H5 postage drama

[exxos]

I'm still trying to solve postage and packaging issues with all this. ..

As people may remember,The motherboards last time were shipped as a small parcel to keep prices down as much as possible. That was right on the limit of a small parcel which was why I could not ship the motherboard with any other items without increasing the box size, which basically doubled the postage cost. So it would actually work out cheaper to send two smaller packages than one larger one...

However, with the boards being assembled, I will have to package them more carefully which will just inherently increase the size to a large parcel.. This does not affect people in the UK, but anywhere outside of the UK the package goes over to a large parcel and the postage cost really ramps up. It is actually about £10 cheaper to post UPS than Parcelforce as well. So any packages outside of the UK will just have to go UPS. EU packages will be about £30-£35 and everywhere else (USA etc) will be about £45-£60 at first glance. I just thought I would forewarn people about this.

It also causes me problems because my web store is only geared up for small packages going by Royal mail. Which is why I took postage payments individually afterwards last time. Though while a lot of people paid really quick, it was difficult to keep track of everything and some people just took forever to get back to me and pay for stuff. So I would rather try think of a method to automate all this through my web store with a standard size box which will just use UPS. Which will actually cause a lot of work in booking multiple parcels via parcel2go as opposed to just let my girlfriend handle all the orders by taking them to the post office.

So what I will probably have to do is program somehow UPS prices into my store.. This is one of the reasons why these motherboards are taking such a long time to basically get done. I just want the simple case of people either buy it or don't, and everyone that buys gets it shipped without me having to keep emailing people with individual prices for postage etc. Of course figuring all this out ( plus finding prices for some custom size boxes again) Are things I just don't have time to do at the moment. Its difficult to come up with a adequate solution to all these problems

[exxos]

Looking at USA prices, it looks to be up to 1KG is £33, and up to 2KG £44.. but I assume that's without VAT.. But there is also the price of the box and packaging as well which will up it a bit more. So I think the minimum payment the USA is likely going to be £44 1KG (which will probably be enough for about three motherboards) And up to 6 motherboards will likely be £55. Those are literally the cheapest prices which they can be shipped at.

The alternative is going back to blank PCBs which can just about go as a small parcel up to 2KG.

EDIT:

Australia has a base price of £67 up to 1KG.. So probably £85 to ship up to 3 assembled boards.

[troed]

You thinking of shipping bulk to one trusted person in each region who'll then send on cheaper nationally?

/Troed

[Tomswork]

I'm ok with the shipping price will hide the bill from my wife


Tom

[exxos]

You thinking of shipping bulk to one trusted person in each region who'll then send on cheaper nationally?

I doubt anyone would want the hassle of it all. I think what would be saved in a bulk lot, would end up "lost" in paying the the "local" shipping. I think @kodak80 buys a few boards for people local to him, thats probably the best method. Though with the boards being few and dotted around the world, its not like there is anywhere to bulk ship to anyway.

[kodak80]

I am happy to help out if anyone in Australia is interested but would need to factor in the local postage process as I normally get for our local Queensland retro group and hand them over in person and we spilt the postage cost to get them here.

We are really only interested in bare PCBs here as we like the challenge of the build process so ideally, we would be still looking for bare PCBs to be shipped as before.

[exxos]

I think I've worked out the boxes..

The motherboards are 44cm x 25cm basically. Assuming 5mm thickness, plus allowing a couple turns of bubblewrap, I get it at 50cm x 30cm by about 1cm height.

So the boxes I am looking to get made are 50x30x3.5cm. Assuming 6 PCBs are shipped, its at the 2KG limit anyway, but 6 boards in 35mm height should *just* fit.

For assembled boards, assuming double height with a single layer of bubble wrap between them, 3 boards can be shipped in a box. however, 2 boxes can be taped together for 7cm height and *just* be under the small packages limit. Though its likely going to be over the 2KG limit anyway.. So it may be 5 boards max.. until I pack one up its hard to tell exactly.

If anyone wants to orders more than 6 bare boards, it would have to go as 2 separate packages, but likely still cheaper than a single package UPS anyway.

[kodak80]

Thank you @exxos for your support with this. Looks like we have a plan for shipping these that will keep postage costs as low as they can be.

