• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

help with SHIPPING!! pls...

ladysilkworm

ladysilkworm

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USPS is driving my silkworm biz to the ground.. it is reaching a 50% fail rate. :angry:

When they don't bother scanning, customers think that I held the package back and did not mail it.

For a 150 mile trip, it took 7 days.

For a 1200 mile trip, it took more than 2 weeks!!

All of the worms are DOA.

Now, My latest ship from NY to CA is going down by TRUCK! How dare they call it priority service and call it a 2-3 day >> There is no tracking, only delivery. When there is no dispatch info, I know the package is doomed! :confused: I lose sleep on this every time I ship. I am so nice that I refund the customer $. I can't manage a business this way.

PLEASE HELP!! I open fedex acct but I don't have enough volume to make a reasonable discount. PLEASE, can I use your account? I know you get kickbacks from FedEx. I also need to incorporate this shipping calculator on my website.

I will be selling wet and dry chow, silkworm cups and expanding into horn worm cups.. anyone can help me?? I can't sleep at night with USPS...
 
Not to mention, anyone taking a complete stranger and letting them ship on their certificate probably has a few loose screws upstairs.:ack2:

Good luck, and I don't know what you mean by "kickbacks" (way to kill your request :NoNo:) Many of us pass our savings on to our customers, and sometimes we eat the shipping.
 
deborahbroadus said:
Not to mention, anyone taking a complete stranger and letting them ship on their certificate probably has a few loose screws upstairs.:ack2:

Good luck, and I don't know what you mean by "kickbacks" (way to kill your request :NoNo:) Many of us pass our savings on to our customers, and sometimes we eat the shipping.
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I believe fedex puts some $ back to the account holder, the more they ship, they more they get, it is called handling charges.

Its also called volume discounting. The customers get a deeper discount through someone who ships frequently. As for me opening a fedex acct, it does not do customers any good because they can pay 33% more than someone who ships frequently. All I am doing, is watching out for the customers.. the USPS has a really bad track.. 7 out of 10 packages don't make it on time. Everything I shipped this Monday is no where to be found, everything I shipped on Tues got there on time.. I am very approachable and asnwer every email.. but some customers can hound me to death and I am too nice, I give them $ back.. 3 out of 3 times. doesn't it seem that I will survive this biz if USPS keeps doing this to me? Is it fair to me that I provide silkworms at bulk prices and take all the risks of USPS failure? why is it that all the other insect sellers have clauses to protect themselves? And I am just such a softee, and being too nice becomes suffocating?
 
ladysilkworm said:
I believe fedex puts some $ back to the account holder, the more they ship, they more they get, it is called handling charges.

Its also called volume discounting. The customers get a deeper discount through someone who ships frequently. As for me opening a fedex acct, it does not do customers any good because they can pay 33% more than someone who ships frequently. All I am doing, is watching out for the customers.. the USPS has a really bad track.. 7 out of 10 packages don't make it on time. Everything I shipped this Monday is no where to be found, everything I shipped on Tues got there on time.. I am very approachable and asnwer every email.. but some customers can hound me to death and I am too nice, I give them $ back.. 3 out of 3 times. doesn't it seem that I will survive this biz if USPS keeps doing this to me? Is it fair to me that I provide silkworms at bulk prices and take all the risks of USPS failure? why is it that all the other insect sellers have clauses to protect themselves? And I am just such a softee, and being too nice becomes suffocating?
Click to expand...

FedEx has never sent me any $$$ and I have the same rates as when I opened my account.
 
I believe fedex puts some $ back to the account holder, the more they ship, they more they get, it is called handling charges.
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Nope, Fed ex doesn't work that way. I get a very small discount for shipping my packages which I pass on to my customer. That's it, no bonus's, no handling charges, no kickbacks

Handling charges are usually collected by the seller, not the shipping company.

I usually charge my customers less than I pay for shipping. I do not charge a handling fee or charge for shipping supplies.

When in a business, it is the seller's responsibility to make sure the buyer gets the item that they paid for. If that is live bugs, then that is what they should receive. Refunding for dead bugs is not being "too nice", it is basic business standards and in the case of USPS, the law. Buyers that receive items that are not what the buyer purchased can file fraud charges against the seller.

Have you thought about using a quicker service, such as two day or overnight?
 
Melinda said:
I usually charge my customers less than I pay for shipping. I do not charge a handling fee or charge for shipping supplies.
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Exactly.... I dont charge a box fee or anything like that. I probably should because I build my own boxes with better insulation.... but I dont and I wont. Its all part of the service.

