Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss This is ridiculous!

As some of you know I raise and ship whole frozen trophy size gamefish to fellow taxidermists as far away as Hawaii. I get the second highest price per pound for my fish behind high end koi producers. But I still have to fork over up 30 percent of my profits to UPS for shipping and extra charges. I don't get the business rate because my business is in a residence, and I'm still getting charged fuel surcharges although fuel costs are much lower than they were in the past.

And yes I've bitched about how much it costs to ship those fish here before. But you have to see this:

A small 3.5 pound box shipped 2 hours a way, in the same state I am in, that was only 14 inches by 9 inches by 6 inches.

Shipping $15.08 Not to bad in itself but..

Schedule pick up fee $5.65
Residential Surcharge $3.25
Remote Pick up $4.00
Fuel Surcharge $.55

Total extra charges $ 13.45

That's 86 percent of the shipping charge.

Total charge to pick up the box when the drivers go by here at least twice a day : $28.53 The sale was $80.00 including tax. That's about 36 percent of my sale price.

Needless to say it will go to the post office tomorrow.

I used to use UPS because they were more dependable than USPS, but I'm not sure that's the case anymore either. Last Christmas season they came up with a disclaimer as they couldn't deliver everything on time. They took 7 days to ship a box of trout that was only supposed to take 4. Luckily it was in the winter and although the fish were a bloody mess they were salvageable.

Seems to me they need more competition.

That's the way of things Cecil, unfortunately. If you ever fly a non-US airline you would be amazed at the price and how much better the customer service is but those airlines are not allowed to fly domestically in the US. My advice, go USPS and spend a couple bucks on insurance. If the shipment goes bad, you're covered.

Another thought...

How about dropping the price of your fish say 15% but add the charge to the customer for Shipping and Handling and give the customer choices on how they are shipped.......

Those airlines are heavily subsidized by their countries aren't they? But we can't have that as it's communism. LOL

Actually Bill I inflated my prices to make up for any shipping costs by calculating the cost to ship to Alaska! Since then the shipping costs have jumped so much that shipping to Alaska back then was cheap in comparisons to even a couple states away now!

UPS is a mess around here. FedEx takes care of it as well as USPS, but USPS cut their hours down in the boonies, and you do need to be privy as to when something will be moved to a central hub to get processed for delivery.

Not like it use to be.

Cecil, if you don't want the "schedule pick up fee", and the "remote pick up fee" you can always drive to a UPS store, or sorting facility...or you could move closer to town, or you could drive around and give the package to a driver in brown....wait, that would cost you a helluva a lot more than $9.65 in fuel!!!

I drive a lot! I don't understand your boner for UPS and FedEx...you want to make money, but begrudge them doing the same. It cost more to deliver to a residence, pure and simple...driving out into the country for one $15 charge is probably done at an actual LOSS to UPS. If a truck can stop at a strip mall, and deliver 50, $15 packages, it covers the loss delivering to you. It is the simple economics that business exist to make money, not lose it!

my business is my home, I get charged a home delivery on FedEx, or a residential fee by UPS, but I pay business rate to ship anything. If you live there, it is a residence!

I pay $8.65, including fuel surcharge to ship up to 10 pounds and/or 1 cubic foot volume. I can either pay $11 a week, every week for a UPS driver to stop at my home every day, whether I ship or not, or I could do as you did, Pay for that convenience...I chose to drive to my sorting facility 3 miles away. Thing is, if YOU want the service, they post the fee...you do not have to opt for a special service.

Volume shipping gets the best rates...not simply being a business.

Rainman you forget I'm not a neophyte to the business world as I've been in business over 30 years. I even attended one of the best business colleges in the country, the IU business school. So I know when I'm being gouged by a corporation that not only needs to make a profit, but needs to keep making more and more to satisfy Wallstreet. Eventually short term profit overcomes long term sense and the company starts to falter in quality. Bean counters cut and cut things to the bone and the quality keeps getting worse. First management is cut and then they go after the union. Fortunately for UPS and Fedex they are the only games in town so they may not suffer the fate of death like other corporations. At least they can't be outsourced.

