North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[john bunker <jbunker@palermo.org>]

Some time ago there were a number of emails posted discussing shipping 
charges of nursery stock.  There was some suggestion that shipping and 
handling charges were excessive and may be used as a way of simply 
making more money for the nurseries. 

As someone who owns (cooperatively with a number of other people) a  
mail-order nursery, I thought I  might attempt to shed a little light on 
the problems of shipping trees and why it might seem so expensive.

What you may not know is that it is hugely expensive to ship trees by 
UPS.  If it were simply a matter of weight, it would be pretty straight 
forward, like most other products you might receive via mail-order. But 
this is not the case.  UPS in essense does not want our business.  They 
want to send out small-medium sized regularly-shaped packages that are 
easy to process at the shipping centers, fit easily in their trucks and 
are are easy for the delivery men to carry.

What this means for nursery owners:

Bags v Boxes. We used to ship our trees in big bags, or wrapped in brown 
paper.  The bags/paper are inexpensive and easy to use.  As of several 
years ago, UPS now adds a surcharge of $5.00 per package if the  package 
is not a box.  That alone forces nurseries to buy boxes or pay an 
additional $5 for every order.  We were paying about $1.00 per bag. Now 
we pay $2.50-5.00 per box depending on size.

Addtional handling. UPS adds a $5.00 surcharge for every package over 
60" in length.  That includes virtually any order we might send.

Residential v Commericial destination.  UPS adds another $1.00 surcharge 
for any package sent to a "residential" address. That's most customers, 
since it's those folk who tend to buy nursery stock.

Oversize 1.  If the combined lengths and widths (ie "girth") of a 
package is more than 84" and less than 108" and less than 30lbs, then 
the package is charged at 30 lbs, regardless of weight.  This means that 
for most nurseries, even very light packages of one or two tree are 
routinely being charged the 30 lb rate.

Oversize 2.  If the combined lengths and widths (ie "girth") of a 
package is greater than 108" and less than 70 lbs, then the package is 
charged at 70 lbs, regardless of weight.  This means that for most 
nurseries, larger boxes -even those that are not heavy- are charged at 
the 70 lb rate.

Combining the automatic bump up to higher rates with the forced expense 
of using boxes and the unavoidable surcharges of $5.00-6.00 per pacakge, 
you might be able to see why it looks as though you're being ripped off 
when you buy a tree.  It is quite possible that if you buy one tree, the 
actual costs of the packaging  combined with the shipping costs and 
surcharges might easily exceed the cost of the tree itself, not even 
including anything for the labor of processing the order and packing it 
up.  

And, not only that, but these charges go up and up every year. As I 
said, it appears that UPS is doing a lot to discourage nursery business.  

But, even so,  why not just figure each person's shipping charges on an 
individual basis and charge them accordingly?  It sounds equitable, but 
to do this for evey customer, with all the variables, would add even 
more expense to every order.  Someone has to figure this out, and do the 
paperwork involved in the billing. And, it's incredibly complicated. We 
do everything we can to give our customers a simple -and fair- way of 
figuring charges while at the same time not overcharging them. In the 
process, we know some customers get charged slightly more than the 
actual shipping expense and some, less.  However, every year we analyse 
our figures and it always comes out about even. We're not making money 
on shipping trees to our customers, and we're trying to be fair.

Perhaps this just sounds like a rationale for gouging customers with 
excessive shipping/handling charges.  If so, so be it.  Perhaps there 
are some companies who engage in such pratices.  But my guess is that 
not many companies are getting rich on shipping.  It's particularly 
complicated and expensive for anyone who ships trees.  I know of at 
least two mail-order nurseries who called it quits this year. This is 
not an easy business.

Sorry to be so long-winded, but perhaps this might help in the 
discussion.  

John Bunker, Coordinator, Fedco Trees  Box 520 Waterville Me 04903


-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~>
eGroups eLerts
It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free!
http://click.egroups.com/1/9698/0/_/423498/_/977146778/
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->