Or another alternative we are looking at is offering a flat fee shipping, but a cheap one, something like £1.50 shipping on all products most people will pay a small amount and its better than absorbing all the cost of free shipping!
Our site has a system like this where all orders in the UK are charged at the flat subsidised fee of £1 and this is displayed prominently in all adverts. This allows the customer to know immediately the cost of shipping rather than being surprised when they come to checkout.
Its an idea I have been toying with and never considered it as an advertising tool also!!
I think this is something we will definitely use when the new site goes live (whenever that is :()
Do you find it works well?
We have real-time shipping calculated by weight through UPS and USPS. Customers should be able to tell by looking at the prices that they are the real shipping rates as they are never even like $5, $10, etc… they are always the exact rates.
It isn’t just about the cost of postage. You also have to consider the cost of the packaging materials, time for you or someone in your employ to package the order, and to take it to the shipping location (assuming no regular/no-fee pickup from your shipper).
Yes, we have the option with our software to add an upcharge for materials and handling… we just pad the weight just a little to cover the material costs and don’t charge for handling.
Time is something that you definitely need to take into account – processing and shipping orders from my site is a good chunk of my morning now.
It is something we consider in the larger scheme of things… it is just another operating expense and is rolled into the price of the shoes. 
There are futon companies that offer “Free Shipping” on there web site but explain in the fine print that it’s not really free. If you return or refuse your order they wack you for To and From shipping charges.
I’m still working out the details for my own site… always reevaluating 
Refused or undeliverable orders is another kettle of fish.
If the customer refuses the order IMO they shouldn’t get shipping back. If the customer provided an incorrect or incomplete address and the order couldn’t be delivered then it’s up to you whether or not to charge extra to re-ship.
It’s general policy amoung catalog sellers not to refund shipping on returned items (yes, some do but most don’t.)
Oh, I charge them both ways. Just think it’s wrong to call it “Free”
Does anybody know, is it possible to get somewhere some fixed information about UPS rates (like big tables or tables with formula) to avoid interactions with their API each order? We had problems sometime to connect with their server.
I understand that this information need to be updated more or less regulary, but think that it is not changed very often.
For USPS it would be possible, since it is just based on weight.
UPS is based on weight AND zip code. So you’d need a way to calculate zipcode distances like UPS does – I also think areas near larger UPS distribution centers get cheaper rates. In anycase it is probably beyond your means.
If you have a UPS account, all you have to do is call them and ask. They can mail you the information or you can download it off their site. You can also calculate shipping manually on their website as well.
If somebody interested, I have found info on the UPS site that allows to make on-site calculation:
http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/shipping/cost/zones/daily.html
We can take PDF with rates depends from zones; table that allows us determine zone of delivery that depends from departure zone. So we put this info to DB and can make calculation.
Only problem that there will be quite big amount of manual work to type info from PDF to DB.
Anyone recommed a place to get really cheap packing materials? Penuts? Boxes? Sorry to get off topic But looked like a good thread to post it in!~
For packing materials, take a look at your local yellow pages. You can probably find cheaper prices online, but shipping costs can really add up. It’s sometimes easy to forget about the “real world” when doing business online.
I buy our packaging from Nashville Wraps (http://www.nashvillewraps.com/). However, we are going for more of a gift boutique style. Most of our shipping boxes are recycled from what our product gets shipped to us in.
Thanks guys! About the real world - There isn’t any packaging places around here… I’d have to drive a long ways… otherwise I’d do business in my hometown.