Ask Scott what he thinks of all the hidden charges from FedEx. The name of the game is Fedex and UPS are the two big players and they will do as they please. Although they are technically an oligopoly there are plenty of monopolies in this country with no oversight. Ask people what they think of Comcast or Verizon. My brother's comcast bill just went from 30 some dollars to 70 some dollars. And they are the only providers in his area.

BTW lucky you. My sorting facility used to be 10 miles away. Now it's 40. Two hours driving isn't very cost effective for me.

So lets discuss round cages vs square ones.
Bottom line is large corps just don't give a hoot what the common, everyday average Joe wants or needs. Ya can discuss what a company decides to mess with ya about but there are literally millions of folks depending on drug companies, oxygen suppliers, EMS, doctors and suppliers of food and services that are sooo beyond our control that we need to appreciate we even have the opportunity to have such services and goods.
I dislike large corps as much as anyone but at least we do have the choice to or not to use these services. At least we can go to the post office and bitch without the threat of being jailed.
America with all of it's faults is still the best system in the world.
I now step down from my soap box.

Soap hasn't come in boxes big enough to stand on in a long time Bob! We're not even that old!

LOL

Dude, I am!!
Glad ya took my comments with a block of salt.
Life is grand in Bob-O land

Overpriced and gouging "the little guy"? I'd bet the 350,000 plus, decently paid employees and their families would disagree. I'd bet the millions employed supplying UPS probably would also. I think even many of their 7.9 million average daily customers using their service are glad their packages are almost always on time. I'm positive the 50 states and provinces that charge every commercial vehicle an average $.07 per mile "fuel surcharge" tax on top of all other fuel taxes on every mile it is driven in every state and province appreciate the fuel surcharge UPS has to charge you!

I was in the corporate world for 26 years, you can't have an original thought without paying a tax, fee or violate a regulation....and the company gouges?

I don't have a business degree, but I know it costs me, "a little guy" over $11,000 every year in fees, insurances, fuel taxes, $900 IRP/IFTA license plate (1/3 the cost of an 18 wheeler) before I can sell a single fish. Who do you think pays all these oppressive government required costs? Me? My business? No, the customer buying a product pays those costs...and then I pay taxes on what little "profit" is left. I think if you look at the Balance sheet for most large corporations, you will find "profit" percentage at the end of the year is WAY less than yours!!!..probably around a 3-4% NET profit.

If I did my math properly, UPS charges and average $7.80 per package...15.8 million packages handled daily and $45B in annual gross revenue. If a business did not provide a wanted service, at a fair price, some other company will quickly fill that void. USPS is the only subsidized "business"...the only service that, by law, can not be competed against...it also has comparatively horrible service and huge annual losses, sucking up our tax dollars to prop it up....Except for defense, private companies always do more, better, and for less $$$.

If I want to ship a package I have 3 choices. USPS, FedEx and UPS.

USPS is about a mile away. Their hours are 8-noon M-F, 8-10 Sat.

UPS is roughly 25 miles away in Bourbon, IN and is open from 5pm-7pm M-F

FedEx is roughly 30 miles away at the South Bend Airport. I don't know the hours.

Using my account with FedEx or UPS I could use my account number and drive 10 miles to Plymouth and drop off the package at the "you ship" store.

I consider that driving anywhere costs $0.65 per mile when you figure in vehicle cost, all maintenance, fuel, and insurance, not including my time spent on the road.

So, I have to run the numbers and see what is more cost effective for me when it comes to shipping. Do I want to spend an hour on the road driving to and from to drop off packages plus put miles on the vehicle? Or is it more cost effective to spend more on shipping but eventually have less $$ out of pocket?

A business cannot charge what it costs them to provide a service, or it would be just exchanging money. There are a lot of hidden costs that customers don't think about. A business that has guaranteed delivery times can't use 10 year old equipment that might break down. New equipment costs $$ and that has to be paid by someone. A $$ reserve has to be held for emergency expenses, etc., etc.

