How does this shipping work?
 

I am fascinated that I can buy a bag of dogfood online that weights 20 lbs and get it in 2 days via fedex for only 4.99.

I am also fascinated that if I spent 35 dollars and get two bags of dog food (40 lbs worth) and get it in 2 days. The shipping is free.


How does this work? I know if I walk into fedex and even try and send something that weights 5 lbs across the country, they are going to jam a 25 dollar bill up my ass so fast my head will spin. If I walked in with two bags of dog food weighing 40lbs and tried to ship it across the country in 2 days, it would probably be 90 dollars.

1) How crazy are their shipping rates negotiated down based on volume? I am guessing like 75%. Maybe someone here knows the answer

2) Are they taking major losses on shipping to try and remain competitive and making up for it in their margins?

You negotiate rates with Fedex and UPS as a business , but they will rape you if you walk in as a individual at a FexEx office or ship center..

So basically yes the more volume and negotiating you can do and have the UPS and Fedex reps go back n forth you can get the rates low.

Hell, it cost me $30 to overnight a friggen birthday card once. It's all about volume.

Volume gets you a discount but not a whole lot. They definitely take a hit on shipping costs.

Big Discounts
 

I worked for a company that had 10 regional offices, each with around 150 salesmen. Every week the salesmen got their weekly sales stats sent to them in UPS Overnight Letters. The company's rate was $6 per letter.This was about 10 years ago when individuals were paying $20+

I use my sister in laws biz to send shit all the time UPS and it saves me a ton but 20 pounds for 5 bucks I am not so sure lol, maybe they think you will come back and spend 100 bucks on socks for your dog

Definitely makes sense with the volume discounts.

I just still am amazed logistically that someone like petflow can ship 20-30lbs of petfood for 4.99 anywhere in the states. On top of that, the real rate they are getting is probably like 4.15 and they are compensating for some staff, tape, bubble wrap, boxes and a slight markup to the customer.

volume discounts ...