Calendar shipping costs

[Guest]

.

[sunshine]

HI Everyone

Placed an order for the fantastic calendar.  the only thing that bothers me is the calendar cost me $7 and the shipping charges to Canada was $25.  a touch pricey but i am sure that it is going to a great cause.  i also ordered bumper stickers ,  thought it might be fun to see if anyone else will see it and belong to Kiva too.
Sunshine

[KivanSteven]

Hey Sunshine, thanks for supporting the calendar...that was pretty pricey...I read about a bunch of people from Canada having to pay a whole lot for shipping, but glad to know you were so committed to the cause that you were willing to shell out $32...it is well worth the money, though at that price I wouldnt imagine they would sell out as they nearly have already...next years calendar will be even better and Id imagine attempts will be made to broaden the horizons for it...its a huge team effort and if you like what you see, then stay tuned and get involved with the project when it starts up next year...in fact it already has with the potential 2009 calendar photo topic started by Diane

http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,1269.0.html

I have a bumper sticker as well...still waiting for the first person to recognize it....still waiting for the first person to ask about it--no the second actually--my ex girlfriend did ask me once before, anyways, let us know if you get recognized for it.

Also, other than my own, Im still waiting to see my first bumper sticker...maybe we'll run into each other

[cpbailey]

The high cost to ship out of the US got me wondering...how feasible would it be to have the publisher ship to several locations--one printing run but maybe a US coordinator, Kiva headquarters, Canada and Germany come to mind. 

Besides...I think it was 800 pounds of calendars this year.  Can you imagine how much space it will take in someone's living room if there are more ordered next year?

Colette

[KivanSteven]

Hey Colette, its been awhile  , I asked Chris before the calendars were even printed if he wanted help distributing them...he could still take all the orders and handle the money, but it might be advantageous to have a few people ship them...it would also be more timely if orders were backing up...but he said he would handle it...only he knows how much he can handle, but if we produce a few thousand next year, or more, considering we may well be approaching 300,000 members and 50 million in loans, he will have to determine early on what he wants to do as the distributor (Im assuming they will continue to be sold through Kiva store unless Kiva.org has to take it over for legal reasons or just love it so much that they hijack the whole project from us, lol).  I say early on because I think its best to have a plan in place for those sorts of things...at the same time if we are talking about a literal ton in calendar weight, a shipment from the printer to a single location would probably save hundreds of dollars....unless Chris picked them up personally which would obviously eliminate all shipping fees from the printer, I dont know...the only other thing I can think of to cut down on cost is if we get a printer that has various locations across the country....since the calendar begins as merely an electronic file, it could easily be sent to and from various locations within the us, canada, and perhaps the UK or even europe if we're lucky...now that I think of it, Im guessing Chris may have had these printed close to home to save a few hundred $$ on the shipping...and why not...if we can have these printed at various locations across the country where there is a kivafriend or two or three willing to help distribute them, then it would be no problem to pick up at a locale a couple boxes of a few hundred calendars each.....I think thats an idea worth considering...what do you think?  However I think it should be kept to a minimum...we dont want too many people shipping these....the more people involved I tend to think the more liklihood of mistakes and confusion.

[sunshine]

Thanks guys for all the answers and i have found where to click on to see the replies,  sometimes i think i am a bit daft these days but oh this is a great site.  As for the calendar,  being it is going to a good cause, makes it worthwhile and i am looking forward to the bumper stickers.  I may try the t-shirts in the summertime.  Also ,  i would like to say that this is the first time that i have found a charity where there is a feedback , positive and it is fun.  I have tried a couple of charities before but they left me feeling like i had been taken.  This is the best and yes,  i realize that there are crooks in everything but with all of this chatting and comparing notes,  how can we go wrong"  Am i ramblin or what?

Sunshine

[cpbailey]

Steve,

My point wasn't just about sharing the work, but it costs $25 to ship ONE calendar from the US to Canada.  I believe that the most economical place to print calendars is China, so it might be a distribution advantage to ship one box of the shipment to say Canada directly.  Postage within a country is much less expensive.  Then it would be much less expensive for individuals to buy a calendar once shipping is included.  The reduced costs might increase sales and make things seem more inclusive.