Fuel changes price daily. I cannot see a viable business that doesn't have some sort of price adjustment yearly unless there is enough profit built into the item to average out costs over 2 or more years. When costs are fluctuating, I cannot see how a business can stay profitable by not passing on those costs to it's customers. The tighter your margins are, the more important it is to pass those costs on quickly, or a business will be selling things at a loss, and it won't stay around very long if that happens too often.

Until I see at least one truck running around with Baird Freight on the side of the truck, I have to stick with the big 3 and adjust prices accordingly. Am I happy about what things cost today vs. what the customers are willing to pay? No. Is there anything I can do about it? No.

A customer the other day was complaining about the price of a certain item. They found it on-line for "X" amount from an out of state company. They wanted to know if I would price match. I looked up the price on what it would cost me to ship, the credit card fees, my product cost and the state sales tax on the item.

After I figured that out, I saw where I would make less than 2% on the sale, and that was if I didn't have to spend any time on the telephone with them walking them through how to use the product. On a sale of less than $200, what would the majority of people on here have done? Say yes or tell them that you couldn't match the price?

Just talked to my postal guy and learned something interesting. Of course keep in mind he is a biased source but he says UPS may have raised their charges because they failed to deliver on time during the Christmas season, and have been dropped by some major customers. Amazon and other companies have dropped them, and gone with USPS. I do know that is a fact. Not sure about Ebay but it seems a lot of what I get from them is also USPS.

Amazon's business to UPS was 1 billion dollars! Amazon is considering creating their own fleet and may become an UPS competitor. This is a dated article but...

http://fortune.com/2015/12/23/amazon-could-be-using-this-shipping-giant-much-less/


The biggest taxidermist supply company in my industry (McKenzie) gives us the option to go with USPS now, as they are getting a lot of complaints on shipping costs. Our major industry website was buzzing with complaints that were originally blaming the supply company. Turns out it's UPS that is charging an arm and leg for shipping.


Just to make it clear on the extra charges. I don't mind an extra charge for pick up. But to have 4 of them that come to 89 percent more of the shipping charge is just too much.

can you take it to a ups store and drop it off to save the extra charges.
or can you create a new suido address, just and 1/2 to your address and put in on your shop building. make is a separate business address.

Ebay has had a deal with the USPS to purchase, print, pay postage for at least 10 years I know of. UPS did not raise my rates this year, nor did FedEx. The fuel surcharge has absolutely nothing to do with fuel cost...it is a direct tax each state a commercial vehicle over 26,000 pays for driving in each state, based on miles driven and MPG...In KY, you pay about $.65/gal in taxes at the pump....if you get 10MPG and drive 100 miles in KY, you pay KY an additional fuel surcharge of $4.50($.45/gl for 10 gallons fuel used in KY) for driving those 100 miles. Each state is different on surcharges...You have to buy expensive tracking software to be accurate and spend about 6 hour labor every quarter entering the mileage information...a company like UPS with a fleet of over 100000 vehicles has to pay 30-50 people good salaries, year round, just for THAT regulation....

People like to gripe and usually never give a thought to just how much cost a business has to absorb and cover, just to make even a small profit!....but the service is a great value in my opinion!

esshup, in my 26 years selling auto parts, my favorite customer was the cost conscious customer telling me he can get the same part at a store across town for a quarter less...Depending on the customer, I could be a bit of a smartass and say...If you want to spend $5 more dollars in fuel to save a quarter, by all means, go there and buy the part!!!

Cecil, with a business degree, what costs you more, scheduling a pick up, or taking your shipments to a facility 40 miles away? Remember, that UPS truck drives those same miles, and for FAR less than it would cost you to drive them...raise your prices to cover shipping, or don't, that is your choice, but you are never getting a "free service" just because you don't like the price.

Rex, I don't have a business degree. After my fisheries degree I attended IU's business school, but was only there a year as I couldn't afford to go back. Decided to open my own business instead, which I've been at 30 plus years. Really didn't have anything in common with the rich yuppies in the business school anyway. My twin brother does have a degree from the I.U. business school.

