12 replies to this topic

[DAP]

Found this while sourcing an uncommon item (breast feeding brochures) from a supplier founded in 2001. (Better Life Line-CT).
$10(G) charge for 3rd Party Shipping.
Never used them before and probably won't.
Is this a sign of times to come? Was my speech on industry standard practices wasted? lol

[royster13]

It is common and now starting to see no Third Party shipping or no Third Party shipping unless it is on distributor's courier account....Too many charge backs...But this is not the same as blind shipping.....

[jimknecht]

Royce is correct, blind shipping has nothing to do with who pays the bill.

I think you are seeing this extra charge because 3rd party billing can take away from a supplier's profit, if they were adding extra to the freight charge. Keep in mind, us shippers have all sorts of extra fees besides the basic freight. Besides weekly pickup fees there are fees if we are given the wrong address. We can't really reinvoice for that.

[Chris Miller]

We've seen suppliers getting paranoid about this lately too. Apparently it's real easy for end users to charge back shipping charges that have been added to their shipper accounts and real hard for suppliers to then recover that cost. One thing we keep hearing in this situation is "If your customer refuses to pay the UPS bill later, it will become your responsibility"

Like Royce and Jim have already pointed out though, this is not the same as blind shipping. Your supplier doesn't want to use YOUR customer's UPS account because they are left holding the bag way too often.

Better Life Line is a fine supplier... I sure wouldn't go culling them from your list.

Jim - Are you seeing this at all? End users not paying when you're billing to their accounts?

[jimknecht]

Chris Miller, on 03 February 2012 - 12:27 AM, said:

Jim - Are you seeing this at all? End users not paying when you're billing to their accounts?

Yes, but not just end users. We see this when the charges are billed to the distributor's account too. Seems like sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Maybe the salesman doesn't tell accounting to look for this... I do not know.

I just know it is a big pain, when two weeks after shipping and invoicing that we get a bill from UPS or FedEx charging big bucks for an address correction. In that situation, especially when we shipped on someone else account, we have to generate a whole new invoice, otherwise that is dollars out of my pocket. With normal, shipping, I don't worry about doing so, as we build in a little extra charges by shipping everything as residential. That does two things. It keeps us from getting a chargeback if we chose business but it ends up being residential. Other thing it does is gives us a few dollars to handle all these address corrections and other fees. By no means is shipping a profit center for us. I just don't want to make it a loss center.

[3Koi Maui]

Funny thing, sometimes when we try to alert a supplier that the destination is residential, they still ship as if to commercial, and then probably fume when the correction comes in.

We note on our PO, and even in the SHIP TO we put "NOTE: RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS"
We can tell when someone isn't paying attention when that note is right there on the label, as if it was a note for the recipient, and not the shipping department.

What to do? Not all suppliers seem to actually read the PO. I know Dooley does, as when I visited their facility I saw/heard them double checking and reading each order out loud!

[DAP]

Maybe I used wrong terminology but when I called factory for information their description for this charge was - instead of their name appearing on shipping label - my company name would appear. This is what I've understood to be "Blind Shipping". The supplier is not identified. My company, the distributor, appears on labels.
It really wasn't about 3rd party billing to accounts.
Alot to be learned from your information and I appreciate your responses, but this didn't involve any special billing options for shipping.
I had to pay $10 to have the label free of the suppliers name.

[designitdeb]

Blind Shipping does mean that the name of the supplier you are ordering from is NOT on the label. However, it does NOT mean that your name is on the label. Different suppliers seem to do it a little differently. Some put nothing at all and some put a city and state but not their name. A few put your name as the distributor on it.

[royster13]

DAP, on 03 February 2012 - 12:26 PM, said:

I had to pay $10 to have the label free of the suppliers name.

Yikes.......Lots of great suppliers out there......Time for a change in my mind.....

[3Koi Maui]

The supplier's website General Information doesn't list that charge, but they do describe $10 for 3rd party shipping, which is what we assumed you meant.
http://www.betterlifeline.com/

I wonder if there was some miscommunication and they thought you wanted something else, such as using your account. Or maybe the rep there doesn't know the difference.

It might be worth a call back to them to clarify.

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[promomanagers]

Unless absolutely needed the customer can figure out where the goods came from anyway if they try hard enough.

Cheer up we had a supplier put their invoice to us in the box not all that long ago. That went over really well with the customer.

[PromoHelmet]

Had a chargeback from a distributor yesterday, and UPS charge $11 to do it! Now we've got to try and invoice the shipping charges seperately. Shipping stuff is not easy and its not cheap.

[Chris Miller]

promomanagers, on 07 February 2012 - 08:06 PM, said:

Cheer up we had a supplier put their invoice to us in the box not all that long ago. That went over really well with the customer.

Happens a lot more than you think. Distributors are oblivious to this fact.