Cheapest way to ship chalk?

iusedtoberich

iusedtoberich

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I'm going to be selling a 3D printed chalk holder for Taom chalk I designed and refined over the past year (NOT in this thread). I sold 10 of them in 5 minutes at the Int Open two weeks ago, and figured I'd make a large batch and see how they sell (and if it's worth the hassle...).

I'm a pirateship member, and the cheapest price I found is about $5 USPS for a 6x4x3" box at 10 oz. The holder itself ways .1 oz. I also tried a 7x5x2 box, and the price was the same.

I'm seeing conficting results if I can put this in a bubble mailer and ship it with USPS stamps based on the weight, instead of shipping as a package with a label. That would be about $1 in stamps. The thickness would be about .75 inches, which I think may be too thick.

Has anyone ever shipped individual pieces of chalk (a lot, not one time), and found the most economical way to do it?

Thanks.
 
You never mentioned if it is domestic or international. If it is domestic then you can build the $8 USPS priority shipping into your retail price. If it is international then the cheapest but by far most unreliable and time consuming is USPS, which doesn’t allow you to pay VAT or customs for your customer. Depending on the country it could take 2 months, no joke. I’ve had success with DHL, but my estimate is that your cost would be about $50 minimum for shipping.

Have you thought about Amazon? If you sell for x3 of your MCOG then you double your money roughly. They handle everything for you and I think it is worth it. You can also send products to other countries, for example, the UK, and it can sell through the Amazon store there. That saves Europeans on shipping costs.

The point is if you have a full time job then it is worth paying a company like Amazon 18% or so to deal with the logistics rather than you doing it when you get home. It eats up a lot of time you can be using to make another product and grow.
 
I’ve received guitar pedals well thicker 3/4” in bubble mailers before, if it fits in the envelope it’s probably fine. Maybe try one as a test. As a taom chalk user…I volunteer as tribute :)
 
If you can stay right around 3/4" thick you can do first class mail.

First-Class Mail Fact Sheet

about.usps.com

Large Envelopes (Flats)

The single-piece 1-ounce rate for large envelopes (flats) is $0.80.
The maximum size for large envelopes is 15" x 12" x 3/4" thick.
The maximum weight for large envelopes is 13 ounces. A large envelope exceeding 13 ounces is classified as a Priority Mail item.
When a First-Class Mail item exceeds any one of the maximum measurements of a large envelope, it is classified and priced as a package (parcel).
When a flat-size piece of mail is a box or has contents that make the mailpiece rigid, it is classified and priced as a package.
All large envelopes (flats) must be rectangular. “Rectangular” includes square-shaped pieces.

Packages (Parcels)
 
Sheldon said:
If you can stay right around 3/4" thick you can do first class mail.

First-Class Mail Fact Sheet

about.usps.com

Large Envelopes (Flats)

The single-piece 1-ounce rate for large envelopes (flats) is $0.80.
The maximum size for large envelopes is 15" x 12" x 3/4" thick.
The maximum weight for large envelopes is 13 ounces. A large envelope exceeding 13 ounces is classified as a Priority Mail item.
When a First-Class Mail item exceeds any one of the maximum measurements of a large envelope, it is classified and priced as a package (parcel).
When a flat-size piece of mail is a box or has contents that make the mailpiece rigid, it is classified and priced as a package.
All large envelopes (flats) must be rectangular. “Rectangular” includes square-shaped pieces.

Packages (Parcels)
Click to expand...

Actually, in the OP's position First Class Mail would not be an option. You are correct as to the large envelope size and weight requirements, but there is also a requirement that the piece be flexible and "of uniform thickness". I noticed that your link refers to a postal service bulletin from 2007, and maybe the uniform size requirement was added later. That requirement appears on the current USPS website.

In these instances USPS Ground Advantage would be the next most economical choice. I ship similar packages daily, and use Ground Advantage for all of them. I ship through eBay's shipping system which has nearly identical rates to Pirate Ship, and a 9x6x2 bubble mailer weighing up to 4 ounces ships from Wisconsin for between $4.17 and $4.56 depending on the destination state.

I'm hoping that with the changing of the guard in Washington these prices will drop about a dollar over the next couple of years. According to my old cost tracking records this same package shipped for between $2.76 and $3.24 in January of 2017, but it has risen steadily over the past 4 four years, right in line with fuel prices.
 
nataddrho said:
You never mentioned if it is domestic or international. If it is domestic then you can build the $8 USPS priority shipping into your retail price. If it is international then the cheapest but by far most unreliable and time consuming is USPS, which doesn’t allow you to pay VAT or customs for your customer. Depending on the country it could take 2 months, no joke. I’ve had success with DHL, but my estimate is that your cost would be about $50 minimum for shipping.

Have you thought about Amazon? If you sell for x3 of your MCOG then you double your money roughly. They handle everything for you and I think it is worth it. You can also send products to other countries, for example, the UK, and it can sell through the Amazon store there. That saves Europeans on shipping costs.

The point is if you have a full time job then it is worth paying a company like Amazon 18% or so to deal with the logistics rather than you doing it when you get home. It eats up a lot of time you can be using to make another product and grow.
Click to expand...
Great points about Amazon. I didn't even think of that. Yeah, I'd be totally fine giving up even 50% margin if I didn't have to lift a finger except to ship Amazon a few hundred in a big box.

I think retail price would be $5-$10 range, so adding $5-$8 more on top of that might be too much I think for the end consumer to pay.

I was also thinking the next pro tournament I go to to bring a box of 100 and offer them to the retailers there as a bulk price, then let them sell them for whatever price they want.

If the shipping (by me) does turn out to be $5 range, it might make sense to offer 2-3 in the same box for a reduced per-piece price to the end consumer.
 
