Support Center/Announcements/Announcements
Updated Fulfillment Instructions and US Rate Card
Brad Barrish
posted this on June 03, 2012 02:35 pm
Our new relationship with Alliance is going to mean better rates and delivery times for your customers. Please take a moment to download the latest Topspin Fulfillment Instructions (direct .ZIP download link), which you can always access by going to Fulfill > Fulfillment Settings in the Topspin application. New rates and shipping methods will go into effect on June 25, 2012. Here's an overview of the changes:
Domestic Standard Mail via USPS
We will switch to offer this service only for weights up to 5lbs. The rates for this service are cheaper than the USPS Priority Mail rates, but with a more centralized shipping location, which reduces the overall transit time. The new transit time will be 3-5 days, compared with the previous transit times of 5-10 postal days.
Domestic Priority Mail via USPS
No change here. Your customers will have the choice to select Priority Mail, but in most cases domestic Standard Mail will be less expensive and arrive in almost the same time.
Domestic Next Day via USPS
Next Day will be sent via UPS for their cost savings and delivery guarantees. We previously used USPS Express. There is significant savings using this service, which might allow customers to choose this option more often.
International Standard Mail via DHL Global Mail
DHL Global Mail will now be the default for international shipments. The cost will be virtually the same as USPS International Standard Mail, but the service will be much faster with better tracking. The service will now be 4-8 business days all over the world (compared to 7-21 days). It will also be even faster (4-5 days) to Canada, UK and EU countries such as France and Germany.
International Priority Mail via USPS
We won't be offering this any longer due to the speed of DHL Global Mail.
Express International Service via UPS
All international express shipments will be handled by UPS.
Questions about any of this? Leave a comment, file a ticket or hit us up on live chat if you're a Plus or Enterprise customer.
Comments
I don't have the old rate card in front of me, but it seems like the shipping rate to consumers went up with this move. Shipping on a CD used to cost $5.69....on the new rate card, it says it costs $6.38. Could you provide some more insight into how the rates are changing?
Hi Jason. I probably should have explained things a little more thoroughly. It's always a fine balance between too much info (TL;DR) and too little, so this is a great forum to discuss this sort of thing in a little more detail. The shipping rate to send a CD hasn't been in the $5 range for some time (over 6 months ago). Since then USPS has changed their rates and we recently added the $0.50 customer service fee. The switch to Alliance did not increase the rate to ship a single CD. The vast majority of rates have either stayed the same or dropped in price, though a few of them have gone up slightly, generally less than $0.25. The only real exception is next day service for single items is more expensive due to the fact that UPS Next Day Air has a single rate for anything 1 lbs. and under. It doesn't go by oz. like the other services and rate cards do. International Express is cheaper, and in some cases over $10 cheaper (!!). As I mentioned in the email, everything now ships quite a bit faster to customers. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks for the quick reply, Brad! I based the "old" rate in my post from the estimate that the App gave me on a single CD product. Maybe that was only a rough estimate, or it was based on old USPS rates. I forgot that USPS rates just went up recently. Stinkin' post office! Glad to know Alliance's rates did not actually go up from Audiolife's.
On the subject of shipping, are there any plans (or even discussions) about letting Topspin users offer Free Shipping on certain products, or on shopping carts of "X or higher" ? I imagine it's not an easy thing to figure out, but I am certain that if artists had the ability to run free-shipping promotions, they'd have better-performing stores. As long as the artist is on the hook for the shipping costs, and it's their responsibility to make sure they sell enough to cover their costs. Thoughts?
Happy to clarify. It was a good question.
RE: free shipping - It's not something that has come up in conversation or been discussed at any point, either internally or with Alliance. An artist could theoretically do it, but they would need to fulfill themselves. Given that Alliance makes some amount of money on shipping and handling and incurs costs for receiving and storage, I don't imagine they would be open to something like that.