Canadian Shopping Crew - Deets and sign up.

[Ida Baker]

We all know shopping online is one of if not THE best place to get pin-up and rockabilly inspired clothing and accessories, we also know it's UBER expensive to have said items shipped over the Great Lakes to us here in Canada. This is where my brilliant (or not?) idea comes into play.

Example - Let's say I want to order the fabulous Navy Blue Halter Swing Dress with Embroidered Anchors by Rock Steady Clothing (@ Babygirlboutique.com). If I ordered one and had it sent here, it'd cost me $22.50 in shipping. If I happen to order 2 of them, it's $24.95 to ship. See where I'm going with this? The more we order, the less we pay (in some cases, free shipping on orders over a certain $ amount), so why don't we place bulk orders and share the shipping costs?

So, I'd like to start off small. I know that none of you know me very well (if at all) so you don't have any reason to trust me with your money. I don't blame you! I think the best way to get around that is to place a small order that I will fund entirely with my own money in good faith. And just to be clear, this is NOT some sort of way to make me or anybody else any money, this is to help each other get wonderful new goodies and to SAVE our money while doing it. If you're shady and have any plans to rip anybody off, you are NOT welcome to join. Do unto others, ladies.

There are a couple of ways I think this could work...
 
 Option A (First order) - I will have the order shipped to my apartment and will then repackage and reship your part of the order to your residence. After I've shipped the item I will send you a PayPal invoice for your portion which you can pay AFTER you've received the items. I'll also send all involved the confirmation e-mail/receipt I get from the retailer.
 Worst case scenario, you don't pay, you're off this list and onto that other one (the one no one wants to be on). Hopefully though, we'll have a nice group of trustworthy ladies and won't have to worry about that. And yes, I'm going to be anal about PayPal only! Trust that it protects everyone if something awful were to happen. After the first order I'll likely need you gals to PayPal me the cost of the items you're ordering before I place the order (I do not have a big PayPal stash that I could use to cover a high $ order), be sure to put in the PayPal message what the funds are for (which item, size, color, etc.) so I don't order you the wrong item(s). Also, measure, measure, measure! I will ONLY order the size you ask for, if you ask for a 4 but needed a 6, that's on you, sorry. No refunds or returns (cuz that'll get messy).
 
 Option B - The order gets shipped to a 3rd party (we'd have to all agree on where that would be at a later date) and we'd all be responsible for paying for and picking up our portions of the order from said 3rd party.

 

We'll need to become a sort of distant shopping family, we'll need to agree which store we'll be placing the order from (obviously it will vary) and when we'll place that order. We'll also need to work together when it comes to items that are out of stock or on back order. Let's say one of us only wants one particular dress but it's on a 2 week back order, we'd need to either agree to wait for the item in question or we'd have to agree to place an order with another site.

 

So, let me know if you wanna take part, you think the idea is horrid, you have any suggestions/questions, etc. I'm hoping to place the first CSC order around the end of January so sign up soon!

[Edson Carlos]

This is genius! Make sure you post about it in the Canada group!

[Carey Berry]

Ida, this idea sounds neat!  Just a couple questions. :)  I'm curious exactly how you'd like to work the shipping cost from your residence to others.  I'm in Toronto, for example, so would I pay the Canada Post costs to me, or would you, or split it?  And I assume we would split the shipping cost from the retailer? 

 

I was fiddling around on Canada Post trying to figure out how much the shipping would be between the two of us, and for an item that's 1lb and about the size of a folded up dress/slacks/shirt or combination of those, the cheapest rate is about $10.  I think we'd need to factor this in to the total order, and it might determine if there's a minimum number of total items to be purchased from the online retailer.  If we are only ordering one dress each, it may not be entirely worth it to split it, but if we were going to order a few items each, it would!  I suppose this is what you were already thinking. :)

 

I also had an idea, if we could post a comment a bit in advance (a week or so) of when/where we wanted to place the order and invite any others that might be interested at that time, that would be helpful.  I know sometimes I'm not always looking for new things, but if i hear someone else is placing the order I can be swayed. ;)  Not sure if that idea is truly helpful, or just a way for me to justify spending more money that I shouldn't! haha

 

Anyway, I'm not sure when my next order will be as my funds can be limited at times, but I think I'd like to try this idea the next time I'm in the market, so I'd love to follow this thread and try to coordinate with anyone interested.

 

Thanks for being so kind and offering this idea to everyone!

 

 

 

[Ida Baker]

Hey Carey, Here's a more detailed example I hope explains it better.

If you and I ordered 2 dresses each from PinupGirlClothing (I randomly selected 4 different dresses to get accurate shipping estimates). 4 dresses shipped and handled from there is FREE because our faux order totals $430 (free shipping on orders over $250). If we went under $250 and the fee was $39.00, I'd like to split that rate between the number of girls and items. I.e, if there's only the two of us and we order the same number of items, we'd split it in half. If I ordered 3 items and you only ordered 1, you'd pay 1/3rd the rate.

