yes, but you're a one-man cottage industry – BPL isn't.

In my experience the US is the only country I've bought – or tried to buy stuff from – where shipping overseas is considered "risky" or "complex". It's not the case with Canada. It's not the case with the UK. It's not the case with Japan. Nor Germany. In fact a lot of US internet stores flatly refuse to ship overseas at all, which I find extraordinary.

With regard to BPL, a couple of years ago BPL wanted me to go through some stupid validation procedure because I wanted to pay for my subscription with a "foreign" credit card issued by a "foreign" bank. But as I pointed out to them, Japanese banks aren't exactly dodgy or high-risk even if they seem "foreign". And the two Japanese banks I have accounts with are the two biggest banks in the world … and they're currently solvent.

[David Olsen]

I would agree it is pretty silly. Look at the credit card
merchant service that would only take out of USA cards
if I paid an extra $500 per year.

I am sure the validation process was due to their merchant
services requirements.

[nanook ofthenorth]

At any rate the way they are currently doing things seems exorbitant. I'd love for someone from BPL to respond to this thread.

I honestly cant understand why they will not 'at least' offer us a discount on shipping equivalent to the cost of US shipping to match this offer.
Anyone want to comment?
To me it almost seems like were being treated more like cash-cows then valued members.

[David Olsen]

I will have to look more carefully at this. The local
post office is often months behind the curve in new
services offered.

I think it is the customs stuff that causes the problems.
If I were to just send documents I wouldn't have to
get that hand canceling at the post office.

[nanook ofthenorth]

David, thank you for doing so, as an international customer hearing your willingness to work with us, I for one will be more likely to shop from your store in the future when buying US goods.

I suspect that the reality is that it is not as difficult as it looks, but that there is a fairly steep but fairly quick learning/setup curve.
After all the US is in NAFTA – and if manufactures can make money with international commodity chains then retailers should find little obstacle to selling their goods internationally.

I suspect that the reality is that many companies like BPL are unwilling or unmotivated to see the international market as a valid part of their business plan and so are unmotivated to make it attractive to international buyers.

David, if you would, please let us know your findings I would be very interested in hearing the other side of the issue. It would be interesting to see how this would work for small/cottage vs. medium sized businesses.

Cheers, Rob

[Roger Caffin]

Davis wrote:

> I think it is the customs stuff that causes the problems.
> If I were to just send documents I wouldn't have to
> get that hand canceling at the post office.

Yep, it is the Customs declaration on a parcel which causes the problem. In many cases you have to sign the declaration in front of the Post Office person AND produce some sort of photo ID such as a driving licence. This is an internationally agreed PO requirement for parcels.

Someone else suggested that because BPL is not a one-man operation then staff time to do this does not matter. All I can say to that is that you obviously have no idea whatsoever of what it takes to run a business! Staff are very often paid at an hourly rate – and that includes going down to the PO! It is not uncommon for the cost of the staff time alone to exceed the cost of the postage.

No, I am not involved in running BPL, but I do run my own company.

Cheers

[Arapiles .]

"Someone else suggested that because BPL is not a one-man operation then staff time to do this does not matter. All I can say to that is that you obviously have no idea whatsoever of what it takes to run a business!"

Roger

Actually that was me. Interesting response. First, you misrepresent what I said, which was that BPL presumably has more scale than Oware. But let me know if that's not the case. Second, are you seriously going to suggest that a company like BPL, presumably with a fair volume of internet orders to post, can't get to the Post Office efficiently? And that's why they charge extortionate postage? Perhaps in that case they should just stop posting to overseas … it's clearly just too difficult. But it does make me wonder how all those other little businesses get by posting things all over the world …

As for your comment about my not knowing how to run a business, well for starters it's an ad hominem attack – as a BPL employee, shall I take it that that's BPL's official response to a reasonable query from BPL's members? Personal abuse?

And for the record I ran my first business when I was 18 – the Natimuk Post Office ironically enough. So, actually I know quite a lot about both postage and running businesses.

[John Whynot]

Having shipped eBay sale items internationally, I am assuming that BPL is selecting a level of shipping service that includes tracking, insurance, delivery confirmation, and a faster delivery time. These are expensive even for small/light packages. Less expensive shipping methods usually mean lower level of service.

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