Price USA News

I have finally finished updating the site design for Price USA. It is designed to provide better support for mobile devices. With any design it is really difficult to ensure that it will work perfectly with all browsers and platforms, so if you see any problems I would be really happy if you let me know.

Carolina

Daniel and I are going away on long overdue holiday for 10 days to a beautiful tropical island. In our absence, one of my US partners (Lindsay Manning) has kindly offered to take over our roles while we are away, but because she is based in the USA she can’t do everything that we can. The important changes while we are gone are:

1. Lindsay can only access the payment information from the Trust Commonwealth bank account and paypal. I have removed the other bank account details from the emails, but if you have the details of one of the other accounts from a previous order and use that to pay, then your payment won’t be able to be accessed until we get back.
2. Lindsay can’t answer phone calls. My mother will be staying at our house, but she won’t be answering the business phone. Lindsay can answer your emails so if you have a questions please email her  - you can use my email address to do this.
3. Lindsay can’t answer all possible questions. If you have a really tricky question then you may have to wait until I am back before you get an answer.

All my other partners are working as normal so you should be no problems with ordering and shipping while we are away. I will try not to think too much about you all while we are gone and just relax

Carolina

I have updated my website over the weekend to improve the way it works and hopefully make it easier to use. The big change is the way emails are checked to be correct. I am using some  special magic that my husband wrote to do this. This ‘magic’ checks in real time if your email address has been typed in correctly and will give you a warning if it thinks your email is incorrect. While it can sometimes be wrong, if you get a warning that your email might be wrong please be sure to check it very carefully.

The other big change is the shipping calculator. This has been updated to provide you with more feedback on how the shipping weight and cost is determined and give you an idea of the  shipping times of the various shipping options. I would certainly welcome feedback on both these changes.

I have taken the opportunity with the recent USPS price rises to simplify the way the international shipping options are presented on the order form. There are now three shipping options:

• economy
• This option is shipped the cheapest method (first class mail), but is limited to under 4 lbs and $250 in value. This option is slow (average 16 days to Australia) and does not have tracking.
• economy + tracking
• This option is shipped USPS Priority Mail and is intermediate in time (10 to 12 days) and has tracking. This can be used for small packages over $250 where the cheapest shipping is required.
• express + tracking
• This option is shipped either USPS Express mail (under 2 lbs) or UPS (courier) and is fast (5 to 6 days) with tracking.

All these options will be updated to a specific shipping method once I send you a quote. If you wish to choose a particular shipping methods (eg USPS express mail) then just add this to the extra details section. Hopefully these changes will make it easier for most customers who really don’t know much about the various shipping methods and just want their items shipped quickly or cheaply.

We have now started to offer fixed price quote on orders where we know the actually shipping costs. Unfortunately we can only offer fixed price quotes on all orders where we have had previous orders for the same item that have shipped. To select this option just chose the “fixed price quote” checkbox on the order form and if we able to provide you with a fixed quote we will. This should make ordering a little more certain. This option also has the advantage that you will only need to make one payment.

As of the 2nd of January 2012 UPS and USPS mail prices will rise by 5% to 13%! The actual rise is a little complex and will vary a bit depending on the exact rate and value. I will be updating all the UPS price today, but as it takes some time to do you might catch some prices in mid change. I will update the USPS Mail Prices once I have them (USPS has not yet updated their website with the new prices).

Update. The First class mail price rise is going to be 9%, but it won’t start until the 17th January.

Update 2. I have the new rate for first class mail so I have updated the first class mail prices. If your order is lucky enough to arrive at my US partners before the price rise then you will be charged the lower price.

Update 3. I have been able to find what i think is the new USPS prices from the 22nd Jan and have updated the prices on the order form. There are massive rises for express mail international and on low weight packages (under 6 lbs). In many case it will be cheaper to ship UPS courier because of these rises. The biggest rise is for express mail international 1/2 lb which goes has gone up 26%!

Update 4. The new USPS prices are now in place. I have updated the shipping calculator function to include the new price. Now for most items it is cheaper to ship UPS than USPS.

My US partners have been able to organised an alternative to first class mail that is significant cheaper – for example a 4 lbs package that previously cost US$42.87 to ship is now US$28.76. This alternative is not only cheaper and better (you can use it to ship perfume), but it is also the around the same speed as first class mail. This is a great alternative for light weight items and low cost items.

Paypal has final decided that everything is OK (only took them nearly two month) so we are now able to accept credit card (Visa & MasterCard only) and paypal payments again for Australian customers. I still recomend that you pay by bank transfer or cash deposit since this is much cheaper, but for those customers that wish to pay by credit card or paypal you can once again.

We get quite a few orders for items from coach, but because of the way their site is designed it is very hard to get a working url link to the individual items. I have written up a short guide on my FAQ pages explaining how to get the working links to coach items.

Some good news. My US partners have been able to workout a legal way of shipping perfume and aftershave from the USA to Australia. Even better news is it the shipping will be as cheap as first class mail. The only downside is there is no tracking on the shipping and hence you are limited to orders under 2 kg and $250 in value, but given how cheap perfume is in the USA this should not be too much of an problem

Carolina