Teach Soap

For the past several years I bought the 25 pound melt and pour bases from Brambleberry, and the flat rate shipping made it affordable. I just tried to check out, and there's no longer flat rate shipping offered for the bulk bases. Wow. I'm not paying 50 bucks for a $39 block of m&p. I'm not rich like the owner of Brambleberry, I guess. Too bad, I like supporting"small business", but these kinds of shenanigans and anti-customer decisions are why people choose big corporations. I'd love to hear their excuse for no longer using flat rate shipping. Waiting on my email response. I'm guessing since BB recently lost money due to incorrect shipping estimates, they're going to seek revenue wherever they can. Too bad, because I don't see how offering flat rate shipping actually hurt them. Whatever.

Wow. That's kind of harsh. I think you should have waited to hear from them before posting here.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Good morning Happy Soapers,

Oh gosh, so sorry to hear of your frustration. We're super happy to ship those bulk sizes flat rate and haven't stopped. =) We ship out lots of boxes flat rate every day and I'm excited for you to get yours that way.

It's simple to get your bulk 25 pounders of soap via flat rate and the same way you did it last year. Just place the order and then put a note on your order asking for flat rate and we adjust and refund your shipping. =) Please note for anyone else reading this that this only works for the 25 pound size of melt and pour soap bases =) http://www.brambleberry.com/SFIC-Soap-C647.aspx

Please let me know if you have any questions - or as always, feel free to reach out to customer service by emailing info (at) brambleberry (dot) com, live chatting us during the week between the hours of 9 and 4, calling us at 360.734.8278 (or 1-87-SOAP-STUF) or go through the official customer service portal https://brambleberry.zendesk.com/hc/en-us to send an email through the system.

Thank you so much for your business and your continued support over the years. I really appreciate it.

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Happy Soaping!

Anne-Marie
blog: www.soap-queen.blogspot.com
supplies: www.brambleberry.com

Thank you for the reply and the email. I will remove my negative review of it is still up on the website and purchase more soap. But I'm left still wondering, why wouldn't you just offer the customer a flat rate option right when we are checking out? Why would you infuriate customers who knew that the flat rate option was once offered openly? And why would someone need to inquire about getting flat rate shipping? Are you somehow making money off of less savvy customers who pay outrageous shipping fees because they don't know the flat rate option is being offered? Why hide it? It's not hard to add a button to a Web page, or to add a comment about flat rate shipping right into a product description. And you took down the link to the flat rate explanation page that you used to have on the website. Seems deceptive. As you know, there's a certain very reputable company out there that offers free shipping on orders $150 or more. So why drive away customers who don't want to pay $50 shipping on a 25 pound box of soap to the other supplier? ?

Thank you so much for caring this much about our business to offer helpful suggestions and insight.

We did offer flat rate shipping on our website a few years ago for bulk rate melt and pour. We took it off our website 3ish years ago for a variety of reasons, the biggest of which was customer confusion and error. There were two different shipping options (flat rate for one box but then other items couldn't go flat rate) and believe it or not, this caused a huge amount of confusion with customers. You're obviously a very savvy shopper so that wouldn't phase you but we ended up having quite a few abandoned shopping carts due to the multiple shipping options at check out. So, we pulled the option off and most customers check out via UPS or Fed Ex Ground which often is cheaper than flat rate depending on the area that people are shipping to. =)

Your note brought up a lot of discussion here and we've been brainstorming ways to make check out easy and efficient while offering flat rate on those 25 pounders again for customers in Alaska and Hawaii where UPS and Fed Ex Ground is not the cheapest option for them. In fact, I think we might even try the flat rate thing again with a different check-out design to make it more clear and then closely monitor it. Fingers crossed; we're talking out the details now =)

Thank you again for your suggestions; I really appreciate your passionate support.

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Happy Soaping!

Anne-Marie
blog: www.soap-queen.blogspot.com
supplies: www.brambleberry.com

I think the decision to put something back on the website letting people know that flat rate shipping for the 25 pound boxes is a customer-friendly decision. All it takes is a simple asterisk and a comment somewhere visible that says "live in Alaska or Hawaii? Call us about flat rate shipping" or something like that. I was beyond PO'd to try to check out and find that I would be charged 50 bucks on a $39 block of soap. And since I took a break from m&p for a year I didn't remember having to call you about this before. No one should have to inquire about flat rate shipping if that is an option. Only people "in the know" would know that is an option still, and new customers get the short end of the stick. Thanks.

BTW, I can't seem to remove my negative review of the goat milk soap that I posted. So if you want to remove that negative review, feel free.