# Suppliers and Couriers



## Braki (4/3/18)

This is picking my brain since I placed an order with a DIY supplier on Friday. 

Why is it if I buy from certain suppliers that the courier company charges a normal R75 to deliver to me in Saldanha and with some other suppliers its R150.00. RAM and The Courier Guy do deliveries in Saldanha/Langebaan every single day. So surely we are not classified as outlying anymore.

I don't understand it. Will it be easier to organise my own courier account then?

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## Raindance (4/3/18)

Braki said:


> This is picking my brain since I placed an order with a DIY supplier on Friday.
> 
> Why is it if I buy from certain suppliers that the courier company charges a normal R75 to deliver to me in Saldanha and with some other suppliers its R150.00. RAM and The Courier Guy do deliveries in Saldanha/Langebaan every single day. So surely we are not classified as outlying anymore.
> 
> I don't understand it. Will it be easier to organise my own courier account then?


From what I can gather some base "outlying" on the distance from their regional hub. 

Regards

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## Mida Khan (4/3/18)

It generally depends on the area, the safety of the area (this does affect the cost), the weight of the items, the speed of shipping e.g. same day, overnight and the method e.g. counter to counter or door to door etc.

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## Hooked (4/3/18)

@Braki I'm in Yzerfontein and I'm ALWAYS classified as an outlying area, even though I'm not far from Langebaan!

The delivery costs get to me too, especially when you want to place a small order. I've spoken about this on
https://www.ecigssa.co.za/buying-juice-online-pet-peeves.t47378/

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## RainstormZA (4/3/18)

Braki said:


> This is picking my brain since I placed an order with a DIY supplier on Friday.
> 
> Why is it if I buy from certain suppliers that the courier company charges a normal R75 to deliver to me in Saldanha and with some other suppliers its R150.00. RAM and The Courier Guy do deliveries in Saldanha/Langebaan every single day. So surely we are not classified as outlying anymore.
> 
> I don't understand it. Will it be easier to organise my own courier account then?


I also wondered the same thing too. Now I'm paying R95 with 3 companies who seem to use the same courier co, which is cheap, considering I live in an outlying area as well. 

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

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## Braki (5/3/18)

Mida Khan said:


> It generally depends on the area, the safety of the area (this does affect the cost), the weight of the items, the speed of shipping e.g. same day, overnight and the method e.g. counter to counter or door to door etc.



I completely understand this. But The Courier Guy delivers from Supplier A @ R75 and from Supplier B @ R150. This is not making sense.

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## TheV (5/3/18)

Braki said:


> I completely understand this. But The Courier Guy delivers from Supplier A @ R75 and from Supplier B @ R150. This is not making sense.


This would be because of a combination of agreement between the supplier and the courier... and of course markup (I would imagine).

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## BumbleBee (5/3/18)

There are quite a few variables at play here like location, volumes and courier pricing tiers (packages). Some vendors will put a markup on their delivery charges, usually the extra cost is to cover packaging material etc. Some vendors are smaller than others so will fall into a different pricing tier with the courier company so will pay more for their services, some of these (or even the bigger retailers) will "subsidize" the cost of shipping to be more competitive. In other words, they will pay the courier more than they are charging the customer.

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## Braki (5/3/18)

BumbleBee said:


> There are quite a few variables at play here like location, volumes and courier pricing tiers (packages). Some vendors will put a markup on their delivery charges, usually the extra cost is to cover packaging material etc. Some vendors are smaller than others so will fall into a different pricing tier with the courier company so will pay more for their services, some of these (or even the bigger retailers) will "subsidize" the cost of shipping to be more competitive. In other words, they will pay the courier more than they are charging the customer.



Thank you @BumbleBee for the explanation. I was hoping one of the suppliers will have an answer. Appreciate it. Will just have to live with the consequences of living in a small town.

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## Raindance (5/3/18)

Braki said:


> Thank you @BumbleBee for the explanation. I was hoping one of the suppliers will have an answer. Appreciate it. Will just have to live with the consequences of living in a small town.


@Braki, would gladly pay more for postage if it meant i avoid the daily morning and afternoon traffic jam which is my commute to work and back. 

Regards

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## Braki (5/3/18)

Raindance said:


> @Braki, would gladly pay more for postage if it meant i avoid the daily morning and afternoon traffic jam which is my commute to work and back.
> 
> Regards



Luckily I don't have that problem anymore as I work from home now

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## ShaneW (5/3/18)

Hi Guys

The Courier Guy charges us R114 (R100 ex VAT) to deliver to Saldanha (From Cape Town). They still consider this an outlying area, I assume because the deliveries going that way are not enough to charge otherwise. We subsidise all of our deliveries - we are charging R99 but getting charging R114. For our local same-day deliveries we charge R40 but are being charged R51.30 we do this purely to remain competitive and to stimulate the online side of the business for consumables like juice and coils. We have a higher 'free delivery' barrier (R1500) to counter this so the customers placing smaller orders can also benefit.

