Shypmate – Your Delivery Cost is Unfair. Balance it, Here’s How!

Delivery of shopped items from the US to Ghana isn’t easy. Even if you get a shop to send down, it can be a heck of a challenge going to claim the item.

If it ain’t any of the above, then you’re likely paying a relatively really extreme shipping costs for such express, heck-free service.

As I mentioned in my previous article, Shypmate happens to fix almost all the above, except the cost of shipment skyrocketing in terms of cost depending on items purchased.

Why do I care?

Because the idea behind Shypmate is a beautiful one, and so far, executed amazingly. I have a personal interest as with a fair pricing scheme, only God knows how many items I would purchase using their service.

With a service like Shypmate, I don’t have to pay exhorbitant prices for fresh devices, as I could just buy them directly from the US, then have them delivered, all combined at a relative price than it might be in Ghana.

Thus, an effect Shypmate is a win-win for all involved. A fair, effective Shypmate will mean people like me get to get latest, quality items at US prices as and when needed.

The Problem?

Shypmate currently uses a formula for determining how much it should for delivery of a purchased item. The formula, for relatively less expensive items, that are also less heavy relatively, the shipment cost is reasonable, and won’t reveal a flaw in the formula.

The ugly nature of the formula reveals it’s disastrous head when both the weight and price of the item you ordered are high.

First of all, let’s take a moment to analyze the formula, which states ( I quote ):

“Our delivery fee depends on the weight and price of the item you would like to purchase. We typicallycalculate the Shypmate delivery fee with the following formula “$4 per pound + 0.13 x price”. We have a “Get Delivery Estimate” tool on the homepage of the website.”

For the confused, a pound is just about as 0.45 kg. Thus, we have 4$ per 0.45 kg

The price refers to the cost or price of your purchased item. The 0.13 can be represented as a percentage, thus, 13% of the price of your item.

To put things in perspective, the Nanostation item I bought in my previous shipment with Shypmate cost 80.91$.

With that pricepoint in mind in union with the formula above assuming item weighs 1.4 pounds, I end up at a delivery cost of:

(4 x 1.4) + (0.13 x 80.91) = 16.1183

When you look at the cost of an item, and the delivery cost; makes sense, right?

The problem with the formula is the unrealistic cost for all purchased items. The 13% of the cost of your item, for small priced items, sounds and looks good, but the cost of shipment starts going outrageous as the cost of the item increases however, the weight remains the same or decreases.

Therefore, if your item costs 1,000$ but weighs less than 0.45kg (I can get a ton of items like this), you’ll still pay 134$ per this item of negligible weight, of which some of them can be placed in a shirt pocket i.e SSDs.

This approach is problematic as it handles delivery cost via a wrong perspective.

Who, in their right mind, is willing to pay a shipping cost of 134$ for an item that weighs 0.06803886 kg, for instance?

I believe the means of delivery of a traveler items should actually have meant an extreme cut down of the delivery costs, but the formula above is ridiculous and doesn’t bring the full beauty of the delivery service.

I understand it is important for Shypmate to keep incentivizing their travelers. Very crucial. However, at the same time, I believe a reasonable balance could be created, to ensure holes aren’t drilled in the pockets of dear customers.

I do not know of all travelers, but I’m yet to meet a traveler, who will be offended to carry a MicroSD Card, a size less than 20 x 20 x 20 centimeters and weighs less than their luggage handles for a 5$ incentive?

Seriously? Who will be offended, to earn 5$ on such a negligible item?

It ain’t as if travelers are going to put food on the table because of these items because the cost of flight is in no way catered for by the 134$

The Solution?

Just like I’ve come to know any item delivery service do, the price of the item to be delivered is none of your business, literally.

The only most important aspect any delivery service cares about is, and only IS the weight of the item to be carried. So if you want an envelope delivered, a delivery service in no way cares about how much the envelope costs.

Heck, why do they care? In fact, they don’t care, because the only impact a package can have on their service has to deal with the weight of the package, and not the price of the package.

For Shypmate, they have an undue affinity to the cost of the item to be delivered, why is that?

So what’s the solution? Simple:

• Get a flat-rate delivery cost for any item irrespective of the cost of the item.
  • For instance, all items less than 2.0 pounds will incur a delivery cost of 10 or 15$.
• However, continue to use the weight for the calculations.

var costPerPound;
var deliveryFlatRate;

var itemCost;
var itemWeight;

var totalDeliveryCost;

totalDeliveryCost = (costPerPound x itemWeight) + itemCost + deliveryFlatRate

With the above approach, which everyone in the world already knows, the delivery cost will proportionally increase as per the increasesitemWeight.

When a traveler’s luggage is checked in, the Airline cares less about the worth of the items in the luggage, but rather care more about the total weight of the luggage. Thus, a higher luggage weight which can incur cost at the airline will be catered for via the costPerPound aspect.

With the above approach, everybody wins. For customers wanting a small almost weightless item delivered, they don’t pay hefty prices because the items are expensive.

For customers also wanting to deliver much heavier items, they pay per a very sane and realistic and reasonable price point.

“We’re doing Just Fine….

“We’re doing just fine, and our customers are perfectly fine with the current pricing scheme”, Shypmate might reason.

For stupid unreasonable customers like myself and the ‘Our customers’ Shypmate have, we may continue to use this current scheme, but imagine how many more ‘out there customers’ Shypmate could entice in.

Because anyone going to Shypmate website to try to get a delivery estimate, and is bombarded with such hefty prices will at full throttle go away.

With calculations now appearing clearer to me, as a customer, I’m gonna rethink about my options.

All the best Shypmate.