Small update. Not happy with their shipping options so far. They only allow USPS priority mail or UPS. I emailed asking if they did not offer a First Class/Ground Advantage option hoping it just wasn’t showing up because of recent USPS changes…but she said they will not be offering it.
I wrote her back and asked how do I get people to shop on this platform if I can’t have it offer competitively with my other platforms. Told her I offer free shipping on Etsy and Amazon because it’s only $4 for me to ship and it’s built in to my prices. Told her I can’t afford to give away $8 shipping. If I was to charge shipping to a customer, why would they pay $8 on Makerplace when they can get it for free on Etsy or Amazon.
I have two options I can either let it calculate rates or I can charge what I want.
Regardless of which I choose, then the next menu says I need to pick which method I’m shipping and that is where the drop down says ups or usps priority mail. I’m not even entirely sure I can purchase usps through Michael’s? I only think I can purchase ups from them. I’m not exactly sure if I buy my own label and submit a shipping label? I don’t want to deal with the headache of michaels telling a buyer it shipped priority if I only bought my own first class label.
It’s all beta right now and maybe I don’t have time to deal with this. I’m all for trying new platforms but I forget how messy beta testing can be.
I’m sure they will get lots of negative feedback on this obviously. I got on the waiting list but will have to think about this. My average item is considerably higher priced than yours and are priced for free shipping now. The average FC cost is around $4 so maybe I would just charge $4 shipping across the board and ship all Priority (Priority small box is $8.10 with free shipping box).
Yea that’s how I ended up setting it up. If I using shipstation it’s $7.60 for a flat rate envelope. I figure I will just charge $4 shipping, and ship Priority mail if they are going to be weird about this. Who even knows if offering free shipping will make a difference on this platform…I honestly can’t figure out if there is an actual “marketplace” type area to shop in or if you just get a standalone site? Going to put in the bare minimum effort for this. I’ll put my top 5 amazon sellers and my top 5 Etsy sellers in it and see where it goes.
I really also can’t imagine using this platform without some sort of integrated shipping label system.
Since things are slow I decided to tackle updating my website first - will hit this one next. Interesting what they do/don’t allow. I think I’m going to limit to things that would ship Priority Mail anyway.
For USPS, the only options are Priority and Priority Express which at a minimum adds $4 to the price of a “Free Shipping” item. They shot themselves in the foot on this. Additionally you have to buy the shipping off site. They will have little control over tracking. It will also add another step for purchasing, accounting, and tracking management.
It will be a challenge for the seller. If it wasn’t so slow right now I would be out of here. The professional plan is free for the first 4 months after the site goes live so I guess 4+ months of work is all I got to lose LOL.
This is clearly an instance where site developers needed to consult with a seasoned Amazon Handmade or Etsy seller.
This IMO is stupid. UPS seems to be their preferred and the only method you can purchase thru them. GA or First class would beat out UPS Ground in many instances. Prices will be considerably higher than Etsy or Amazon because of.
How will they handle INRs. I’m sure it will not be like Amazon or Etsy especially if you did not buy their (only) UPS service.
Returns…Sound like returns will all be at Seller expense in all cases from what I have read. I’ve read buyers may end up trying to return to Michael’s where Michael’s employees will assist them by providing a return label charged to the seller. Who knows what that will cost.
Many times I get the blank screen and have to refresh the page to get it to work. I think they pulled some AOL developers out of retirement.
I have two listings “pending review” for what ever reason. I suspect the use of “Vintage Stye” as noted up thread. While in that status, you cannot do anything with the listing… edit, delete, nothing. I put in a support request and 36 hours later, crickets, so support may be nonexistent.
You can select USPS Priority but you have to purchase it offsite, so basically if you have FC “free shipping” already baked in your prices, you could raise prices another $4 to cover Priority cost, or charge $4 for shipping. I’m gonna raise my prices by $4 for now and hope they allow GA in the future. I also hope they add USPS to purchase onsite.
By using USPS, it says: “You’ll be responsible for creating your own shipping label”
So the question is if I’m going to buy my own shipping label online somewhere or just pay the postage at the PO, why couldn’t I just pay for a USPS Ground Advantage postage to ship out the package? Why do I have to use Priority mail, if I’m able to get the package there in time?
