I've found that if I order as part of a workshop the shipping is much less than an individual order. One thing I love about SU is that they are usually very prompt when it comes to getting an order out.

I agree that the shipping is ridiculous. I'm becoming a SU Demo just to save on tax and shipping. SU doesn't give much of a Demo discount, 20%??, where I live, our sales tax is 9.25%, so between tax and shipping, I sure don't see how I could ever make a pofit with SU.

While 20% isn't a lot, it still gets passed on to your customers. If you are correctly filling out your customer's invoices and smart about your specials, 20% is still your profit.

Making a profit has nothing to do with taxes and shipping, not trying to be snarky. I consider myself a mini hobby demo. I do it more for myself and the discount, but I now have a great group of friends that I stamp with. We now have a stamp club that has 14 members! I don't do basic cards with minimum cost in mind. I have used things like the rhinestone brads, where I order several so I have enough. As a customer, I want to see these things and get to use them before I buy them. That is the philosophy I try and keep in mind. I have to believe that is why I have such a big group for my stamp club and they are excited to come and see what we are making. Back to the profit, I don't make a ton, but I make enough to cover my expenses and then some to order some of the new things I have on my list and replenish the consumibles I use up. I am a firm believer in you get what you put in. I put my heart into making cards that I think they will really like and challenge them without frustrating them. I love the time I get to spend with them just visiting while they are making cards. As far as the shipping, nobody likes to pay shipping, myself included. But when I go to the city to Joanns and ACMoores, it is an hour drive each way and with the cost of gas, and the fact that I spend less time being at home ordering on my computer than being on the road, it isn't that bad. My time is worth a few bucks and rather than being gone all day and spending money on gas and buying lunch and /or dinner out, the 10% that SU charges is a bargin! I am not saying this just because I am a demo, it is more like I am trying to look at the big picture and there are many other places that are as high if not higher than SU.

No one likes to pay shipping, but it's hard to get away from. I've never thought the 10% was too high. For instance, I ordered $40 from Old Navy a few weeks ago and my shipping was $7.95 and it took 7 business days for them to even ship it to me.

If you placed an order large enough to get charged $39 t,s&h, I hope you got hostess credits. You don't pay t,s&h on hostess credits, so that would make it less.
Order from qvc or hsn and your s&h is way higher, plus you have to pay to send it back if you change your mind.

actually - many many many other companies - including many home based product companies have signicantly higher shipping - for the most part shipping is 10%....unless you buy less than 69.95...

yes there are other companies that offer free shipping...but I have found the larger the company the more you have to spend in order to get the free shipping...so if I don't spend $100 - I might have to spend $15 or more to ship the products...

it is usually the smaller companies that offer free shipping for lower amounts - 1 they can afford to do it because their overhead for the most part is low...and the fact that they might not have that much of a selection or are a newer company that is looking to gain customers...there are a few companies out there that do offer free shipping on a continual basis but with the exception of a few most of the time you are having to spend $50 or $75 to obtain the free shipping...

if you spend a large amount with SU - YOU DO get benefits - you get hostess benefits...at least a free stamp set and free merchandise. so if you spend $150 - you are getting basically free shipping in the form of extra merchandise

Who cares

This is not accurate -- customers only pay 10% each no matter how small the amount when they order at a workshop. I had a real dud on Monday night where half of the 6 guests who'd RSVPd that they were definitely coming were no-shows and orders from the ones who came only totaled about $40, but when I went into OEX to enter everything the shipping was still only 10% for each person.

Same here. It angers me, but I know it is coming from the state, not from SU.

The answer to your question is yes. You are entitled to an itemized invoice. Your demo probably didn't know that you wanted one. When I first was a SU customer, my demo always had order forms for us to fill out at workshops. If you were doing workshops, you would probably still be using an order form. But, order forms are something that a demo has to buy from the company. Since you are ordering online, she probably didn't realize that you wanted a receipt. I'm sure that if you asked, she could give you an itemized order form, or at least a prinout of your order.

actually- I was told that whether a company charges sales tax or not depends on if the company has a license to do business in that state. Meaning that for example: Say I'm buying a product online from company A and having it shipped to me in Michigan. If company A has a license to do business in MI OR if they have a physical location in MI- I am required to pay sales tax for the state that the item is being shipped to.

This is why when I place an order from SU I get charged 6% sales tax and when my friend in NY places her order- she gets charged 8.75% (or whatever the tax rate is) for sales tax.

So the "workshop" only came to $40 and it still gave you the workshop 10%? I thought it had to be a qualifying $150 to rec'v that.

Sorry for the low sales! It happens once in a while!