Clearly, there are other factors involved.  Chris will have to evaluate the benefits and risks much closer in and with much more info than we have at this point.

Colette

Colette

[wind5001]

Not bad a point to make, Colette!

I guess it all depends upon scale...if we really have a heap of calendars printed, say in the 10,000s, then we can think about such a shipping distribution....but it'd be hard to guess for me, how many calendars Germany'd need...100? 500? 

Oli

[KivanSteven]

Ramble on sunshine...thats what we do best, especially me.

[Joe]

Glad you found yourself Sunshine. And I'm glad you like the site

That's quite a shipping charge. Assuming this will be a yearly thing, then yes, maybe next year we should get some distribution points organized to save people some money. Especially if the demand next year is bigger, which I can see happening. I mail to Canada a lot and I grumble about the $9.00 fee for the flat rate "Priority Mail" envelope. Too bad the calendar wouldn't fit in one of those! I'm not sure what Chris is using, but last I checked, the flat rate boxes for Priority Mail to Canada ran somewhere around 23-25 dollars. Both rates are pretty ridiculous, in my humble opinion.

http://www.usps.com/shipping/flatrate.htm

Anyway, since this thread is about the calendar, I'm going to bump it over to the new Calendar Project section

[Peter S]

I've been puzzled to hear the high cost of mailing the calendars to Canada.  When I got my 5 calendars by Airmail to the UK, the actual postage was about $7.

Could it be that USPS "First Class Mail International" (previously called Airmail Letter Post) would be the way to go?  According to the USPS website, the rate for a 1lb letter to Canada would be $4.66, and the calendar easily comes within the size dimensions for that service.  The only drawback is that you can't buy the service online, it requires a trip to the post office.

http://ircalc.usps.gov/IntlMailServices.aspx?Country=10054&M=1&P=1&O=0&sd=1

[KivanSteven]

The USPS Global Priority Rate to Canada is $9...apparently the measurement is 9 by 12"...shouldnt that fit the calendar?  wasnt the calendar about 8.5" by 11 or so?  Maybe Chris set it up as flat rate, which is $23 to canada, in case people ordered a few or more, which might not fit as well in the envelope...I never understand the box rate to Canada...I used to ship there all the time from ebay and whenever I calculated potential shipping charges USPS always gave me astronomical figures...then Id take it to the PO and it was always $7 here, $10 here, sometimes even less if it was very small...the usps website is not the easiest to navigate anyways when you are looking for detailed info...youre always finding yourself searching and searching for things..


what you guys have to remember though is that if we organize a few distribution points and the calendars are at first delivered to one person, that person is going to have to ship them in mass to each distribution point, which will become quite costly if we plan on printing a few thousand or more...what that means is that it might save the purchaser some shipping fees, but at the same time it will be costing us to save them some shipping fees...and then as Oli said, there is the problem of estimating how many calendars to send outside of North America if we decide on doing so...if we estimate far too high then we have calendars sitting there...if far too low, then we are spending more on shipping costs to send out another batch....either way we are losing money if we guess wrong...I think this all will take some careful planning and consideration...the least of our problems will be finding volunteers I think...Id be happy to..but Chris lives in Poughkeepsie form what I remember, and thats only a quick 4 1/2 hour drive from me here on the other side of NY...so dont know what help I might be, but if we need shippers, count me in, I have tons of experience shipping and selling through ebay.

[chris]

Regarding the $25 shipping to Canada.... yes, this is clearly incorrect.  I tracked down the problem and fixed it (the short of it being that Paypal was thinking weight is measured in $ instead of lbs..... don't ask ).  This was only a problem for orders shipping to Canada. 

Those orders that have shipped/are shipping to Canada have/will receive the appropriate refunds.  Any orders before Monday should have already gotten a partial refund; anything recent should be taken care of tonight.

Sorry for the confusion!

[sunshine]

   am pleased to report that i am receiving a refund of $15 , that makes it more reasonable and much more enjoyable.  thank you all for the kind replies and the bits of humour,  i appreciate it and feel most welcome here.

Sunshine   ps....thank you very very much Chris as i see here that you are the person that fixed this up ,  this certainly is the charity that has tons of feedbacks and of course,  corrections like this...makes this a worthwhile place to be.