Just shipped the same box USPS for $8.30 vs. $28.53. That included free insurance and it will be at the customer's business tomorrow. And btw USPS does FREE pick up.

Now what makes more business sense? Paying $28.52 or $8.30 for the same service?

And once in a long while USPS may screw up a shipment. It's still cheaper to replace a fish than it is to be gouged on a regular basis. If I paid out 71 percent more on a regular basis…

Cecil, the USPS does not guarantee the delivery time. Just giving you a heads up on that, you may know it already. They say a delivery date, but don't back it up. I don't know where UPS stands on that.

Having said that, I use USPS about 97% of the time. Since they have change their routing system, my packages get to the customers faster than they use to. They usually get to them before their claimed delivery date. They aren't trouble free. About 1 package out of 400 has a glitch, and that could mean a number of things, sometimes it's not to bad. They do deliver/work on Saturdays, so that can move packages along faster than others.

That's why I said,



in my last post.

Another thing I didn't mention about UPS is they are much rougher on parcels than USPS. I have had fish mounts destroyed that were mounted in crates and you literally had to damage them on purpose in my opinion. Most taxidermists will not ship fragile mounts UPS.

Send a repro bass to someone here in Texas. He didn't accept it as it had a large hole in the side of the box and the fish was bouncing around inside. UPS tried everything they could to not pay the insurance.

No, you're not much older than me. Get off it.

UPS, any day...USPS is the least efficient operation there is...no guarantee of delivery...overnight is 2-4 days, priority mail is not a priority...and the postal service knows to use fedex and UPS to move the mail....hardly the "same' service. Just got a check today for a sale 6-8 weeks ago...postal service lost his first 2 sent...I want reliability...as they say, you get what you pay for....

I personally use fedex almost exclusively, rarely get a damaged container, rarely late, but instant refund in 3 clicks if it is guaranteed at 10am and arrives at 10:01:01..

The ONLY time I'll use USPS is if I don't care if a 2 day delivery takes a week

USPS won't deliver packages to my house anymore. They said that their union REQUIRES them to not deliver to any house where a pet could have access to the delivery person or vehicle. They signed the agreement and feel they have to abide by it. So if the box won't fit in the mailbox at the road they won't come up the driveway and put it on my front porch. Yes, my dog roams the grounds in the bounds of his underground fence, but he does not have access to the area where they deliver (front porch area).

I don't blame them and can see why liability is an issue. The responsibility is definitely mine to find a way for my USPS carrier to become my dog's new best friend to try to fix this scenario.

I have had lost packages and USPS has NEVER stood behind a lost package or honored the insurance policy. They always say that it must have got delivered 'because they don't have it' When I ask to prove tracking they then say their system can't track, can only find layover spots along the way and gets scanned at time of delivery. But if they scanned it and I don't have it then they say you are on your own.

My last order of Scuds (time and temperature sensitive!!) went USPS 2 day delivery guaranteed. It started in Minnesota, took a turn to the West instead of the east and ended up in sorting facility in Missouri (Huh???) then went to Chicago, then to my post office. (already late) then without telling me the mail driver wouldn't deliver it, back to the post office for another night, then finally I was able to leave messages with the driver and arrange for another delivery location, by that time 5 travel days.

I doubt the USPS will ever make their system efficient or effective. They have too many barriers in place including the fact that they have little accountability to their customers and have unlimited budgets as long as congress keeps upping their budget.

I support competition, more competitors, and ultimately see quality and cost issues only being solved by autonomously driven vehicles that aren't driven by lazy humans and are not turned away by a few inches of snow by my mailbox (their union says they don't have to deliver if there is a little snow by the mailbox), or by friendly pets in the driveway... They could deliver at night etc. Or what probably is more realistic is 'Drone Delivery' coming soon.

Wow guys are we throwing around a little testosterone here.... lol I don't need a degree in anything to be smart..... Just saying...

RC