HA you are completely right! I totally left out like half my wording to that sentence! What I meant to say is that workshop orders and all orders over $69.50 get charged the 10%. That's what I get for posting early in the AM

At least I didn't have to pack up all my stuff, load it in my car and burn gas to get there -- the hostess was my roommate! ;) She's trying to collect a few outside orders from the no-show coworkers, so there's hope yet that it'll reach hostess level and she'll earn some freebies!

I agree that shipping is getting bad at many places, not just SU However, SU is a company that is supposed to have low overhead cuz they don't have brick and mortar stores. And as you probably know, the more shipping the company does, the better the rate they get. I would guess that SU gets a pretty good rate. So, I think they are making money off of their shipping as many companies do. I think they could offer free shipping a couple times a year, or for orders over a certain amount. I would think the volume of orders would pick up and make up for lack of a shipping charge. I can always hope...

Im a TAC dealer and our s&h is also 10% and taxes are unavoidable.

I do wish shipping were more accurately based on wieght not price but that would be impossible for demos

I am a Creative Memories Consultant in Canada and our shipping is 8% for orders under $100 and 7% over $100, but I charge all of my customers 7%.

Tax on shipping is the way it is here in Ontario-and taxes are a way of life-here we have 5% GST (federal tax) and 8% PST (provincial)

Customers who love their quality products will keep purchasing the products. Sure, in these times we are more careful how and where we spend our dollars-but for our loved hobbies, we do invest in the shopping. :-) I am one who can't stop shopping-be it SU, or my online faves-Gina K and Papertrey Ink. Gina is sweet enough to offer a great shipping rate to Canada-and PTI, well I love their stuff so much that I swallow that bitter shipping pill every month.

I am blessed to be able to go to Stamping Bella in person. I feel that there are several online stamping companies (the 3 mentioned above included) that do offer wonderful passion and ideas for their products and superb customer service too.

For what it's worth, I would love to see SU! offer the choice of mounted or unmounted stamps. I recently bought some stamps from a company that offered both, and since the stamps I chose were more of a novelty item, I knew I wouldn't get too much use out of them. Therefore, I could justify purchasing them at the lower unmounted price.

Shipping Charges
 

I was a manager for the logistics division for a major clothing retailer. All small packages are shipped based on the weight and dimensions of the package. Considering the volume that SU has to ship daily - they should be getting a SIGNIFICANT discount in their shipping.

Since they are charging a % - which is easier for a demo figure out - that % is probably higher than the rate you would be charged if they went strictly by weight.

I receive a discount on my shipping thru my employer and can send a 30 lb. package from NY to CA for $4.30. I don't order that much SU, because it kills me to see the shipping charges! Tax is tax...not much you can do about it!

Maybe SU needs a logistics professional like me to to negotiate their rates for them??? They could be passing on some savings - IMO! :rolleyes:

Beth
(kaitysmom)

Ask, and you should receive!
 

When your demo puts in your order, a customer copy is created, and she only needs to print it out. Before I became a demo, most (but not all!) of my demos would attach a copy of the order form to my stuff if I had put in an order by email like you did.

Just kindly say, "I'm going to need a copy of the invoice. My tax preparer/husband/etc. told me that I need to keep them." That way you are placing the blame on someone else, rather than sounding accusing. Otherwise, find a new demo! I think you should always get a copy of your order. You also have a 3-day right to cancel after giving an order--did you know that?

You pay for it somehow...
 

Just remember that all companies are making sure that their costs--including shipping--are covered. If you've been to your LSS and priced individual rubber stamps, you know that SU! is a bargain--especially with the coordinating sets!

I don't like the 10% shipping (and tax on top--required by almost every state to tax shipping, which seems outrageous to me!), but there it is. Better to have it out in the open than hidden. When you get "free" shipping, you have paid for it--believe me!

Acrylic stamps do cost less than rubber--and the quality is less, too. Let me share this great webpage by a company that makes and sells both rubber and acrylic stamps: http://www..com/Techn...ar-stamps.html

SU! may not do free shipping, but they do things like the current 15% off a bunch of new sets--that can cover your shipping! They also do free sets, etc. They don't charge shipping or taxes on free items.

HTH!

WOW! Talk about outrageous shipping. I just went to Ikea's website to order 3 of the Bygel towel bars to build a SU punch holder. The towel bars are $1.99 each & I was going to buy 3 of them. The shipping/handling is $21.76! I live in a very large city & do not understand this. OMG~Nevermind.

I definitely agree with you on this one. :) Sorry to hear you are put in this predicament, but I am with you in hoping SU offers UM sometime.

