Price USA News

Just a quick update on some of the changes that have happened to Price USA over the last few weeks.

• My agent can now ship large items via UPS at a more reasonable rate. My agent has a high volume account that provides a discount of ~45% off the UPS list price. For example, to ship snowboards or skis costs around US$110.
• First Class shipping is now limited to orders under $100. The difference in cost between first class and priority mail is only slight for orders more than $100 because of the shipping insurance so it make sense to only use priority mail since you get a tracking number.
• You are now provided with final invoices at the shipping stage once the actual costs are known rather than when you pay. This should mean that you get an invoice based on the actual cost of the goods and shipping  rather than an estimated cost.
• I have now have in place an automated system for calculating any refunds or extra payments. Previously this all needed to be done manually and was very time consuming. While this may not be that exciting for my customers it should allow me to offer you a better service as I won’t be off calculating refunds.

There will be other changes and new features coming online in the next few weeks so keep an eye out for them

Carolina

I have reopened the order form. My agent is not back until the 27th June, but there are a number people that want to get in orders before the end of the financial year. By opening now I  give quotes and give you time to pay before the 30th June.

I have also been working on the site in the downtime. This is a really big job, so I have not finished everything that I wanted to get done, but I should have a lot of exciting new features that will make using my service a lot easier.

Carolina

Edit. Reopening the service has certainly generated a lot of orders (I have received over a 100 in less than 24 hours). This has put me a little behind in doing all the final quotes, so please be patient

It shouldn’t affect the delivery times as no order will be able to be ordered until after my agent gets back on the 27th June anyway.

Since my agent will be away on holiday from 9th to the 27th June I will not be able to process new orders until the 24th of June. My order form will still be able to give you instant quotes and I will still be able to answer your emails during this time, but my agent won’t be able to places any new orders or ship any orders that arrive after June 8.

I plan to use this time to make some big internal changes to the way my system works which should provide you with a better service. My agent and I have also been working on some things that should allow you to be able to bring in oversized items from the USA in a more cost effective manner.

If you have any comment or suggestion on aspects I can improve I would really love to hear from you.

Carolina

The Sharp DT-510 720p projector is on sale at buy.com at the moment for US$799.99 with free USA shipping. This will come in under the $1000 GST/duty free limit and is a great bargain. The full specs are below:

I have finally put up my new order form which I have been working on for awhile. I hope it will make the ordering process a little simpler. I have tried to remove everything I can from the form and only collect the information I need to place your order. It is also much more focused on making it easier to order multiple items from the same shop.

One major change is to the delivery insurance. I now have much better figures on how many shipments don’t arrive so I have been able to calculate what the rates should be. The rate for Express and Priority Mail has now dropped to 0.75% from 1% and First Class Mail has increased from 1% to 2.5%.

One areas that I think still needs work is the shipping to Australia drop down list. I know that this can be quite confusing, however, changing it is not a simple task because of the way it interacts with the other parts of my system. I am planning on making major changes to the underlying code which will fix this, but as you can imagine this is not a small job

If you have any thoughts or suggestion about the new order form I would love to hear from you.

Carolina

My USA agent is going to be away on holiday from the the 9th to the 25th of June. Orders that are shipped to his address in this time will not be shipped to Australia until the 26th June. Orders will also not be able to be placed during this time so if you are thinking of ordering something do it now

Carolina

The United States Postal Serivice (USPS) is increasing its postage charges to Australia from the 12th May 2008. Postal charges will rise by 5 - 15%. The price rise for Express mail seems to be much more than than for Priority and First Class Mail. I have updated the shipping fees so any new orders will reflect this new price. WIth order yet to ship the I will be absorbing any price increase under US$5.00, but more than this I will get in contact with you when your item arrives at my agent’s address.

Carolina

I have been having a number of people email me to tell me that they have not got their final quote or I have not responded to their emails. This problem seems to be limited to people with hotmail or yahoo mail address. I am not ignoring you - this is caused by yahoo and hotmail falsely classifying my emails as junk. If you put in an order, or you write to me, and I don’t respond then please check your junk/trash folder. If you don’t find my emails there then please give me a phone call.

Carolina

I have had quite a few enquires about ordering from ebay. This is something that we do, but the process is a little different to ordering at a normal online store.

1. We won’t order from all sellers - basically the seller has to be reliable. We reserve the right to not order from any ebay seller if we have any doubts about them.
2. If it is an ebay auction you need to give me at least 48 hours notice. This is so my agent has time to place a bid as well as give you time to make payment.
3. With ebay auctions you fill in my order form the same as any other order except that the value you put in the price field is the maximum that you are willing to bid to on the item. My agent will then bid up to this level. If he is able to buy it for less then I refund you the saving.
4. If the auction exceeds your maximum bid, or if the item sells before my agent can bid (ie a buy it now sale), then I will refund you your money minus a $A10 fee. This covers the cost to both me and my agent of going through the ordering process.

In general, buying from ebay is only worthwhile if the item is very expensive or unique. For most other items you can purchase the same item from a normal online store for less. Carolina

I have been getting a lot of enquires about ordering skis and snowboards from the USA. Snowboards and skis are technically too long to ship via USPS, but lots of companies in the USA seems to be shipping them to Australia using USPS. We have recently started taking orders for snowboards and skis because of this, but so far we have yet to have any ship to Australia so I can’t tell you if it will work. The risk is the USPS depot in San Francisco will send the package back to my agent. While we don’t think this is likely, it is a risk. If you want to take the risk then you can place an order, or you can wait until I have some more news.

The cost of USPS shipping for a single snowboard is around US$110 and around $75 for a pair of skis. There is no problem ordering other ski gear like boots, jackets, pants, gloves.

Update:

We tried shipping the skis via USPS and they got blocked at the San Francisco depot and sent back to my agent. My agent now has a high volume UPS account set up so he can now ship skis and snowboards and the cost should be around $100 to $120 to ship. Interestingly, the cost of shipping two skis or snowboards is not that much more at around $120 to $150.