Five Top Tips For Saving on Shipping Costs

Shipping is a bind for companies as it is a necessary evil to get your order to you. Here is a discussion on shipping and my FIVE top tips on saving money on your shipping costs.

Firstly, I’ll share with you how shipping here works. The majority of orders shipped from the workshop are classified as DG, or Dangerous Goods because they are flammable. As such, my choice of regular shipping companies is limited. Some allow DG to be shipped (under certain conditions) whilst most, do not – Including Royal Mail.

I choose to use FedEx for my shipping for both domestic and international orders as their system is easy to use, their service is reliable and their customer support is brilliant, in my experience. UPS never got back to me, DPD will not ship the product on a daily basis and the rest are yet to be explored.

With FedEx, I have a dangerous goods account which means I am permitted to ship DG within the UK and abroad as I have the necessary certificates to ship under IATA (air transport) and ADR (road and tail) regulations. Anyone shipping DG without these certificates and not declaring their package as DG is breaking international law and subject to enormous fines. (Out of interest, Amazon was fined £65,000 in 2016 for attempting to ship DG by air. Since then, Amazon have gone a long way in checking their DG capability and made significant changes in the way they organise themselves in line with DG regulations.)

Prices
One of my goals is to save you money wherever possible, so I charge you less than what I am charged for shipping your order to you. I get charged £7.70 per shipment up to 10kg in the UK mainland, yet charge you £6.72 as I feel £7.70 is too much. International shipping is a lot more expensive because of the additional £34.00 in surcharges per package DG attracts with FedEx. This surcharge is even higher with some carriers.

So, with all this in mind, how can you save money on shipping?

Tip One – Order with Friends!

I’m sure you live close to a friend who turns, too. One of you could place an order for products that you both want from the site here and split the difference on the shipping – therefore each of your pays £3.36 in shipping on a UK mainland order rather than two lots of £6.72 if you order individually.

Tip Two – Order Through Your Club

I’m now a corporate member of the AWGB and pleased to say that orders through clubs now attract a small discount. If your club places an order for anything from the Hampshire Sheen range, they will only be charged for the shipping of that complete consignment, obviously! So if you order through your club, your own shipping costs will be considerably lower than ordering through this website.

Ask your club secretary to contact me for more information about the AWGB club discount.

Tip Three – Go For the Free Shipping Option

Like many businesses, I offer free shipping with a minimum spend. As soon as your order is worth £75.00 or more, you will automatically qualify for free of charge shipping for UK mainland addresses. See here for details of areas that cannot be included in this because of their geographical location. (this is dictated by FedEx!). The website will calculate the correct shipping for you, so if you are within the geographical range of free shipping, you will see when you check-out. International orders are not able to have a free shipping option.

Tip Four – Order from Someone Else

As I said, I want to save you some money, so if the shipping costs and service provided by FedEx are not to your taste, most of the Hampshire Sheen products can be purchased from a growing list of UK retailers. They may be able to offer you more competitive shipping rates, but not necessarily the complete range of Hampshire Sheen products. See the stockist list here.

Tip Five – Pick Your Order Up in Person

The last way to save on shipping is to visit the workshop and collect your order in person! An appointment to visit the workshop can be made by using the contact form here and I can let you know when I’ll be available for your visit.

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And there you have it! So whilst shipping costs are a necessary evil, these five top tips on saving you money on shipping costs are simple and very easily implemented – why give it a try!

 

Featured image is SS Dunedin by Frederick Tudgay and is in the public domain. The 1320 ton 73 metre Dunedin was built by Robert Duncan and Co at Port Glasgow in 1874 at a cost of ₤23,750. In 1881, still wearing the original Albion Line colours of black hull and gold band and pink boot topping in the painting, she was refitted with a Bell Coleman refrigeration machine with which she took the first frozen load of meat from New Zealand to the United Kingdom. Although experimental voyages with refrigerated shipping had been made the previous year by Australian and American vessels, the Dunedins trip was the first fully successful refrigerated shipment. The Dunedin continued in the frozen meat trade until she was lost without trace in 1890, en route from New Zealand to the UK – it is presumed she hit an iceberg off Cape Horn. (Information from Wikipedia).