Hello everybody! I am setting up an e-commerce website where I will be selling my own products (laptop cases). The main problem I'm facing in this entire process is the expensive shipping costs via UPS and FedEx, specially for international orders (I ship from San Francisco). My parcels are around 3 lbs of weight and the size of a standard laptop, and for this type of parcel UPS and FedEx are quoting me almost US$100 for international orders. Here's the thing: I've checked websites of competitors shipping similar products in size/weight, and they only charge $29 for international delivery! The difference, as you can see, is huge! I cannot figure out how to bring down my shipping costs for international order. Can anyone share some insight please? Thank you!
Another option would be to check with an international order fulfillment service, often they can help lower costs.
I've noticed the same thing before when going to ship something for eBay. Had much more luck just using Canada Post, not sure what the alternative would be in your area.
http://www.fulfillrite.com/ Not sure how helpful this will be but I launched an ecig brand for a client that uses those folks. The website work was pretty complex. Largely because those folks offer a huge discount when stuff gets shipped via fedex. I had to figure out how to calculate that stuff on the fly during checkout. It seems to me you need to do something similar but there is some bean counting to do here. Like absorbing x shipping costs vs. a pretty reasonable fee for them to deal with fulfillment(and receive said discount). hope that helps a bit, Nigel
Have you tried US Postal Department prices and see if they allows it as the Postal Service is run by Govt and expect less prices.