[exxos]

I have just ordered the boxes, I am making them 480 x 280 x 35mm. I cannot make them larger because of limits on small packet sizes, but two boxes can be stacked for 70mm effective height.

My guesstimations is have the motherboard weight at 378g , And the box and packaging which I'm currently unsure of, I suspect to be around 150g. ~528g.. The web store generically assumes a small box weight of 70g anyway, so 458g per board basically.

Reason for all this calculation is because there is a weight limit of 2 kg for overseas. With the weight being approximately 458g per board, 2,000g max (2KG) means 2000 / 458 =4.37 pcbs (basically 4, or 2 per box) .

Basically, Overseas I can only ship up to 4 motherboards while keeping it within the small parcel boundaries. If someone wanted to order more motherboards, you would have to do a separate order, it is actually cheaper sending two small parcels and sending one larger one.

CAN I SHIP OTHER ITEMS WITH THE MOTHERBOARDS (OVERSEAS) ?
Due to many limitations last time with the H4's, I could only ship the motherboards on their own ( I could not ship other items from my store at the same time) However, this time it is possible to ship some small items in the same package but there are still some limitations.

For example if you ordered one or 2 motherboards and some chips from my store, the motherboard would be packed into one flat box, and other items would be packed in another flat box on top.. The limit is there is a maximum of 35mm height, and there has to be some packaging in that height as well.. which will probably limit the parts height to about 20mm.

This means larger items such as floppy drives, power supplies, any assembled kits, cannot be shipped at the same time as the motherboard. So the limit is basically small items such as IC's, header stripes, sockets etc.

If you want to order more than two motherboards and parts from my store, you will unfortunately still have to do two separate orders.

For those who think I can just put all this in a big box still, I cannot unless you want to ramp up the price by £60 or thereabouts. It is honestly cheaper just to do a separate order to my store for other items than make everything fit into one larger box for one shipment... And this is exactly why it was motherboards only shipment last time. Yes it sucks, but I'm trying to save you guys spending unnecessary money on postage... The amount of times I have to explain this to people is frankly unbelievable and I will probably ban you if you try to lecture me on how easy it is to ship everything in one single larger box to save costs on 2 shipments!


CAN I SHIP OTHER ITEMS WITH THE MOTHERBOARDS (UK) ?
There should be no problems for UK people to order any amount of items alongside the motherboards, but please note there may well be a few extra days delay in processing those orders.

[exxos]

ORDERING OPTIONS

There are three ordering options in the store.

* UK
* OVERSEAS 1 PCB
* OVERSEAS 2 PCBs


UK
Orders are £3 higher, because I only have small parcels price list in my web store, and confusingly, they are classified as small parcels overseas, and medium parcels within the UK. So the post is price differences lumped onto the item price as I have no other way of processing these packages without creating a huge amount of work making store changes.

As mentioned in the previous post there should be no problems in shipping other items with the motherboard, but there may well be a few extra days delay in processing.


OVERSEAS 1 PCB
All orders outside of the UK must use this option for ordering one PCB. Some small items on my store can also be shipped with a single PCB but only items below 5 mm height, which is generally chips and header strips.


OVERSEAS 2 PCBs
Overseas wanting to order 2 motherboards must use this option as the weight has been calculated for one single box. If you order 2 PCBs in the above option, the weight will be about 220g heavier because you will be basically buying two boxes..And this may well increase the postage costs unnecessarily.


Overseas can also order 3 PCBs but no more.. And the one PCB option of including some other small items is still valid as two boxes will then be used there will be a few millimetres space in the second box.

For those people who manage to screw this up, I am not going to be messing about cancelling and letting people reorder different options as it just takes too much time. So I am going to call it "idiot tax" and we will leave it at that

There is currently no date for when items will be shipped, it may well not happen until after Christmas. So if you order other items, they will not be shipped Until the full order is completed.

EDIT:
I forgot to mention, if you are ordering parts with the motherboard, please remember there is minimal packaging on this option, and if you are ordering a lot of parts, it may still be better to do a separate order as the parts will have more packaging around them.

WEBSTORE

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/#0199