Yeah, the official stuff I was reading from USPS says 1/4" max, and uniform thickness, in order to go through the sorting machines for envelopes. If not, then its treated as a package and the price goes up to the $5 range.

Then on some reddit posts, some guy claiming he worked at USPS says the sorting machines have a gate on them that is 1/2" tall, and it will rip anything near that height.

Then further posts say some people are successful anyway.

I think I'll try a few shipping to myself in a bubble mailer with 3 stamps, or if anyone wants to try, send me your address and I'll ship one. No promises!
 
slide13 said:
I’ve received guitar pedals well thicker 3/4” in bubble mailers before, if it fits in the envelope it’s probably fine. Maybe try one as a test. As a taom chalk user…I volunteer as tribute :)
Click to expand...
But were the thick bubble mailers shipped First Class?

Ground Advantage may be the most economical option.
 
iusedtoberich said:
Yeah, the official stuff I was reading from USPS says 1/4" max, and uniform thickness, in order to go through the sorting machines for envelopes. If not, then its treated as a package and the price goes up to the $5 range.

Then on some reddit posts, some guy claiming he worked at USPS says the sorting machines have a gate on them that is 1/2" tall, and it will rip anything near that height.

Then further posts say some people are successful anyway.

I think I'll try a few shipping to myself in a bubble mailer with 3 stamps, or if anyone wants to try, send me your address and I'll ship one. No promises!
Click to expand...
Saw your other thread - I'd be interested in one!
 
no patent and all the other billiard retailers will be getting boxes of them to sell from china.

you might as well get in on the action and sell through them. or through their distributor.
let them do the advertising for you and you get 50% of retail.
 
maha said:
no patent and all the other billiard retailers will be getting boxes of them to sell from china.

you might as well get in on the action and sell through them. or through their distributor.
let them do the advertising for you and you get 50% of retail.
Click to expand...
This is def not something worth patenting!
 
maha said:
no patent and all the other billiard retailers will be getting boxes of them to sell from china.

you might as well get in on the action and sell through them. or through their distributor.
let them do the advertising for you and you get 50% of retail.
Click to expand...
Patents do not protect you from infringement. This is a very common misconception.

There is no law that states marketed intellectual property can not be copied. No one will be arrested. It is up to the patent holder to challenge infringement themselves through litigation, which costs 20x the cost of the patent itself, at least.

Small businesses have no recourse for infringement because it is too expensive. Only large companies sue over IP.

A much better strategy is to be first to market and move quickly to keep innovating and staying ahead of the competition.

Patents for small businesses are only good because 1. This misconception exists and most people who don’t understand patents are scared by them which is advantageous and 2. They show manufacturers and investors that you are serious. 3. They are otherwise a trophy.
 
I have my name on 6-10 patents (lost count) from my large corporate dayjob 15 years ago. It's a complete waste of everyone's time, IMO. It only makes money for the lawyers, no one else. I'd never get a patent as an entrepreneur, even if someone else footed the bill. About all they were good for is framing them and placing in my office cube when I was younger. I threw all the frames in the trash later.
 
iusedtoberich said:
I have my name on 6-10 patents (lost count) from my large corporate dayjob 15 years ago. It's a complete waste of everyone's time, IMO. It only makes money for the lawyers, no one else. I'd never get a patent as an entrepreneur, even if someone else footed the bill. About all they were good for is framing them and placing in my office cube when I was younger. I threw all the frames in the trash later.
Click to expand...
It depends on the patent and the field. Sometimes they are important bargaining chips. I used to work for Hewlett-Packard. One of our major competitors was Tektronix. We each had patented essential components of a mutual product area. We then cross-licensed the components to each other. I think there was a periodic discussion of who owed whom how much money for that year.

Fundamental patents, such as the original patent for integrated circuits, can make a company a great deal of money in licensing. A current hot area is gene/DNA stuff and the right patent there could be worth billions.

But most of the patents I've seen are as you say: nothing but wall decorations. About half of mine were actually useful.

(For techno-types: One common HP/Tek field was oscilloscopes. Tek invented a sweep trigger circuit using tunnel diodes and HP invented travelling-wave electron beam deflection plates. Each of these gave about a factor of two improvement over scopes that didn't have them.)
 
a patent can "help" keep amazon or ebay from selling an exact copy of it and of course the notable billiard supply companies. other wise you are right about them for low value inventions.
 
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You can patent your ideas yourself for a low cost. This is what I did:
  1. First, build your idea to prove its value. Don't do anything if you can't even build a prototype.
  2. Start by making vectorized drawings of your product
  3. Draft out your claims, as accurately as possible
  4. File a provisional application online for $100.
  5. You now have secured a filing date. Spend a weekend or two within the next year and write a non-provisional patent application.
  6. Spend $400 to file it when you are ready.
  7. You now have "patent-pending status". Go talk to manufacturers and investors, and demo your product.
  8. Wait almost 2 years.
  9. Work with the examiner, who will reject your application a few times. Schedule a phone call and talk to them, which is always a good idea.
  10. Pay $200 something when you are granted.
The total cost is around $800, which is very little money. One spin of custom PCBs is around $1k, and the cost of an LLC in Mass. is $500 per year, for perspective. It isn't bad at all, you just need to learn how to write with the correct phrasing.

The true value of the process was when you were working with other people and were able to show patent-pending status. If it actually gets granted, then you now own property you made out of thin air. And if the product has value you can sell your property for many times more than $800. Not a bad investment.
 
maha said:
a patent can "help" keep amazon or ebay from selling an exact copy of it and of course the notable billiard supply companies. other wise you are right about them for low value inventions.
Click to expand...
Yes this is true. But if you have people copying your idea, this is very very good. It means your idea has a lot of value. It is very rare that a knock-off outsells the original, so it isn't worth worrying about in the beginning.
 
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