Friday, June 22, 2007

Free Worldwide Shipping

Ok we changed the International free shipping rules again to get even more orders to qualify. The minimum qualifying order is now just $10, which is good for one 50g (2oz) skein of yarn. Any yarn over about $7.50 per 50g, or $15 per 100g skein should qualify. At a total order value of $50 and above any yarn over $3.75 per 50g, or $7.50 per 100g should qualify. Single patterns, needles and light notions also normally qualify. Books usually do not, but may if included in a larger order with many light items, especially if the order exceeds $50.

I am sure that a few people will want free shipping on every order, so do we, unfortunately we can't do this as our margins are not sufficient to cover the expense on heavier items. At our free shipping limits, International and domestic, we do not cover our expenses. Please use our web site to determine if your order qualifies for free shipping rather than e-mail us or call the store. Simply begin the checkout process and enter your account information, you will be given a shipping estimate before any payment or credit card details are requested.

We will continue to try to improve our service and shipping policy. International shipments should now be faster and most will be free!

Shipping estimates are based on item weights in our database. We are currently checking all items for accuracy but it may be a week or two before all items have been checked.

Changes in International shipping rates mean that books and magazines can no longer be sent media mail. This has significantly increased our shipping costs on these items, in many cases the shipping costs exceed the product retail price. There is also no International surface mail, meaning large packages need to be sent by a more expensive (but faster) route. Shipping calculations are performed by a live connection to the USPS web site. We do not add a packaging or handling charge. If the calculated postage is significantly high it is our policy to issue a refund. If you have any questions regarding international shipping charges please contact us at sales@yarnandfiber.com

Free shipping is still available on all US and Canada orders, including Hawaii and Alaska for all purchases made from http://www.yarnandfiber.com/.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Checkout Confirmation Confusion

Seems like a lot of time has gone by since we first opened the Yarn and Fiber on-line store and yet we still hear of new problems, specifically difficulty during the checkout process. It is the last button press "Confirm Order" that seems to cause confusion.

On reflection the wording on the page may have confused some shoppers into believing their order had already been placed, and they happily navigated away from the page without even submitting the order.

If this happened to you, accept our apologies. If you are wondering where your misplaced order is, it is still in your shopping cart, simply revisit our site and log in to your account, you can then complete your order.

To prevent this in the future we have added a second button to the top of the page where it is more visible and added more appropriate wording.

Our checkout process, like all eCommerce sites, has a two step order process, one handled by us and the other (the payment gateway) by the bank or PayPal. We always match up orders received on our system with those reported by the payment gateway. We do not record any details of the payment itself in our system, instead we track the order by using our unique order number that is also reported, along with the transaction details, to the payment gateway, thus elminating the possibilty of losing an order. We believe this makes our checkout process very secure.

Customer satisfaction is our top priority. Rest assured that we will never double ship or double process an order. If you make a mistake in the order process (it happens to all of us from time to time) or the system fails due to connection or server problems, we will always be happy to correct it.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Do I pay Shipping on Leclerc Orders?

Leclerc recently have been clamping down on retailers who advertise Leclerc products as "discounted". They recently extended this to include an inferred discount by offering "free shipping". While we have never offered on-line discounts on Leclerc products (much as we would have liked to) we do advertise and offer "Free shipping on all products" to the US and Canada, which is a store policy and not an attempt to undersell or discount Leclerc products.

For most Leclerc products (any order over about $350 except some of the very large looms) the price DOES include free shipping (drop shipped from Leclerc). This new policy therefore effects only a few products.

Note that because Leclerc products are "drop shipped" direct from Canada we cannot automatically calculate shipping on our website.

So do we pass the shipping charge on to you? In almost all cases (continental US and Canada) there is no charge, in all other instances we will call you with an updated total to include accurate shipping charges before processing your order.

Check our web site or call 603.898.5059 for more details.

Customer Feedback

Much anticipated and awaited? Perhaps not, but to many on-line shoppers customer feedback is the only way to assess the experiences of other shoppers. We are pleased to announce that we have added customer feedback to www.yarnandfiber.com

EBay is famous for ranking buyers and sellers by feedback from others, this is possible because EBay acts as an independent mediator. Because we are an independent web site it is not possible to integrate with one of these services without using surveys and other inconveniences.

Feedback posted to our feedback forum is posted by our staff, but the content is not edited in any way (except to remove personal or order information) and is taken directly from customer order comments and e-mails.

http://yarnandfiberfeedback.blogger.com