Estimating Your Shipping Costs

If we could personally hand deliver your order, we would.

Instead, we depend upon FedEx. We've used other carriers, but Federal Express offers the best combination of accuracy and promptness.

Naturally, they charge for their service. Amazon and other mammoth online retailers have made these shipping charges more noticeable.

We're not Amazon.

So, we have three strategies for dealing with shipping costs.

Strategy #1 – Raise Prices

Some retailers simply increase their prices by 10% to 12% to cover the cost of shipping. Then they offer "free shipping." Seems a bit deceptive to us.

Strategy #2 – Use the U.S. Postal System

Some retailers will ship using the cheaper U.S. mail system. However, your order can't be tracked. Plus, the postal service notoriously misdelivers packages. And loses them!

Strategy #3 – Pass On What We're Charged

This is the approach we've chosen. Each year we audit dozens of orders of different sizes, weights and destinations. We identify the actual fees charged us by FedEx. Including any discounts they've extended.

Then we round up the cost to the nearest dollar. That almost covers the cost of boxes, tape, packing materials and the special labels we must use.

When you place items in your shopping cart, this pricing is computed automatically.