Shipping times…

I wanted to share this with my readers who are busy shipping packages… I think it’s a neato snapshot from last year….
This is a report on USPS transit times from November and December 2008 (holiday rush) originating from
Cape Coral, FL

The Awesome That Is Amazon.com Prime

I am obsessed with Prime. Me obsessed? I know, all of my readers are shocked. :-)
We have had Prime for two weeks and already it has paid for itself- we can buy necessities through Amazon.com and have them delivered 2 day for FREE. Ok, not totally free- Prime has an annual $79 membership fee. BUT last week I needed two different weight medicine balls, all other sites were charging $15-$40! for shipping the balls. As I was ordering a few other things and rationalized that around the winter holidays two day is sometimes the only way to get Santa’s sleight here on time (or to relatives that live elsewhere). Of course, we shop handmade whenever possible, but on occasion a sibling or a parent really digs a DVD or has mentioned a book they would like… We eat a ton of almonds in this house- and really like the flavored Blue Diamond ones- I bought a 6 pack and had them shipped Free (under Prime’s 2-day shipping) and I definitely saved some cash, and stocked up our Hurricane kit.

I have ordered so much over the past year- because I can’t get to the store, or the store I can get to doesn’t have what I need. Prime makes sense for our family. I can get some grocery items, some medical supplies, home improvement supplies and tools, and even physical therapy & occupational therapy tools. It’s also great for those “I’m too busy to get to the store and junior has a birthday party to go to in 3 days! I need to grow more arms!” moments…

Anyway, the $79 definitely pays for itself and I think is a great tool for folks like me who can’t drive and don’t live in an area where it is safe or even manageable to walk to the store… Of course Prime only works on goods shipped/fulfilled by Amazon- and each product page lets you know what is and is not Prime eligible.

Click here for more info on Amazon Prime

xo
Bek

LOVE School.

I just received a most delicious email!

Norman Love Confections (previously blogged about: Love. Norman Love.)  is offering chocolate cooking classes!

From the notice I received:”Expand your culinary horizon with a course taught by the world-renowned artisans of Norman Love Confections. You’ll learn expert culinary techniques and gain a lifetime’s worth of knowledge about your favorite ingredient and ours – chocolate.”

You too can learn to cast and handpaint chocolates (there is even a chocolate easter egg class at the end of March and the beginning of April), make ganache, create truffles, cookies, fondue or learn the subtleties of chocolate in it’s purest form (a must for dark chocolate fanatics) in a class based on Norman Love’s most recent release: BLACK (ultra premium dark chocolate, each unique piece in the collection features a different single origin cocoa as it’s foundation)

Download the course “menu” (pdf)

The class cost is $95 per person, the experience: delicious and priceless!

If interested, or if you have more questions, please call Lisa Mariani at 239-561-7215.

Norman Love Confections & the decadent chocolate salon is located off of Daniels Parkway, near Southwest Florida International Airport(RSW) in Ft. Myers, FL (mapquest/directions)

Everyone could use a little Love!  Don’t forget Easter(April 12, 2009) and Mother’s Day (May 10, 2009 in the US) are just around the corner… They do ship and everything arrives wonderfully fresh and beautiful!  I have ordered from them before and had them ship, and they did a beautiful job.  You can order via their website or by calling their toll-free number: 866.515.2121

You can, of course, find some sweet wearable treasures (crafted by this artisan) in my Etsy and SmashingDarling shops…

xo

Bek

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Speedy Delivery… UPDATED!

Absinthe

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

There is still time to ship FedEx 2 day and FedEx Overnight for delivery on 12/24 (weather permitting, of course)…

Just checkout on Etsy and head to PayPal to pay and choose the shipping service that fits your needs…

Details are in each listing in my shop and in the shop announcment:  CleverGirl.Etsy.com

Hope this helps!

Hope everyone is well!

xo

Bek

HOW TO: Offer Multiple Shipping Options on Etsy.com

UPDATE:  5/4/2012… Apparently this no longer works.  I will keep this post up on the blog but it has been reported to me that this method no longer works as Etsy has rolled out and is continually rolling out new seller/checkout/shipping features…This was from way back when, in the very early days of Etsy…. I guess I’ll keep it here for historical reference…

UPDATE: 1/27/2011…  Not sure that this works with the newer Etsy checkout… Anyone want to try it?  Report your results in the comments section please!  Merci!

