When it comes to shipping, people have a lot of questions. They want to know how to calculate the cost, how long an order takes to arrive, and how they can get a better deal on the final price of shipping. There are a lot of factors involved, so we put together this handy guide to help answer those questions.
First, let’s calculate your shipping
First thing’s first, fill your cart with your complete order. Since the shipping is determined by weight and destination, it’s important to have all the items in your cart.
Next you’ll want to fill out the shipping address. Adding the full address, rather than estimating by only the zip code, will provide the most accurate cost.
HINT: Delivering to a commercial address is less expensive than delivering to a residential address. For those who run their businesses out of their homes, this is still considered a residential address. If you have a commercial address that you can use, we suggest doing so.
Once you complete the address fields you can continue to the Shipping & Payment Options page. This will show three shipping methods to choose from: FedEx Ground, FedEx 2 Day, and FedEx Priority Overnight.
Estimate when the order will arrive
When viewing your shopping basket, you can click on “Estimate Shipping” to pull up a map. This map will show the approximate transit time for each region of the country. Please note that most of our products ship from our Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania warehouse. Orders of in-stock items placed by 2 pm Eastern will ship out that day. Anything that is in stock but received after 2 pm will ship the following business day. Some items do ship from our other warehouses and may be delayed. If you have questions about a specific item or transit time, please call 888-321-2248.
Now, let’s get that cost down
Curious as to why the shipping cost is what it is? For starters, many of the items we carry are heavy, often bulky pieces. They are not equivalent to shipping clothing, for example. Bakery boxes can weigh a lot! That’s why we include every order’s total weight in the shopping cart. Any order that weighs 200 pounds or more is eligible for a shipping discount. All you need to do is call our Customer Service representatives at 888-321-2248 and they can apply the discount to your order.
Other items aren’t too heavy, but they are bulky. Because they require a great deal of room in the FedEx truck, their shipping cost is determined by their dimensional weight, or how much space they take up.
But what about free shipping?
We get this question a lot, and for good reason. There are so many online retailers out there who offer free shipping. But is it really free? Often times the shipping fees are built in to the cost of the product in order to cover the shipping. After all, it can’t be free shipping for the retailer, right? They need to pay someone to deliver it. We believe that this is not very transparent, and here’s why: We ship most items from Pittsburgh, PA. It wouldn’t be right to charge our neighbors over in Ohio the same shipping price as we would charge to send something across the country. But when building shipping fees into the product price (and offering free shipping), this is exactly what happens.
Not finding the answers you need? Call our advisors at 888-321-2248 and they can help!
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