Do you collect dinosaur figures or postage costs?

I am so grateful for my customers. I especially love to get repeat orders from the same folks. That’s like a real shot in the arm for DeJankins. Several years ago, business was doing really well here at DeJankins, but things have slowed down substantially over the last five or so years. So, when new orders come in from “old” (repeat) customers, that is very encouraging.

The one aspect of these repeat orders which is not so encouraging to me is the postage my customers have paid. I wish I didn’t have to charge for postage, but I just don’t have the volume that Amazon or many other internet sellers have, and so I have to pass that cost back to the customer. Folks understand that, and I haven’t had any complaints about postage. When the Postal Service goes up on their rates, those changes aren’t reflected on the DeJankins site for many months. But I am sensitive to the amount of money some of my customers are having to pay.

I have had a number of customers over the years, who have placed many orders in a relatively short space of time. Let me share with you some statistics from some of those customers.

Celeste (not my customers real name) lives in Washington state. DeJankins is in North Carolina, so postage costs for Celeste’s orders have been higher than customers closer to North Carolina. In 2018 and 2019, Celeste ordered from me 33 times. That works out to an average of one order every three weeks. I am so thankful to have had those orders from her. But sometimes she would place four orders in one month. Once or twice she placed three orders within seven days. Please don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful to have been her choice for dinosaur shopping. But she spent $1850 on those orders, and over 25% of that was for postage. If Celeste would have made fewer orders (say one a month) and combined the items she got into fewer shipments, much of what she paid in postage could have been used instead on more dinosaur figures. Postage costs per piece go down quite a bit when there are more items in a package.

More recently, Teddy (again, not my customers real name) has blessed me with quite a few orders. I’ve had 24 orders from Teddy, and 20 of those orders had only two items in the package. The other four orders had between three and five items. The total amount Teddy spent was $1030, and the amount he spent in postage was almost a third of that total - over $300! Twenty of his orders were within two weeks of another order he made. If he had combined those orders into ten orders instead of twenty, he could have saved almost $75 in shipping costs. With that amount, he could have purchased another three to five items of similar cost with no increase in his spending.

I have a customer who knows the value of making fewer but larger orders. Samuel has made 48 orders from me over the past 17 years. He has been a customer for many more years than that, but I just don’t have easy access to records before 2009. These orders are for him and his neighbor - they both collect prehistoric animal figures, and they make their orders together to save on shipping. Anyway, over those 17 years, they have spent $21,300. Of that total, he spent only $1300 in shipping, that is only 6% of his total spending, just one tenth of the percentage that Teddy has been spending on shipping.

I really enjoy packing and sending out packages of really great prehistoric creatures. But I would be so much happier doing it if I knew that my customers were getting more product for there hard earned money. If you want me to run some specific numbers for your orders, just let me know. I’d be happy to help you save some green or get more figures for your money.

Thanks for your time!