Monday I shipped out a package and my price on shipping was $58 but I offer a flat rate shipping of $50 per box... so I just ate the extra and put it as a business expense.
 
I use USPS weekly to have 1000 worms sent from CA to my house in FL using priority mail service. Never had a problem with it, and the worms always arrive within 3 or 4 days, max. Not sure what the problem is. I agree that you should start using 2 day or even overnight service.
 
I believe it is called Power Ship. I went to FedEx and that is what they told me. Big suppliers have this integrated into their website, and after a certain volume they can renegotiate the rates.. but suppliers charge whatever they want, legally, that's the handling fee. Some suppliers even charge a boxing fee. But overall, it is still cheaper than for a customer to go online and fedex to himself.

I don't charge anything extra either. I sum it up in one payment and whether it is zone 1 or zone 9 , 1 lb or 2lb I absorb the fees. But if it takes more than a week, then, there is no hope. It took exactly 7 days from NY to CT once, half the worms made it. The USPS tracking does not always tell you when the pck is mailed and it doesn't always tell you where the pckages have been to.. postal workers say they are not required to scan in.. they only are required for delivery confirmation.


From experience, once a package does not get scanned, it usually means it did not make it on the plane. They only bother scanning the ones that do get on the flight.

From CA to FL, the most likely way is to fly. From NY to midwest, the likely route is truck. All of my packages on Monday did not make it to destination and are not trackable. All of the ones on Tues made it there. It's just so frustrating, it makes me depressed all day...I asked a regular customer to upgrade to UPS ground, with a bonus pckage shipped by USPS (on my pocket) and guess what, the experiment failed! USPS is untrackable and 4 days has gone by.. no signs of it anywhere.

I've been the postal office to talk to supervisor s and search for my package. No hope. They just do not know where the packages are. Then it suddenly shows up in customer's hands 11 days later, 2 weeks later, totally ranked! Now I still have 3 packages missing since MOnday.. and it is now 7:30pm Thrs...


http://raoulpop.com/2006/10/14/usps-priority-mail-is-anything-but-that/#comment-11414
 
I had also asked the clerk to scan it in at the PO so that it shows that I mailed them..but they got upset with me saying that I got a discount for printing it online and the next time they refused to scan in for me.

I also realized that even if they check in at the counter, it doesn't mean that they will get there ontime.. or scan it along the way...

ugh..
 
How about shipping using a method that scanning is mandatory. Yes it may cost just a bit more... but isn't your business worth it?
 
Scanning it in or tracking will not hurry the package along. There is no delivery time guarantee on priority mail.

Since you continually have problems, your going to have to ditch USPS priority and choose a different delivery method. I have found with the USPS system, you can't complain your way into better/faster service. You get what you get.

I don't think there are many of us that qualify for Power Shipping and the large corporations that do are probably not going to risk their account to let someone else use their account.

If you can't get your product where it needs to be at a cost that your company and/or customer can pay, then you are not going to be profitable with that product.
 
I would recommend using UPS through Reptiles Express. You get a discounted rate using their account and I have sent out over 15 shipments in the last two weeks of ball pythons and every one of them was delivered on time. I am surprised that they haven't messed up at least one. Fed Ex used to screw up on being on time at least once every 10 or so shipments it seems. Just a suggestion.
 
greencountryreps said:
I would recommend using UPS through Reptiles Express. You get a discounted rate using their account and I have sent out over 15 shipments in the last two weeks of ball pythons and every one of them was delivered on time. I am surprised that they haven't messed up at least one. Fed Ex used to screw up on being on time at least once every 10 or so shipments it seems. Just a suggestion.
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yes I did saw that from earlier poster (thanks to the earlier poster) about that, but do you guys use paypal??


I use paypal and with that, I get a pretty good discount with UPS ground.. how does it compare with reptile express/ i hate having to manually write down address or retyping them over. I really like the paypal feature of direct label printing. I keep on having to rewrite my shipping policy. I would like to make my silkworms very affordable to customers.. but I think I may have to just expand my local market instead of going national.. I suppose I can make silkworm pods and go visit all the petstores in the area.. one of them is anxiously waiting for me to visit. I am waiting on my overseas chow that have actually already arrived in NY port for 5 days now but do not know what is the hold up.. sigh.. just one peak after another to climb...
 
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