My resolution to the problem of companies sending me stuff I don't want, don't want to have to toss, and don't want to have to figure out what else to do with it, is not deal with those companies any more. Donating blocks, selling them on eBay, or posting them on the BST board is a nice idea, but is an imposition on my time when I'd rather be stamping or surfing the web. :)

I have to agree that SU prices have REALLY increased! I too have turned to many of the member companies here on SCS. I can purchase my rubber stamps from one of these companies and get free shipping over $35! Heck, for me that's a no brainier. The companies I order from here offer the same about of stamps and quality for a little over half price from what SU charges.

I wish SU would offer unmounted stamps, I personally hate wood mounted stamps anymore.

My CPA hubby says it this way...you keep increasing your prices until you see your demand drop. It is at that point you'll know what the market will pay for your wares or services. So until SU sees a drop in sales they aren't going to offer any real significant product or shipping specials.

Of course all this is just my opinion :twisted:

I think that SU! shipping charges are pretty reasonable, especially considering that many people order mutiple packs of cardstock, which can get pretty heavy. If they started basing their shipping on weight many people would be unhappier than they are now with shipping costs.

I also just placed an order for $50 at a popular SCS online store and shipping was $12 and it is based on weight and all I ordered was 2 sheets of DP paper, couple bottle of stickles, couple of bottles of fun flock and some clear stamps. If I spend $50 at SU I would have paid $6.95 shipping.

I work in a shipping department. We ship UPS, FedEx Ground, FedEx Express, and DHL for shipments weighing less than 150 pounds. We ship by weight of the package and these companies are charging surcharges for fuel costs now also. Those are automatically added in to the total cost of your shipping charges. I agree that shipping costs are high, but so is the cost of fuel for your vehicle. If you don't live in an area with a variety of stamping stores, it can still save time and money to order your items. It is however, one of the pros and cons I am weighing as to becoming a hobby demo or not.

I wanted to order just two stamps from a SCS member company and the shipping was $11 for both stamps that would fit into a small padded envelope. The shipping would have been more than 65% of the total of my order. Outrageous, I feel. The site even recommends to order more to get the most of the shipping. Being the addict I am, I still wanted those stamps. My friends from my weekly stamping/card making group like that line of stamps also so we went in on an order together and we split the shipping for the order. Together we spent $105 on the stamps and split the $11 shipping so shipping only cost us $2.75 each. So, if you have someone you can combine an order with and split the shipping, that might help.

i get taxed on my free items...

Again, that's a state-by-state thing. Some states do charge sales tax on hostess benefits, which stinks. SU! has absolutely no say in that, though.

Well, I think you first of all have to forget about the tax. Had you gone to a store in your state you would have paid for that anyways. You bought $213 in product which is a big amount. I bet the box was heavy. Have you shipped anything heavy from the post office lately? I have and let me tell ya, its not cheap.Just one bigger stamp set cost me $7.90. I bet you had more than that. I don't think the $21 charge for shipping is really that much in the scheme of things. I doubt you could match that price closely if you took it to the post office. You could probably send stuff like that parcel post and take your chances, but I like the delivery updates with UPS. Nothing is cheap anymore.

Let me start by saying that some people are sooooo rude.

OP I totally agree with you. I love stampin up but they are getting to big for their britches. I order through a demo and paying shipping and all that jazz then I still have to drive over and pick them up at her convience. Free shipping is always nice, even if it is once or twice a year. An UM option would also be nice. Had you spent that kinda money with any of the member companies here, you would def. have gotten free shipping. So if they can offer free shipping, so can SU.

I don't know why it is that people get so upset when people speak their opinions against SU. It's just an opinion. No need to jump to SU's defense and tell us how great they are. We lnow that they are great, that's why we continue to pay their high shipping charges. JMHO!

I agree with Patrina. I've posted here before about how outrageous I think SU's shipping is and I always get the same responses: shipping costs are high all over, companies that offer free shipping are making it up elsewhere, and so on. I simply cannot agree with these statements based on my experiences. When I need to order books for school that I can't find used locally, I order them from Amazon. I always save money over my campus bookstore and my orders are usually over $25 because of the number of books I need to buy or because my husband also needs school books, so I get free shipping. There's no way Amazon is making that up elsewhere. My orders always arrive promptly, and if one item isn't available immediately, they always send the others first at no extra charge. I never pay shipping with PaperTrey because my orders are always over $50 because I always want so much of their awesome stuff, and my orders get to me within 2 days. I get more stamps from them than SU and the stamps are more versatile, plus PTI sells the same amount of cardstock for .50 cents less than SU. So I fail to see how they're making any costs up anywhere*. My last order with SU, in contrast, had exhorbitant shipping charges and took TWO WEEKS to get to me. When I posted to this forum complaining about the shipping time, I was told that I should understand that SU has a lot of orders coming in because of their catalog and a bunch of demos who have been to Utah wished I could see SU's production line. I don't give a rip about their production line! I just want the product that I paid good money for to arrive on time! The only thing keeping me ordering from SU at this point is my love for their designer papers and my guilt at totally abandoning my demo, who needs the money. And I frequent SCS much less now that I know I can't speak freely about SU here.


