We’re living in an Amazon Prime world. Big retailers often offer free shipping on everything from vacuum cleaner bags to vacuum cleaners. That might lead to the question, “If those companies pay less for shipping, why can’t everybody?” Here are some answers for you:
- Shipping rates keep going up. Like way up. Every year, USPS, UPS & FedEx hike their rates. We can’t control them, even though we try to negotiate as best we can. Places like Amazon, Walmart & Target can negotiate lower rates because, well, they’re Amazon, Walmart & Target. They ship more in an hour than a small business ships in a month (probably six months). If you’re over 45 years old, you probably (occasionally) purchase stamps. You know that the going rate of a stamp is 78 cents. That’s for a thin envelope weighing a few ounces. Depending on what you purchase from us, your package may weigh anywhere from one pound to 30 pounds.
- Warehouses are everywhere for Big Box and Virtual Retailers. 92% of all Amazon Prime Members lie within a one-day ground zone of a distribution center. Barkeater Chocolates has one factory, one store and one zip code in upstate New York. Everything we ship comes from the same place. We do not rent or own warehouse space throughout the country, so all shipments are based on our origin location. Keep in mind that Amazon charges a yearly fee for this privilege, and Walmart has also rolled out a premium membership fee.
- Amazon Prime delivery van numbers are growing. According to Amazon, they have invested $4 billion to triple the size of their delivery network by 2026. That means over 4,000 US smaller cities, towns and rural areas get their orders directly from Amazon, no third party shipper needed. The idea did cross our minds…but we’d probably need more than $4 billion to create a logistics network from scratch, let alone expand it.
- Rural Delivery Costs. UPS penalizes shipments going to rural areas. We are in a rural area, and when we ship an order to another rural area, even a town 15 miles away, there is a rural delivery surcharge. It’s more expensive to ship an order to that town 15 miles away, than to New York City, which is about 230 miles away. This rural delivery surcharge has been implemented to offset the costs of delivering to regions considered expensive or difficult to access. If you live in one of those regions, the cost of your shipping will be higher.
- Ice, Ice Baby. In the Adirondacks, it can feel like winter from November to May. And while our temperatures may be perfect for shipping chocolate, your temperatures may not be, even at Christmastime. That’s why we line our boxes with insulated wrap and include ice. BUT, even with those precautions, we’ve learned that chocolate has its limits. It does not like to ride around in a big brown truck for days on end, especially to hot-weather areas such as Florida, southern Arizona or southern Texas. If your temperatures tend to be warmer than ours (and let’s face it, they probably are), you will not see an option for UPS ground. Yes, this means you are being charged more money to get your chocolates to you in 1-3 days. We know it costs more, and we wish it weren’t so, but we simply can’t have your order melting on its way to you.
- Profit margin. We don’t make money on shipping fees. Our website is configured to give you the price directly from our shipping partners. The weight of the item includes ice packs, packing materials and the shipping box itself, and even when adding in the extra lbs., we rarely break even; we actually lose a bit of money on the shipping fees, depending on the time of year and the destination. Occasionally, a customer is charged more money than necessary for shipping, and when that happens, we always refund the difference.
- Profit margin (Part 2). You might be thinking, “Why don’t you just sell your products on Amazon or Walmart?” The profit on food manufacturing is thin. The bigger the retailer, the smaller our markup. Simply put, we can’t afford to lower our prices to the point where we are charging a few pennies over our cost.
- Conclusion. The bottom line is, when purchasing products directly from a privately owned family run business, you must weigh the desire to support the business against the cost to ship the product. Handcrafted goods are (in our humble opinion) tend to be a higher quality than mass produced goods, and are often worth the price. Another note, the more you buy, the less the shipping will cost per unit. Yes, that seems like a shameless sales pitch, but it’s just math. Purchasing a single chocolate bar will cost infinitely more to ship (per product) to California, for example, than purchasing a dozen chocolate bars. Alternatively, we are growing our retail presence every day, so you can always call us to see if any of our products are sold in your area. We appreciate your business, and share your frustrations with shipping options!