Shipping & Handling
Shipping and handling charges are one of the main sore spots between mail/internet-order merchants and customers. The customer thinks that the merchant is overcharging, but the merchant can't do anything to lower the cost of the shipping services. Here are the facts about shipping & handling:
Boxes and styrofoam peanuts are not free. For average-sized mail order items, a box and tape and styrofoam peanuts cost the merchant $1 or $2. Those boxes don't grow on shelves; merchants have to buy them from companies like ULINE, and they generally cost $0.75 to $1.75 per box, even if you buy them hundreds at a time. That's before there's even an address on the label, and that's assuming there is a box company close enough to the merchant that he/she doesn't have to pay the whopping freight shipping costs of bales of flat boxes. If the boxes have to be shipped to the merchant, the shipping can easily add 25% or more to the end cost of the boxes.
Orders do not pack or ship themselves. Somebody has to fill each order, package it, weight it, and label it for shipping. There is no automated robot conveyor belt system that does all this, and the people who do it instead have got to be paid. Per order this costs very little, but it still adds $0.25 - $1 to the total cost of getting the item from point A to point B.
Shipping rates start high and then get lower as you add to an order. One item orders go in one box. Multiple item orders generally go in one box, too. That means that shipping multiple items costs much less per item than shipping just one. Shipping one set of coffee filters costs about $4, but shipping 10 sets of coffee filters only costs about $5. Why just $1 more? Because they can all go in the same box from the same order, and they don't weigh much.
Shipping & Handling charges are NON-REFUNDABLE. The shipping money leaves the merchant's possession the moment the package is shipped.
Most TealCo.net packages are shipped USPS at this time and take 3 to 10 days to arrive.
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