*The only thing that's more expensive at PTI is their ribbon, but I would actually prefer to pay more per yard to get less and be able to get a lot of variety than pay a low price for a metric ton of one type of ribbon like SU forces you to.

I agree that the shipping is high, especially on orders that don't qualify as parties. However, buying over $200 of merchandise means $20 of free product and a free hostess set. So if you say the value of the hostess set is only $10, your order total of $246 really gets you $243 of product. I'd say that's a pretty good value.

Now, when you order only $50, I agree. That is where SU is high.

My two cents worth is, that S&H/taxes/price problems are all relative.

I would love to have your S&H/tax/price problems. Here in the lovely land down under (Australia), as we are a much smaller country (population wise anyway) we don't get the discounts that you all enjoy. Our tax rate is 10% on everything, product & S&H, plus for us Aussies ordering Stampin' Up (& we waited years for it to come here) we pay almost double what it costs you. I have down loaded your latest catalogue & ideas book & have checked the price differences, even factoring in the differences between currencies & shipping to Australia, you can't tell me that that doubles the price of a stamp set, but what are we to do? Here, we just don't have the market to support the price system that you have & when I have ordered from on-line companies in the USA the S&H to Australia is phenomenal. I can be charged $50+ for 5 or 6 wood blocked stamps, (& no they aren't even sent airmail), & it takes up to 3 or 4 weeks to get here. If I go to my local store, an hour & a half round trip (not including browsing time ;)) I can still pay, on average $15 - $20 for a wood mounted stamp, that's right one stamp.

I just look on in envy at the variety of stores you girls/guys have on your own doorsteps & that are only a few mouse clicks away (some companies won't ship to Australia) especially at the prices that are offered. Again, S&H/taxes/prices are all relative & to some they may seem OTT, to others bargain basement.

No tax on shipping in Massachusetts
 

I know that in Massachusetts it is illegal to charge tax on shipping. I remember that Longaberger got into some trouble a while back because they were taxing the shipping charges. If you live in Mass., make sure that you figure your 5% sales tax on the order total only and then add the shipping. A lot of people are unaware of this. I'm not sure how it works in other states but at least in Massachusetts you cannot be charged sales tax on shipping charges.
I agree that SU shipping seems high compared to online companies, but maybe the other companies have worked some of the shipping cost into their pricing.

For all of you who have said that they don't make it up elsewhere for the free shipping...they do...offering free shipping for your order above a set amount is actually an incentive for you to spend more money...it is made up in the volume. The shipping would probably be the same for them to send an order if it is $25 or $50 or $100 so by saying the shipping is free if you spend $100 they are making out. I just did that with an online company, spent over $100 to get the free shipping, it benefits both the company and I because I get more product without adding the shipping cost to my order (as if I shopped locally) and the company gets a little bigger profit because my order was higher.

Also, SU cannot offer free shipping because in a way they kind of already do. If you order above $150 you get to chose $15 dollars in merchandise and a free hostess set. If they gave free shipping as an incentive, they probably wouldn't be able to give the merchandise as an incentive. So your cut-off point for "free shipping" with SU is $150. You can't have it both ways..free merch or free shipping. I believe someone already pointed out to the original poster that since the shipping on her order was enough to warrant $30+ dollars in shipping then she would have qualified for one of the levels of merchandise incentive which would have more than covered her shipping. Sometimes you just have to think of it from another perspective. It is all relative.

cindy501.......I believe you are paying shipping and tax on the Hostess items you choose and also on the free merchandise.

Please, someone who knows, correct me if I'm wrong.

Patti

Hmmm...that's interesting. I'll have to ask my demo about that. Does that mean that the amount of the free merch gets added with your order total then taken off the back end after the tax and shipping is totaled but then how how do they figure in the price of the hostess set to add the tax and shipping? Worth checking into though, since there really isn't anything such as a "free lunch." Thanks.

Patti---you are most definitely entitied for an invoice. Ask your demo to put a copy in the mail after she has sent off your order. This way you will see the official form. My demo is a friend and she and I are part of a small group of friends that together every week to work on projects. When we have enough for an order she places the group's order and pays for it and then we pay her back when it comes in. She gives us a copy of the order form with the total so we know what we owe her. I know I'm lucky that I see her every week anyway and don't have to worry about picking up my order, etc.