Teach Soap

Wouldn't it be nice to have a tutorial on how to sell your soaps online? I feel so lost in this jungle.

Probably the most challenging thing, for me, is how does this Shipping and Handling thing work?

I have no advice, but I think it would be great to have a tutorial!!

Necia

www.usps.com and www.fedex.com will give you appropriate shipping rates - you input the zip codes and weights. To integrate it into the shopping cart, each and every shopping cart is different but most of them allow 'zone based shipping'. This means that they split the US into 8 different areas of the country and each zone has a different price to ship per pound of product. This makes it easy for your shopping cart to determine how much to charge customers all over the US.

If you are not using a shopping cart right now, you'll need to manually figure out the amounts by hand and refund customers as needed. It is better to overcharge and refund than undercharge and not recoup the missing shipping money.

Handling fees are at your discretion. Many places figure shipping supply costs in the cost of their product and others just tack on a flat handling fee to take it into account.

It's your call what you want to do with that. I hope this brief explanation helps.

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Happy Soaping!

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

If you take a bar of your soap and wrap it , so it ready to ship .Measure it and weigh it and pop those numbers into the shipping calculator , trying various zones to get an average. You can weigh 2 and 3 and 4 soaps and so on to figure out how much extra to charge if someone were to buy more than one bar of soap .Add your handling fee , if any and that is the price you would charge .

HTH

Kellie

I think it would help if I went ahead and bought things from an Etsy seller to see how they ship their products too. I'd hate to get one bar of soap in a huge priority box. That seems like too much packaging to go through for just one bar. Makes sense if there were several.

Thanks ya'll for the advice. I'll visit the usps/fedex websites to punch in some numbers. I also think the refunding is a great idea. I have gotten some refunding back before when ordering some fragrances. Very generous when the seller adjusts the price of shipping so that the buyer has a bit of extra cash in their pocket.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

I use the flat rate boxes for shipping to wholesale customers. Even the small box will hold a lot of soap. That is really handy and practical. I haven't had to ship single bars, but wonder if the shipping on one very small box, might not be just as much as the small flat rate ones ($4.80, purchased at usps.com).

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Barbara at Oasis Soap Co.
http://www.oasissoap.com

From my experience, I have shipped single bars and several bars. It is never less than $4.something here. That is for the small boxes too (not the flat rate). I also found that USPS is generally cheaper for me. Hope that helps some.

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Haven

I just had a look at rates again.... mind you I typed in a zip code very close to me. Media mail was $2.38, (Parcel Post was $4.90). You get all their rates when you enter your info. Here are the media mail restrictions:

Media Mail is used for books, film, manuscripts, printed music, printed test materials, sound recordings, play scripts, printed educational charts, loose-leaf pages and binders consisting of medical information, videotapes, and computer-recorded media like CDs and diskettes. Media Mail cannot contain advertising.

The maximum size is 108 inches in combined length and distance around the thickest part.

Mark each package "Media Mail" in the postage area.

Media mail is considerably slower than the flat rate boxes, (3 days to go 10 miles!!). My experience with other mailings is that if it meets their size requirements, it will go media - if that is what you want to do. I can also tell you for what it's worth, that Media mail is WAY down on the priority list, according to our postmaster. It has it's own "special" bag at USPS. I guess I personally might go that route with samples, but not with something of much importance.

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Barbara at Oasis Soap Co.
http://www.oasissoap.com

You're in Cali. Go put in a small order at my web site.[/quote]


DONE! Also went a bit Etsy-Happy yesterday. Need to wait for the next paycheck before splurging again.

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http://www.magichandsworkshop.com
http://www.magichands.etsy.com
http://www.magichandsworkshop.blogspot.com

If you ship something media mail and it isn't media and they find out, they will ship it postage DUE. Not a good impression to leave on new customers. Sometimes they do open boxes at random to see what's inside.

Rena

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.