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Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

In general I don’t mind ordering direct philosophically, but here are the practical things that you (as a generalized direct seller) can do to make that more attractive:

1. Make it not cost more to me. I don’t care what your costs are, but I do care what mine are. If I find my way to your shop and have my wallet open, that’s the time to be cost-competitive, not to tack on a $7.95 shipping and processing fee (unless your product price is $8 less).

2. Give reasonable assurance that customer care, if needed, will be about as accommodating as A2Z.

3. Give reasonable payment options. Some people want PayPal. Others hate them. Personally, in part because of #2, I often use them.

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> Make it not cost more to me.

Seriously. I just ordered an item from Amazon because white the manufacturer's price was $6 less, they wanted $45 for shipping, while Amazon's was free.

I have to wait nine days, but it isn't that urgent, and I'll wait nine days to save $39 (the item itself is only $119, so $39 is quite a lot extra).

$45 for shipping!?

Probably international. I see this kind of gap regularly when comparing buying from Amazon v.s. directly from the supplier. Internet stores are surprisingly bad (for whatever reason) at pricing international shipping competitively.

IMO it’s FedEx and UPS that are bad at it. I looked at shipping a few pound box from Chicago to Germany on the cheapest intl shipping option FedEx offered a few years ago (on a corporate account no less) and it was $200+ IIRC. Unless you’re doing millions per year with them, they seem to not want your business.

(Comparison is that I can ship a mountain bike across the US for $50, no big deal.)

Internet stores are surprisingly bad (for whatever reason) at pricing international shipping competitively.

Small businesses are stuck with what the big shippers charge for international shipping (and shipping in general). You basically don't qualify for negotiated rates with the shippers until you are spending five figures minimum per month for shipping, and you don't qualify for good shipping rates until you're spending six figures minimum per month. We ship enough with FedEx to have a dedicated rep, and even then are international discounts are minimal (although our domestic discounts are sizable).

What's sometimes a bummer, though, ordering internationally that there's often only the option of a shipping company.

I wouldn't mind using the Post Office option and waiting a couple of weeks. But paying 40-60$ just for shipping is often the deal killer.

Yup. This was on monoproce for their cheapest option. Which probably would have only come a day sooner anyway.

If you ever need bulk speaker wire, we’ve gotcha covered on all three points!

I genuinely appreciate that you’re avoiding mentioning your company name in your news.yc contributions.

In this case, I am in the market for copper speaker wire but can’t find your company name in a quick read of your comment history or a google of toasterlovin.

Would you mind sharing it? ;)

Our brand name is Next. You can find us on Amazon or at shop-next.com. I think you’d be pretty happy installing our wire in your home, office, bar, etc.

You realizing shipping price is a completely artificial construct?

Amazon doesn’t magically have power to ship things for free.

You’ve been paying more for items on Amazon because of “free shipping”.

I care about total landed price.

The seller can split it up however they want, but I’m going to look at the final total, especially when I’m comparison shopping buying “this one thing from vendor A” vs “that same thing from vendor Z”.

Then why make a bunch of noise about shipping price when you meant landed price?

Amazon has enchanted the world with their “prime” badge. Enchantments rarely end in the enchantee’s best interest.

> Amazon has enchanted the world with their “prime” badge.

I’d say it was more the 24 hour delivery, immense selection and outstanding no fuss returns policy. That has enchanted people.

None of us are happy Amazon has such a monopoly but it was won fair and square.

Amazon is actively using their data collection on sales to determine where to get into the market, putting other sellers and manufacturers out of business. This isn't what I'd call "fair". I don't believe this is illegal but it certainly seems it should be.

It's totally fair. If you can't differentiate against a retailer's house brand, you don't really deserve to be in business (I say this as a business owner that competes against Amazon's house brand).

I said “make it not cost more to me”. Seems clear enough, but my apologies if it was not.

It was plenty clear.

Amazon has insanely cheap shipping rates. I sell on Amazon and we use Amazon for fulfillment. The rates they charge us for shipping are so incredibly good. We would need to do insane volumes to achieve their rates, but they would still be more expensive because their rates include customer service and returns. It's nuts.

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