Lessons learned...
Mar. 4th, 2005 09:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpThe past couple of years, the courier services the store deals with have boosted their prices somewhere on the order of 3-5% or so per year. What they didn't make much of a deal about was all of the other "little" changes that actually boost their prices much higher than that.
To our discredit, we've been using basically the same spreadsheet in the store to determine prices charged to customers, and lately it's become apparent that we're not making a couple of dollars per package, but closer to a couple of cents.
So, today, I spent a considerable amount of time updating our spreadsheet. Moreover, it's not just the shipping fees that needed upgrading.
It would appear that, given our computerized world, folks start coming up with all sorts of nuanced approaches to charging for shipment.
There was a time you'd pay a certain amount for a certain weight. No more. Now, shipping costs depend on the dimensions of the package, the weight, and the destination. If the length plus girth of a Parcel Post package, for example, exceeds 108 inches, it is considered to weigh 15 pounds, regardless of its actual weight (unless it weighs more, or course). If the length plus girth of a UPS package exceeds 130 inches (but not 165 inches), it gets hit with a $40 "large package" surcharge.
The spreadsheet is growing in size, and I'm not sure I've managed to capture all of the nuances of the shipping biz.
Today was a silver day at the store. A customer paid Brady with a 1962 half dollar (0.90 silver content, although the coin itself is slightly warped... he "bought" the coin from the till for $1, which is okay by me). Myself, I ended up with a dime from 1959 (same 0.90 silver composition). These are remnants of a bygone era, when the quantity of money in circulation was dependent on the amount of precious metal on deposit in the Treasury. Today's lucre all depends on "trust." Heh.
I haven't kept track of how often such coins pass through our till (and are identified by a member of the staff... I expect I'm really the only one who cares, except that it's rare enough for someone to pay with a 50-cent piece, much less one with Ben Franklin on the head side... but I digress...), but I estimate it must be something like 4-5 dimes and maybe a quarter per year (the '62 half is a definite anomaly).
So, that's how I spent my day. Dinner was at home, where I took the opportunity to make another batch of solyanka, using a much more "hybridized" recipe (port, fish, sausage, etc.). The first sampling, however, indicates a fairly good soup in the making.
Cheers...
To our discredit, we've been using basically the same spreadsheet in the store to determine prices charged to customers, and lately it's become apparent that we're not making a couple of dollars per package, but closer to a couple of cents.
So, today, I spent a considerable amount of time updating our spreadsheet. Moreover, it's not just the shipping fees that needed upgrading.
It would appear that, given our computerized world, folks start coming up with all sorts of nuanced approaches to charging for shipment.
There was a time you'd pay a certain amount for a certain weight. No more. Now, shipping costs depend on the dimensions of the package, the weight, and the destination. If the length plus girth of a Parcel Post package, for example, exceeds 108 inches, it is considered to weigh 15 pounds, regardless of its actual weight (unless it weighs more, or course). If the length plus girth of a UPS package exceeds 130 inches (but not 165 inches), it gets hit with a $40 "large package" surcharge.
The spreadsheet is growing in size, and I'm not sure I've managed to capture all of the nuances of the shipping biz.
Today was a silver day at the store. A customer paid Brady with a 1962 half dollar (0.90 silver content, although the coin itself is slightly warped... he "bought" the coin from the till for $1, which is okay by me). Myself, I ended up with a dime from 1959 (same 0.90 silver composition). These are remnants of a bygone era, when the quantity of money in circulation was dependent on the amount of precious metal on deposit in the Treasury. Today's lucre all depends on "trust." Heh.
I haven't kept track of how often such coins pass through our till (and are identified by a member of the staff... I expect I'm really the only one who cares, except that it's rare enough for someone to pay with a 50-cent piece, much less one with Ben Franklin on the head side... but I digress...), but I estimate it must be something like 4-5 dimes and maybe a quarter per year (the '62 half is a definite anomaly).
So, that's how I spent my day. Dinner was at home, where I took the opportunity to make another batch of solyanka, using a much more "hybridized" recipe (port, fish, sausage, etc.). The first sampling, however, indicates a fairly good soup in the making.
Cheers...
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-05 05:17 am (UTC)Click here
COINS (http://4dw.net/jamesmskipper/USDollarsw500h578.jpg).
no subject
Date: 2005-03-05 06:03 pm (UTC)Both dollar coins of the past 15 years or so (the Susan B. Anthony dollar of the early 90s and the Sacajawea dollar of today) seem to have been designed to a screwy set of rules. In particular, just about everywhere I go, people say they'd rather not deal with them, as they are too easily confused with quarters. (Heck, in the heat of paying for something, I've confused these coins for quarters!) Sometimes, it's hard not to believe the rules for dollar coin design weren't concocted by the "Preserve the Paper Dollar" contingent over at the Treasury Department.
Cheers...