It is possible that their system was set into play before the July 9th introduction of Ground Advantage by USPS and therefore their system was built around Priority Mail as what they considered the best option at the time of development.
I suppose you could ship whatever way you want but it looks like the customer will be shown Priority. I do not yet know how or if tracking will need to be entered or if it will be verified. If GA becomes acceptable, I will reduce prices by $4 and ship FC/GA like all other venues. With all I see so far that is wrong with their execution, I can see the beta lasting a long time.
The 2nd template has tabs for products, how to’s and whatever the third category was. Since I’m just selling products I kept the first template.
I’m curious how they will display shipment times. Not sure if they will bundle processing time with ship time. Not sure if it says on the actual listing or shipping cart if it will say priority mail or if it will just say usps? Just gotta wait to see when it goes live I suppose. Right now I’m charging $4 and they will get priority mail but if it looks like I can get away with first class I’ll drop the shipping charge and offer free shipping.
Also I’m old and set in my ways so I’ll be forever calling it first class since my brain assumes Ground is UPS (which I’m also fascinated that I am assuming “UPS ground” is trade marked and you think that usps wouldn’t be allowed to have “usps ground” because of brand confusion. Maybe adding advantage to it is enough to distinguish it?
My conspiracy brain thinks maybe it’s another way to defund the post office if they get sued by ups
I have listed one single item, which I charged a flat shipping fee of $5, in case Michaels is going to take the 7% on shipping too.
I have some heavier items, that will have to be shipped priority mail anyway, so they’ll be fine here with the same kind of price and shipping cost as on Amazon.
It took me most of today to set up the store and have one item ready to purchase. Going to take a break now and maybe list a few more items tomorrow. Hopefully won’t take as long now that I got a hang of it.
I’ll say there are quite a few questions might have to wait until “Live” or until we actually get a sale to see how the process works.
Agree, we listed three sample products today. Sunday July 30th. “Priority is noted as TWO DAY SHIPPING.” Anyone in eCommerce for more than a month knows that is not true. It is one to three days.
We intended to list larger products, that we ship by UPS and Priority. We also offer free shipping, baked in. The Selections are odd in shipping, Customer pays for Priority or UPS, yet we can click free shipping so they don’t pay.
We did do one set of simple variations (size) just to retry that. one of the variations always goes first class on other marketplaces. We shall see.
This is a beta site, they clearly need some help. I know we are happy to do so.
I chose Professional Plan for the same reason(s) as Wade. And I selected Enhanced when I went through the setup process.
I also went and changed the shipping to USPS instead of UPS, so that eliminates my issue with the variation package sizes being pre-filled.
Agree this was odd. I decided to go with $3 shipping so it would match Etsy - I figure I might have more crossover customers there and wanted my main prices to look/be the same. I added only smaller things - I’ll eat a little bit in order to have less work on the frontend in case this doesn’t take off.
"At this time we are unable to input in different shipping information for each variation. This is something that our tech team has on the list of enhancements to hopefully add in the future!
As labels being used for the orders are to be created by the seller themselves you will have the ability to edit the label for each order as a work around until we are able to add this enhancement."
I listed some small jewelry item (Small Flat rate package size) and was giving the choice of either USPS Priority Mail 3 days, or USPS Priority Express 1 day.
But I just listed a heavier folded book. It’s 4.5 lb, 10"L x 8.5"W x 6.5H package, and the only shipping choice is Priority Express 1 day. Is there any reason this package could not be shipped with Priority mail 3 days? or is this some kind of glitch?
At this point I just saved that listing as a draft, and not wanting it to go live with that kind of crazy shipping.
“Thank you for providing this! USPS recently updated their service options and we are updating MakerPlace to reflect that. USPS Ground Advantage will be available at launch so tomorrow you should see this option appear in addition to the Priority Mail Express!”
I think I’m going to leave my listings as draft until that option is there.
Going to take a break now and maybe list a few more items tomorrow. Hopefully won’t take as long now that I got a hang of it.