(UPDATED with international info…It’s at the end of the post)

Here is how I am offering multiple shipping options without the whole “convo me” and paypal invoice thing…

I read the article in the storque about setting up paypal so that transaction shipping info would be taken from the etsy transaction and brought to paypal…

I thought, “hey ,why can’t I do the reverse to use paypal’s shipping features when the customers are in the paypal portion of checking out”…

So…Here’s how I did it.
I went into paypal and clicked profile(under “my account”)

Under “selling preferences” I clicked “shipping calculations”

Here you can add methods…Each method gets a line, so you can customize what is charged.

For example, for my goods, and in my Etsy shop I have the base shipping (on domestic US) as:
$2.75 ($0.50 if shipped with another item)…
So for each entry in my standard shipping profile in PayPal I would put items 1-1 $2.75, 2-2 $3.25, 3-3 $3.75 4-4 $4.25 and 5+ $4.75….

Then I can also add a profile for Overnight and 2 day…

But for those it’s flat rate regardless of quantity (you can also do all of this by weight or dollar amount, but you need to stay consistent with your etsy listings, so doing it by quantity makes sense for most sellers…

Remember, your etsy listing is your agreement with your customer, you cannot go charging some bizarro number in paypal shipping….

To handle this I have explained in my listings what the listed shipping price is for (usps first class) and that other options are available when completing their payment in paypal…I also list those methods and their charges in my listing so nobody is confused and thinks everything ships fedex upgraded for free….

My etsy shipping charge does equal the “standard” shipping charge in my paypal profile.

Now, when setting this up, there is an important box in each little shipping method/profile that you set up…

It says:
Use the shipping fee in the transaction instead of my calculator’s settings:

If you click this, it will use the amount you specified in Etsy.  If you leave it blank, your customer should be able to choose their shipping method (if you have multiple methods…if you only have one method, and do not want to offer speedier shipping then you probably should just disregard this post as you don’t need to do this…

( Here’s the article that got me moving in this direction:
http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/customer-care-how-to-for-sellers-shipping-costs-and-paypal-399/ )

I do think it is important to explain to the customer what your listed shipping is for and that they have choices once they are in paypal…

Also, if you are shipping fedex, you will need your customer’s phone number for the airbill… I chose “optional” for the phone number request in “Website Payment Preferences” under paypal/profile for the time being…

I really hope this helps someone!

I wish I had figured this out sooner!

I do have to update my listings (take out the date specific/holiday stuff) but I think it gives a good picture of how I am managing this idea for my own shop….You can see it here: CleverGirl.Etsy.com

Hugs!

xo

Bek

NOTE:  This is for domestic US shipping.  I believe the international shipping could be tweaked the same way but the parameters of shipping various goods to international destination is quite varied.  The method outlined here is how I am doing it. Your Mileage May Vary.  No guarantees, warrantees implied.  Not responsible if problems occur. Etc… Basically: here’s what I did, you can try it to, if you want to, but if it doesn’t work for you then I am not responsible.  Everyone has very different needs, requirements, goods which may make this method ineffective or impractical… I may have skipped steps. I tried not to, but things happen….   I will answer questions if I can, but I am swamped.  The best teacher is experience…It’s worth investigating all of the details before commiting to anything…  (and I am not tech support…I am a silversmith…) Sorry if this sounds harsh…. Hugs! Peace! Love all around!

INTERNATIONAL: For international orders I have two shipping profiles in Etsy, one for goods that are priced above $50 and one for those that are below $50,  due to importation requirements for most countries… So in this case, I chose to use the information from the etsy.com transaction to override shipping options in paypal.  PayPal allows different options for domestic and international- including which info is used… hope this helps…

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MULTIPLE SHOPS:  I have not tried this for multiple shops… If you try it and have success(or failure, as long as we can learn from it) with multiple shops let me know and I’ll post an update here , or blog about it and I’ll post the link… I cannot even wrap my head around the basic logistics of two shops right now, so in the interest of my sanity and accurate information, I’m taking  hands off approach to that one…