In an effort to keep my name good I will do some explaining.
Yes, we do charge a 5% fee with each international transaction. this is because we are charged 3.5% by PAYPAL for each transaction coming from a foreign country. Below is an example of a recent transaction from Australia: If you do the math it comes out just under 3.5%. Do I make a few dollars on the shipping fee, yes. I charge $16.00 for the fee and it cost me $13.25 for a small flat rate.
You have to look at it from my perspective; faucets and shanks are my LEAST profitable items I keep them price so low in the hope that it will bring people to my site and they purchase something else.
Example: If you purchased 4-525's and I did not charge the 5% fee and 13.25 for shipping I would make in the neighborhood of $9.50 and that before I spend time and money driving to the post office to drop off your package. When we ship international packages I have to go to the post office. With the fees I make maybe another $5.00.
I've sold to a lot of people in Australia without question and have had tons of positive feedback, so we will gladly continue to do business with those of you who want to do business with us and don't mind the small fees.
Thanks,
John
Hi John,
For me it was not a question about your good name, or your reputation, or the cheap price of the product, however the reason I asked about the extra surcharge in this thread is that (in the past it seems) it was charged to some people and not others. It might be a new thing, but it is not listed, explained or outlined on your website, and since you did not reply to my email, it was easier to ask people who had made purchases in the past.
While the numbers you have quoted are correct,
it is not the full story,
every single transaction on your website, that you send through the PayPal gateway (which is the only way that any customer can pay online) has a 2.5% fee.
'Currency conversion' transactions have a 3.5% fee (
which is what you have shown above), however this is
only 1% more than the usual fees you pay on every transaction.
I have no issue with you making money, and I realize that shipping stuff Internationally is not as easy for you, my objection was that the fee was not explained anywhere on your site or in email before it was charged, and that you are using a 1% increase from PayPal to justify a 5% extra charge.
If there was an "
International surcharge" explained on the website, if the fee was open, transparent (and honest), and you simply said the charge was to cover extra PayPal costs
and the extra trouble that you have to go to for International customers, then I don't have a problem with that.
(Or if you charged extra charge for every customer to cover the PayPal costs.)
The strange thing with PayPal fees is that it's possible for an International customer to send you money via a 'personal transaction' and be charged only a 1% fee, which is
less than the usual 2.5% on every 'normal' transaction, this means that you'd actually save money on the PayPal fees from International customers and the extra 1.5% might make it worth the effort of driving down to the PostOffice for you.