I also went to CanadaPost.ca and "found a rate". Assuming you lived in the 360 Restaurant in the CN Tower it'd cost me $10.08 to ship a 3lb box via Regular Parcel service (3 business days) from my place to yours. I'd say it'd be fair for me to split that with you so you'd pay 1/2 the $10.08 (along with the cost of the frocks and your portion of shipping from the shop) for the dress(es). 3lbs would be more than 1 dress, so it'd be less if you ordered 1 item. We'd have to share customs/duty fees. Sticking with the example, half of $39.00 = $19.50 + $5.04 = $24.54. $24.54 to ship 2 dresses from PGC here = CHEAP (considering it's $36 to ship 1 directly from PGC). Of course on orders where we get free shipping from the retailer (like ordering over $250 from PGC) you would pay only half the shipping rate from my place to yours. I'll gladly pay half the cost to ship items to my CSC gals because we're all helping each other save more funds than that will cost me. We can also look into whether or not there are cheaper ways to ship within Canada other than Canada Post.

I'd love if the CSC could work together to decide which stores to shop and when. I'm really itching to place an order ASAP, as in, I have to avoid not ordering right now. I'm in desperate need of a new outfit. I'd be happy to order from any of the following (and am more than open to suggestions for others, especially shops that offer free shipping when you place a bigger order!) -

http://www.pinupgirlclothing.com (Free shipping on orders over $250)
www.whatkatiedid.com
http://www.modemerr.com/
Any great Etsy shop
And my brain isn't working any more! I lost all my bookmarks so I'll have to go through the shopping guide here on PL to remember more stores.

I hope that clarified things a little better, I'm not the best at articulating myself through writing so this may have read a lot dumber than I had intended, an I'm sorry for that. If you still have questions let me know and I'll do my best (again) at making my intentions clear.

 

xox

C

Carey Berry said:

Ida, this idea sounds neat!  Just a couple questions. :)  I'm curious exactly how you'd like to work the shipping cost from your residence to others.  I'm in Toronto, for example, so would I pay the Canada Post costs to me, or would you, or split it?  And I assume we would split the shipping cost from the retailer?

[Carey Berry]

That's great!  I really just wanted clarification on how you'd like to do the within Canada shipping.  Right now I can't make any promises on whether or not I can order in the next week or so, post-Christmas is a tight month for me.  I hope someone else would like to join in!  But I will post something once I've glanced around and when I am ready to order.  There is a dress from PUGClothing that I have on my wish list that's $118, just saving up.   But I also try to time my orders for when they do their 20% coupons as well so maybe we can try to slide that in somehow too.  I'll let you know for sure before I order that, and anything else!

Thanks again :)

 

Ida Baker said:

Hey Carey, Here's a more detailed example I hope explains it better.

If you and I ordered 2 dresses each from PinupGirlClothing (I randomly selected 4 different dresses to get accurate shipping estimates). 4 dresses shipped and handled from there is FREE because our faux order totals $430 (free shipping on orders over $250). If we went under $250 and the fee was $39.00, I'd like to split that rate between the number of girls and items. I.e, if there's only the two of us and we order the same number of items, we'd split it in half. If I ordered 3 items and you only ordered 1, you'd pay 1/3rd the rate.

I also went to CanadaPost.ca and "found a rate". Assuming you lived in the 360 Restaurant in the CN Tower it'd cost me $10.08 to ship a 3lb box via Regular Parcel service (3 business days) from my place to yours. I'd say it'd be fair for me to split that with you so you'd pay 1/2 the $10.08 (along with the cost of the frocks and your portion of shipping from the shop) for the dress(es). 3lbs would be more than 1 dress, so it'd be less if you ordered 1 item. We'd have to share customs/duty fees. Sticking with the example, half of $39.00 = $19.50 + $5.04 = $24.54. $24.54 to ship 2 dresses from PGC here = CHEAP (considering it's $36 to ship 1 directly from PGC). Of course on orders where we get free shipping from the retailer (like ordering over $250 from PGC) you would pay only half the shipping rate from my place to yours. I'll gladly pay half the cost to ship items to my CSC gals because we're all helping each other save more funds than that will cost me. We can also look into whether or not there are cheaper ways to ship within Canada other than Canada Post.

I'd love if the CSC could work together to decide which stores to shop and when. I'm really itching to place an order ASAP, as in, I have to avoid not ordering right now. I'm in desperate need of a new outfit. I'd be happy to order from any of the following (and am more than open to suggestions for others, especially shops that offer free shipping when you place a bigger order!) -

http://www.pinupgirlclothing.com (Free shipping on orders over $250)
www.whatkatiedid.com
http://www.modemerr.com/
Any great Etsy shop
And my brain isn't working any more! I lost all my bookmarks so I'll have to go through the shopping guide here on PL to remember more stores.

I hope that clarified things a little better, I'm not the best at articulating myself through writing so this may have read a lot dumber than I had intended, an I'm sorry for that. If you still have questions let me know and I'll do my best (again) at making my intentions clear.

 

xox

C

Carey Berry said:

Ida, this idea sounds neat!  Just a couple questions. :)  I'm curious exactly how you'd like to work the shipping cost from your residence to others.  I'm in Toronto, for example, so would I pay the Canada Post costs to me, or would you, or split it?  And I assume we would split the shipping cost from the retailer?