International Shipping - Further Clarification

Hi all!

I know there are some people still not happy with my international shipping option, since I ship priority vs. First Class mail. There are two major reasons why I just can’t do this at this time:

1.)    I print all shipping labels from home on my computer, and I schedule Pickups with USPS, so that gets rid of the need to go to the post office all togther…in doing it this way, The online label service only offers various means of Priority and express mail, but First class postage is not available. That would only be available thorough an actual postage scale, or at the post office directly. 

2.)    The reason I do not go to the post office and do all these this way, is that I have no employees that work for me…it’s just me, and Currently, I work full time during the day (M-F 9-5pm) at a Cancer research lab…so everything I do for HBSC, is completely on the side on evenings, vacation time, and my weekends. This leaves me virtually no time to run to the post office every time I need to ship something internationally, especially keeping true to my short TAT.

I really wish I could do more, and in the future, this could very well change! My hope for HBSC, is to build it up enough so that it can become a full time job…and at that point, I can make post office runs, and offer better shipping rates for internationals, etc…This IS the goal, but since only having been open for 3 months, I’m pretty happy with the progress I’ve made thus far, and just ask that my international folks don’t give up on me just yet! I know it’s still a ways off, and if you are reluctant to order because of the shipping rates, I completely understand…But, I just wanted to clarify why things are the way they are, and that it is my hope and goal that it will change in the future.

In the mean time, I can still issue invoices for anything I can possibly fit into a small flat rate box, which is the cheapest option right now. I’ve also mentioned before about padded envelopes, and why I do not wish to use them. The reason I do not like to do this for international shipments, is that if a product is damaged when it arrives, I will have people emailing me asking for replacements – this will cost me 2 products for the price of 1 every time this occurs; and obviously, once it leaves my hands, I wouldn’t have any control over how it is being handled during shipping, thus, my business could suffer for it. If I send it in a sturdy box, I am that much more confident it will arrive to you unscathed, and there is less risk of having to replace products due to damage.

I hope this helps clear things up a bit,

~Bree

xoxo