Dissapointing & Excessive Delivery Costs for One Online Order from Flow

Flow Hive
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Hi there fellow backyard beekeeps,

I wanted to share my utter disappointment at the inefficiencies I encountered with Flow today, when attempting to place one online order with Flow (AU) for three items. My little rant may get ignored or even deleted, but I don’t care - I think it’s just better to have shared experiences to / from this community.

The three items for one online order: FH2 Brood Box, Multifuctional Tray, Ant Caps = $134

I had imagined the Box and Tray are flat pack items and able to be sent together, at the very least, and in one box. Perhaps, just inserting the Ant Guard into the same box, thereby making it all one package and good common sense sent from NSW to SA.

Yet what Flow suggested is that my order requires three separate packages, thus attracting three separate standard shipping rates and all on chargeable to me!

In their words - “The reason for this is that the Tray and brood box are actually to bulky to be include in a package together, as they are prepacked items. The holding warehouse does not unpack and repack, only place those into a larger box if possible, which is not available due to the size of those. So it results in 3 packages being sent out to you”.

Wow!

So, instead of only being charged one standard $18 Australia Post Ground Parcel rate for my one online order, and due to Flows’ warehouse or packaging inefficiencies or whatever, a whopping $54 Australia Post Ground Parcel rate for these inefficiencies at Flow are all on charged to me. What?

That equates to a total delivery fee cost that is 40% of my total “one online order” cost and being passed on to me because of Flows warehouse / packaging inefficiency? Really?

It’s tough to be a customer these days mate…

To put my thinking into perspective and to make my point clear; I can order and have delivered a case of wine (12 bottles) from a Barossa Valley winery to an address in Brisbane for $15.
Such a delivery of wine would be roughly similar in size to my one order with Flow, yet the wine would weigh more than my three items.

Unless Flow can come up with a much more palatable solution, it’s just not worth ordering stuff from Flow. Very, very disappointing Flow. Very disappointing.

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its a fare price since austpost charge by weight

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Hi & welcome to the forum, Was that pun at the end intended ? It got a chuckle from my wife after reading it the second time.

Seriously though, it sounds like pretty poor form to us. One can only wonder if the same would happen if the shoe was on the other foot, & they were paying the freight, as in a warranty return. .

It’s only common sense to combine the 3 packages, in order to keep costs down for the customer. Common sense might be out the window. I don’t agree with @WayneChattillon

PS. my wife just explained “online ordering”. Apparently the prices of the items, including postage should have been tallied before you click on confirm & agree to pay. So therefore Flow probably don’t have a case to answer, because you agreed to pay in the first place.

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@JeffH not a pun at your wife lol but was stateing an actual fact Do you ship to my country? What are the shipping rates? Flow Hive & Flow Frame weights and dimensions donote for australia flow uses australia post australia post Charge by Waight exsampole heres what i seen on my parsals Size and weight

Parcel 1: 55 x 44 x 27cm, 8.45kg
Parcel 2: 66 x 54 x 23.5cm, 18.9kg

ps thanks for the welcome Now Wares MY jar of honey Mate lol

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Hi Wayne, we sent some honey to Sydney, from the Sunshine Coast. It cost $35.00 for a 10 kilo parcel. I doubt if Julian’s parcel would have weighed 10 kilos, especially if the super was WRC.

I thought the pun was Julian saying “more palatable solution” directly after talking about a case of wine.

PS Wayne, I’d gladly send you a jar of honey if you lived anywhere else, bar W.A.

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That’s probably my only bugbear with Flow. Great product, great support, great education and care for sustainability issues (packaging and involvement with the Wheen Bee Foundation etc). But, the postage charges are over the top. I remember being excited by being able to utilise a $50 voucher last year. Unfortunately, it didn’t even cover the postage :slightly_frowning_face:. I think some companies add profit margins into every aspect of the business, others don’t.

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So, firstly, thanks Wayne for the helpful links.
Yet as for the mentioned 8.45 kg or 18.9kg, these likely relate to a full Flow kit. Which I’m not ordering.

Per Flow shipping rates table, to deliver an eight (8) frame brood box to SA costs $22.46.

The weight of brood box package is an unknown. There’s no information on Flows’ website about this.

Keeping things really simple, let’s add in the tray & ant caps to that brood box package to round up the weight a little and call it an even $25 total delivery cost.

At $25, I would definitely hit the “go button”. This is far more entertaining cost than a calculated $54.

Let me put another quandary out there;

If I were to order 20 eight (8) frame brood boxes online from Flow, it seems Flow will charge 20x $22.46 for delivery (NSW to SA) as things are calculated on each individually, pre-packaged item sent from a warehouse (which is presumed to be local / located in NSW).

This would equate to a whopping $449.20 for shipping from NSW to SA.

As Flow stated to me during an online chat “there is no option to unpack and repack goods into a large box, it would require shipping back to our office and then reshipping (incurring further fees anyway). The logistics of multiple products held around the world comes with its limitations and our shipping team, is always considering alternatives and some have been trailed but were not effective.”

This past time of grossly over pricing (“gouging” I believe the common phrase of the day is) and passing off outrageous shipping / deliver costs to a customer (especially a committed Flow customer / community base) should be reasonably challenged with a fair answer forthcoming.

One online order = one package with a shipping cost calculated on one package.

Not one online order, split into three individual packages, attracting three individual shipping costs for the customer to bear.

There are always better ways to do things and continually improving process to deliver great service (even with shipping / delivery costs via internal or third party) should be tweaked at every opportunity.

Considering Flow has been operating now for a number of years and I’m certain of turning a tidy profit - I stick up my hand to challenge the “the folk at the top” to look into doing better.

Rant over - thanks folks for your support.

I’ll only post again if I hear something different from Flow.

Julian

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lol ya can tell going to be a vary hot summer this year i wouldnt be suprised it we get a temp of 40 between now and feb my bees has been visiting xmass tree ie Western Australia’s own bright Christmas Trees flowering in November - December. Nuytsia floribunda Nuytsia - Wikipedia

Nuytsia - Wikipedia