Shipping and Handling charges

I'm very new to the "business" (what a laugh for me!!) side of the herp industry - just completing my first year of selling geckos on the Fauna and KS. I'm curious to the practice of shipping/handling charges.

I've made quite a few purchases of geckos/snakes over the past 3 years and have been charged all the way from $20.00 to a high of $50.00 for shipping. The average cost for shipping/handling is $35.00, from my informal survey.

In my experience - the box costs about $3.60 (from Superior, if I remember). Although a number of people I purchased from have made their own insulated boxes at quite a bit cheaper prices.

A heat pack - around 85 cents, if I remember, for a good one.

Deli cup - 7 cents.

Shipping UPS is around 20-25 dollars for small items that I ship. That was including shipping as many as 6 leos in a box.

This is not a rip at all, just a question from somebody new in the business. Is it just a standard thing to try and make a couple bucks off of the hassle of packing/shipping when you make a sale?

I know in my case, as a rank rookie trying to earn a good reputation, I've resorted to pricing my geckos in a such a way to include the shipping charge. I didn't build in a "handling" charge - just the cost of the bare supplies. That has seemed to work for me and I'll probably continue doing it - because I'm just going to be extremely small time and relatively unknown.

I was just wondering what your impressions are about "handling" charges.

Thanks everybody

Monte Meyer - Powergeckos

I know in my case, as a rank rookie trying to earn a good reputation, I've resorted to pricing my geckos in a such a way to include the shipping charge.

Monte,

From a buyer's perspective (myself), stick with how you are doing it right now. At least in my eyes it looks better.

Regards.

Hey Monte, hope all is well with you and yours. As for shipping and handling I just charge a flat fee of $30 even which is listed on my site for shipping charges. Sometimes I do make a buck or two off the top sometimes it goes up to $39 and I lose $9 bucks. To be honest, to me it's about convieniance. I don't want to have to check zip codes and box demensions, as well as weights to get exact charges to the penny in each sale. This way the customer knows up front what I charge when browsing my site and can make thier decision so its more convieniant for them too. In some cases when the item or animal is very heavy or large I will make a check with the carrier about prices of shipping. I do insulate my boxes myself with some industrial stuff that they use on the space shuttle lol so it's less expensive. I also buy boxes from Uline which can be inexpensive as well, not that Superior E. isn't a great source (i get heat/cold packs and deli cups from them) and they are great people. Anyhow hope any of my rambling helped... Mike