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 Replies: 16 / Views: 3,005 |
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Bedrock of the Community
 United States
12820 Posts |
What goes into the $4.95 shipping fee per US Mint order? Clearly the Mint has to pay utility bills and salaries and such. But that should be covered by the retail price charged on the product. Then they have to ship the coins to the fulfillment company, who then sends along to us, right? So that's where the $4.95 comes into play. It's meant to handle the packaging and labor and shipping. Fine; part of doing business. But I would be curious if anyone knows any specifics about US Mint product shipping in general. I doubt that's readily available but you never know. Now consider how many orders you make a year, and don't forget subscriptions. I'm probably at ~30 orders per year with all the annual sets, ASEs, ATB products, and ad hoc orders, so that's $150 in shipping annually. Ugh. That pays for 3 UNC ASE's or almost pays for a 1/10th oz. AGE. Again, S&H is part of doing business. Would the mint make or lose money by offering a way to group shipments to save the $4.95 shipping for each purchase? They'd definitely save packaging, carbon footprint would be reduced, etc. I'm dubious if the process retooling they'd have to do would be covered by any savings realized. Clearly we as consumers can figure out ways to be efficient with our ordering strategy and group our orders as much as possible, but sometimes the potential of quick sellouts precludes our ability to group purchases. I'm going through all my subscriptions now and seeing what I can group and order off-subscription without worry of sellouts. I suppose my question here is just how do you efficiently deal with the $4.95 S&H per order?  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
899 Posts |
Celtic... do you actually believe $4.95 covers the cost of shipping - with all the logistics you just described?
Many of us don't just buy as sets or coins become available - we group items and order them together - for the single fee. My subscriptions are only on items that get the 10% discount, and only if I am buying enough to cover the shipping fee.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4901 Posts |
Since I have no clue what it actually costs the Mint to ship packages any comment on the cost would be inappropriate. Smartpost might cost less than $4.95 and UPS might cost more making it a wash
I do group my purchases together when possible because it just makes sense to do so.
I don't worry about paying shipping on subscriptions because the 10% discount covers that.
Maybe I just don't get what your point is....
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2077 Posts |
APMEX has free shipping on orders over $5000.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1795 Posts |
That is called the cost of doing business. Especially when you deal with Government.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2077 Posts |
I really wouldn't mind paying the $4.95 if it were a real service like regular UPS, Fedex, or even priority mail. That smartpost is what most companies use for free shipping. Sometimes it's ok, but many times it will sit in the handoff location for a few days.
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Bedrock of the Community
 United States
12820 Posts |
Quote:
Maybe I just don't get what your point is.... Sorry, that was a run-on post that didn't quite get to the point...too late last night and perhaps a smidge too much vino to focus properly... ahem... Quote:
Celtic... do you actually believe $4.95 covers the cost of shipping - with all the logistics you just described? Yeah. If it costs more than $4.95 to deliver an order to my front door, where else would the money come from? With the volume they do, $5 x millions of orders a year is a staggering amount of money. They benefit from scale of economy too by shipping in such high volumes. I suspect the mint has a nice margin there and they want us to order in as many separate shipments as possible to maximize the margin. The more we pile in to a single order/box, the less profit they make. Consider last year's free shipping for web orders. I doubt they were losing money (overall) on that promotion. That's all speculation, regardless it is the driver behind my original question. Paraphrased, "How do you beat the house"? Or at least, how do you minimize house advantage? And the answer that you've provided me is: 1. Do subscriptions where the 10% savings per subscription is greater than $4.95. 2. Wherever possible, bundle as many non-subscription products together as is feasible to get them all sent out for one $4.95 shipment. Caveat on hot items / potential sellouts. 3. Order over $300 and get complementary expedited upgrade (does this apply to subscription orders over $300? I assume so). Which I knew and I guess is not such a tough question after all. But maybe is nice for some people to see spelled out. Also would be nice if anyone knows any details about how the Mint interacts with its fulfillment company. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2077 Posts |
Fulfillment is done by Pitney Bowes (aka Novitex) Their specialty is landing huge government contracts.