Each courier company has different rates, we use TCG mostly for their service but also their pricing, out of all the companies we have tried they are by the far the most reliable.

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## Braki (5/3/18)

ShaneW said:


> Hi Guys
> 
> The Courier Guy charges us R114 (R100 ex VAT) to deliver to Saldanha (From Cape Town). They still consider this an outlying area, I assume because the deliveries going that way are not enough to charge otherwise. We subsidise all of our deliveries - we are charging R99 but getting charging R114. For our local same-day deliveries we charge R40 but are being charged R51.30 we do this purely to remain competitive and to stimulate the online side of the business for consumables like juice and coils.
> 
> Each courier company has different rates, we use TCG mostly for their service but also their pricing, out of all the companies we have tried they are by the far the most reliable.



So its basically like @BumbleBee also said. Suppliers "subsidize" some of the cost to stay competitive. Now I have a lot more respect for those who do this.

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## BumbleBee (5/3/18)

ShaneW said:


> Hi Guys
> 
> The Courier Guy charges us R114 (R100 ex VAT) to deliver to Saldanha (From Cape Town). They still consider this an outlying area, I assume because the deliveries going that way are not enough to charge otherwise. We subsidise all of our deliveries - we are charging R99 but getting charging R114. For our local same-day deliveries we charge R40 but are being charged R51.30 we do this purely to remain competitive and to stimulate the online side of the business for consumables like juice and coils. We have a higher 'free delivery' barrier (R1500) to counter this so the customers placing smaller orders can also benefit.
> 
> Each courier company has different rates, we use TCG mostly for their service but also their pricing, out of all the companies we have tried they are by the far the most reliable.


Yip, we're on the same rate table.

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## Humbolt (5/3/18)

ShaneW said:


> Hi Guys
> 
> The Courier Guy charges us R114 (R100 ex VAT) to deliver to Saldanha (From Cape Town). They still consider this an outlying area, I assume because the deliveries going that way are not enough to charge otherwise. We subsidise all of our deliveries - we are charging R99 but getting charging R114. For our local same-day deliveries we charge R40 but are being charged R51.30 we do this purely to remain competitive and to stimulate the online side of the business for consumables like juice and coils. We have a higher 'free delivery' barrier (R1500) to counter this so the customers placing smaller orders can also benefit.
> 
> Each courier company has different rates, we use TCG mostly for their service but also their pricing, out of all the companies we have tried they are by the far the most reliable.


Wow, respect!

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## Stephanus Kotze (5/3/18)

Braki said:


> I completely understand this. But The Courier Guy delivers from Supplier A @ R75 and from Supplier B @ R150. This is not making sense.


Supplier A probably runs a pre-paid account with Courier guys and supplier B could run another type of account (maybe ad-hoc quote and cost). Prepaid (maintaining a certain credit balance in Courier Guy account) costs money to set up for a supplier but the fees are generally cheaper

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## ShaneW (5/3/18)

Stephanus Kotze said:


> Supplier A probably runs a pre-paid account with Courier guys and supplier B could run another type of account (maybe ad-hoc quote and cost). Prepaid (maintaining a certain credit balance in Courier Guy account) costs money to set up for a supplier but the fees are generally cheaper



Spot on, we use their pre paid option as it has cheaper delivery costs

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## Vaperite South Africa (7/3/18)

We also subsidise the courier cost. We have a flat rate R100 to anywhere in South Africa. At one point MDS were charging us over R200 to some outlying areas and we still charged R100. We have now gone back to Courier Guy. All orders of R1000 or more get free shipping so we also eat that cost

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## RivasCB (11/3/18)

Courier prices are such a struggle, so I have been working on my throwing arm and will hopefully within the next year or so be able to launch parcel's from PTA to outlying areas no problem!

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## Hooked (12/3/18)

One of these days our Vape Mail might be delivered by drones.

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## sbradleypalmer (15/1/19)

To add to this thread another thing to take into consideration is the different courier companies have different depots in different areas. 
Some have more main centers and that charge is lower than a regional charge. 
@BumbleBee is correct in saying that packaging and pricing tiers are taken into account as it justifies especially how many times a courier has to go into a certain area. 
Imagine picking up from a client in a regional area only 1 parcel a day. It costs the courier company money however if they picking up 50 parcels a day it is filling that vehicle. 
So a larger courier company with 14/15 main centers but 120 depots is going to deliver your parcel anywhere and have cheaper rates to more main centers. 
Generally the only way to really pay for where you are is to have a web platform like Shopify with an API plug-in that pulls through your address. Even then the shop owner can mark up the shipping & still have tiered pricing

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