Click to view our Accessibility Statement or contact us with accessibility-related questions
Drop Refurbished
Like-new products you can trustDrop Rewards
Get $5 for every 500 points you earn! Learn more
Drop Keyboard Club
Become a member and expand your keycap collectionCollaborate With Us
For Brands & DesignersFollow Drop
We handle crafting products differently on our site than other products, all domestic crafting products have free shipping. What that means is we also subtract the same value from the international shipping. i.e. if US would normally be $5 shipping and Canada would normally be $14 shipping, we make it FREE in the US, and $9 for Canada. This isn't handled automatically by our systems right now, so sometimes it slips through, people mention it, and we fix it (we're working on making it more automatic).
Other issues coming up are that crafting products have variable weights, which makes things tricky (a FQ bundle that weighs 13 oz versus one that weighs 17 oz has a dramatically different shipping price - we don't use flat rate mailers like most online stores).
Another issue is we're in the process of switching both our international and domestic shipping carriers, so we actually are getting different rate cards updated in our system on a pretty frequent basis. If the domestic price of shipping changes, it will change the international rate because there will be a larger (or smaller) discount.
Lastly, we do some shipping price mumbo-jumbo with certain lower priced products. i.e. it's often more appealing to charge $20 + $3 shipping instead of $17+$6 shipping, even though the final price is the same $23. We're not trying to trick anyone, but since we don't have a 'cart' system, we have more flexibility with shipping on a per-product basis. In short, feel free to keep asking if the shipping is right, and we'll work on doing a better job getting it right the first time (truthfully, we've made more mistakes than I can count and we need to improve this process - we're on it!).
Mark
Now, I understand the 40wt threads are thicker than these at 50wt which could account for an overall heavier physical weight to increase the shipping price; however the 40wt spools also have less thread on them compared to the 50wt (1093 yards of thread on the 40wt spool and 1421 yards on the 50wt spool) which would then offset that weight difference. I did try googling to see if I could find what an individual spool actually weighs of both the 40wt vs 50wt to compare, but had no luck as the pages were just using the term "weight" from the thread thickness rather than the physical measurement to bring up results. Unless there really is a difference between the two thicknesses, then I don't understand the variance in the shipping prices for the same product.
As a thought for a product like this: is it possible to offer an option to reduce the shipping, by not mailing the plastic case and just the threads inside it? If the 40wt thread box did weigh more than a 50wt box, but then the 40wt threads weighs less without the box for the cheaper shipping rate with the plastic box removed, then I'd happily miss out on the box -- it's the threads I want (and I just suggest having it as an option as I'm sure some people do want the box). I know the difference between $6 shipping and $13 shipping is "only" $7 but with currency conversions it can be more in local money and I like to save as much money as I can (and don't see the plastic box being worth $7! ;) ).
If this is coming down to using different carriers and their different prices, maybe it would help ease customers (like me) to say so when the shipping is questioned, rather than just being point blank "nope, it's listed correctly". When we can pull up past and current drops of the same products, with cheaper shipping rates it really does just seem odd that the prices then vary so much. I've seen in another thread where Canadians were paying more than other internationals for shipping, but were then advised their carrier was different/better which seemed to help ease the mind of those questioning it in the drop.
Frankly, the shipping price issues are one thing that turn me off from participating in a lot of drops just because I'm never going to know if it is truly correct. I know you say to feel free to keep asking, but having to constantly do so makes me feel like I'm being nosy and intruding all the time (whether you see it that way or not!). I'm only speaking up now, because I was actually interested in the Sara Lawson box, decided against it because of the shipping cost vs purchasing it elsewhere, but then no see other thread boxes are at a reduced rate; so does that mean that thread box should have been reduced all along and I missed out on a bargain?!
There are drops with limited quantities of stock available, and if it was a product I wanted, I'd be pretty annoyed if I missed out on purchasing just because I was waiting on an update for someone to double check the shipping price before I committed to buying because other people joined it in the interim.
I've seen a couple of drops that I've been interested in, but the shipping seemed high compared to other like-items offered, though I wasn't interested enough in the product to actually question it (as I knew I could also get it elsewhere for same price/cheaper/with combined shipping on other items). I'm sure there are others out there who do the same, or who are even not comfortable enough making comments or questioning to begin with as well as those who aren't even aware that there could be issues, who are all being turned off by high prices. I know you can't combine items to save on shipping, so looking at the shipping costs here are, speaking for myself as an international buyer, how I decide whether or not to buy. I'm not likely to buy a single fat quarter bundle listed with $25 shipping, because I can go to any online fabric store, purchase the bundle (even if it costs more), and fill up the rest of an envelope with other items for the same $25 shipping, spreading the shipping cost out over multiple items which reduces it overall "bite". If a FQ bundle is listed with $6 shipping (using this price as an example as some are listed at this price this week) then I will certainly choose to buy here instead!
The plastic box itself (I weighed my own from a Tula Pink collection) is 210g (7.40753 ounces). A 50wt box set with 12 threads is then 610g (21.5171 ounces) and the 40wt with 12 threads is then 570g (20.1062 ounces) ! So if this 50 wt set is heavier, why is it half the shipping price than what the 40wt sets were offered?
Edit: I'm also assuming you purchase the Aurifil threads from the same vendor/s so can't see the bulk prices you offer differing too much and from what I recall the price for this set is the same as I remember the 40wt set being; or have you offset the extra shipping cost into the price of this box and this had not been done on the 40wt set? If this is the case, it makes me think there needs to be some standard on the items you do this too. I'm not saying your pricing is unfair, but merely confusing when the shipping amount isn't standardised across the same products.
Couple quick answers to your questions 1) We can't empty out the box and just ship the thread. Also it won't make a difference because international shipping weights are rounded up to the nearest pound.
2) We always charge less for shipping than our actual cost (unless weights are wrong for some reason), and we discount shipping on a product-by-product basis depending on promotions that we're running. So "inconsistencies" in our shipping can come from
a) a weight mistake by us b) changing the carriers that we're using - we've been jumping between USPS and UPS Mail Innovations, and we're testing DHL shortly c) different shipping discounts our marketing team applies depending on what products they want to promote. I can see that we had a $0 marketing promotion set for the Aurifil 40wt, which is the main reason why it was more expensive than the current Thread Neutrals.
I watch over a lot of our communities and our shipping policies are pretty consistent across all categories (consistent, in that they change from buy to buy- just like crafting). What I'm learning and passing up the chain to our operations people is that the crafting/quilting niche is very sensitive to shipping price fluctuations, so I'm going to ask them to look into it and maybe propose some solutions, like flat rate International shipping, or applying promotions to prices instead of discounting shipping, etc.
Thanks for your feedback, we're working on responding to the community's wishes.