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New Member
United States
10 Posts |
Placed my first ever order with the U.S. Mint last month for one each of the Proof Baseball coins.
So far I have received 3 separate 2nd Day Air packages via UPS. (The free shopping bag even came 2nd Day Air)
And another package is due in June. So shipping fees come out to $1.24 per package on that order.
I logged onto theupsstore just to see the cost if I sent the same packages. $32 each.
Don't see how the fulfillment company or UPS could make money on an order like mine.
It must be an interesting contract between The Mint/Novitex/UPS.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
959 Posts |
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Consider last year's free shipping for web orders. I doubt they were losing money (overall) on that promotion. When the Mint first started taking orders via the Web, FREE was their shipping fee. It lasted for several years. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2077 Posts |
Quote:
The free shopping bag even came 2nd Day Air That's too funny. There must be something in their software that sets the shipping method based on the order total. It probably costs them less to just ship that way than to fix the issue. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2168 Posts |
Maybe a token fee just to have some of the costs of shipping covered. I would like to see the expense/income on shipping costs. Maybe it evens out sort of for those buying a small item. I would assume the Mint insures items it ships going out and that, too, is an addl cost. But I know even companies get better rates than general public so that, too, can affect the actual costs.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12820 Posts |
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When the Mint first started taking orders via the Web, FREE was their shipping fee. It lasted for several years. Yeah, I recall (and miss) those good ol' days.  Still, while no one would accuse the government of being frugal, I doubt they had a business model at that time that lost them money. I suppose I could be wrong. Quote:
The free shopping bag even came 2nd Day Air Mine too. I assume because my entire order was over $300 and got the upgrade. Ridiculous. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
The mint loses money on shipping BIG time.
A lot of their stuff goes out Smartship which means UPS and then final delivery by USPS. Ever send anything by UPS? $4.95 won't begin to pay to ship something. OK maybe due to the volume the Mint got a special rate and the $4.95 covers that, but they still have to pay the USPS too. Then you have the fact that your order from the mint often comes in multiple packages. not you pay the one $4.95 fee, but the mint is going to have to pay UPS and USPS for EACH of those packages. (Think a HOF order for a gold, silver and clad, they charged $4.95 and shipped the bag. Then when they ship the gold they will have to pay for the shipping on that. Same when they ship the silver dollars, and again when they ship the clad halves. You paid one shipping charge they paid four.) Then if you return something for replacement they will refund what you paid to ship it back, and then they will pay again to ship you a replacement! There is just no way the mint isn't losing money on shipping.
Now back in the 70's the mint MADE money on shipping even though the offered "free" shipping. back then the shipping cost was built into the cost of the set. The thing is for the amount the included they could ship up to as many as five sets. Over five and due to the weight or value the postage cost would go up. But if you ordered five sets the shipping cost built into the first one paid for all the shipping and mint pocketed the shipping cost built into the other four sets. Order ten sets they came in two boxes and the mint pocketed 8 shipping fees. But the collectors didn't mind because they were getting "free" shipping. When they went to charging separately for shipping the collectors howled even though they were now actually paying less for shipping and the mint was losing money on it, because it wasn't "free" anymore.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4901 Posts |
SmartPost is Fedex/USPS not UPS
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2077 Posts |
The UPS/USPS combo is called Mail Innovations, and is actually even slower than smartpost.
These services are actually pretty cheap. You have to have enough to fill a full load. Fedex then trucks it to regional centers and it's injected into USPS at the distribution centers. The idea is that USPS can handle the second leg cheaper since they already run residential delivery routes daily. UPS and fedex make much more on business deliveries where they typically drop multiple packages per stop.
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Replies: 16 / Views: 3,005 |
Posted 05/01/2014 07:25 am
