The first thing to understand is that we are three actual people, not an automated engine designed to extract maximum profit from the planet. A lot of how we do things strikes people as unusual because it’s not what they’re used to. But pretty much everyone who gains an understanding of how and why we do things the way we do believes our way is better.
The two things that most commonly baffle people about how we do business are intertwined, but can be separated to talk about each. First is how we calculate shipping. Second is how you pay for your order.
There are myriad approaches to shipping charges. After exploring all available options, we found that each has a deal-breaker of an issue for us.
So-called “free shipping” is not free. It’s a marketing gimmick that the human brain seems hardwired to fall for. Just think about it for a moment…do you really think any business is, out of the kindness of its heart, paying the cost of shipping because they like you? No. They aren’t. They’ve raised prices and/or lowered service levels. Or, like Amazon, they’ve performed the miracle of making you forget that you pay for Prime every year. We’re not interesting in tricking people into thinking they’re getting something they aren’t.
Chart-based shipping seeks to find a balance between weight/cube/distance and simplicity by creating zones and ranges. These systems are all inherently unfair to someone. All attempts to simplify the equation result in someone paying more than they should and someone else paying less than they should. We’re not interested in treating our customers unfairly.
We also looked at percentage of total, flat cost per tin, and a half a dozen other systems of showing you the shipping amount before you check out, and they’re all unfair.
So, the obvious solution is to charge actual shipping charges. It’s more effort, but it’s the only way to ensure that everyone is paying the right amount. Other business have chosen the easy over the right. We have chosen the right over the easy. Our Shipping page has lots of information that can give you a ballpark idea of how much shipping will cost. In most cases it’s quite reasonable. It can seem unreasonable if you order a small amount of very inexpensive items and want them shipped across the country.
Because we don’t charge at check-out, we can do something no one else can. We can notify you if any space remains in the box before we close it up. Ever received a shipment from Amazon and looked at the ridiculous box they put your order in and say, “This seems hugely wasteful.” Us too. Ever get a shipment from anyone else and think, “Why didn’t they tell me more would have fit, I would have totally ordered more?” Us too. But sometimes you don’t want to add more no matter what, so we give you the option to be notified or not. It’s up to you.
We do have a problem, though. A lot of people place “test” orders to try and gain access to what they imagine is some super sekret section of the process. There is no super sekret section. If you place an order for things you don’t really want, and don’t tell us you don’t really want it, you create a non-trivial amount of wasted effort. The first thing it does is reserve that inventory for you needlessly, keeping it away from others until the order is finally cancelled. Then we pick your order. Then we check your order for accuracy. Then we pack your order. Then we email you the total with shipping. Then we send a follow-up email a day later if we don’t hear any response. Then we send a second follow-up email from a different email address two days after hearing nothing. Then we will attempt to send an SMS to the phone number you provided at check out. Then, finally, we will cancel the order in our order system, cancel it in our shipping software, and cut open the box, unpack it, and re-shelve the goods. Please don’t do that. It wastes the time of three actual people. Again, our Shipping page has lots of information that can give you a ballpark idea of how much shipping will cost.
The second thing we do differently involves paying for your order. And there’s a story behind that one. Back when we were just starting the tomato farm I had a life-altering experience involving credit card processing. Starting my first business after a lifetime of working for others I started out thinking I should do things the way everyone else does them. That changed, obviously. But at the beginning I thought I guess I need to take credit cards, right? It’s what everyone does. So I filled out an online form requesting information about payment processors. And I got a phone call 11 seconds later. And the first day received 15 more calls from other companies. All of them were high-pressure, even downright aggressive. If you know what a “closer” is in the sales world, that’s what these people were. And I was old enough and had enough live and business experience to understand what this meant: there’s a spectacular amount of money being made. One person told me that business that accept credit cards see a 20% increase in revenues! I replied, “Then how come you want a piece of every single transaction? Can I just give you a piece of the 20% you bring me?” Crickets.
This bothered me a lot, and I started talking to my co-workers at the organic farm I was gaining experience at, and I floated the idea one day. I said, “I think I’m not going to take credit cards at the tomato stand.” They all told me it was impossible, that I had to take credit cards. My whole life I have bristled whenever anyone told me I had to do anything. So I thought about it some more. And I farmed some more. Farming is hard. Farming without chemicals or plastic is even harder. And every hot summer day sweating through the effort I kept thinking about giving a percentage of the revenue to these rapacious callers. I’d tell my co-workers that everyone has a cell phone now, and Venmo and PayPal, that I’ll just take those methods, along with cash and checks. They scoffed. No one carries cash, and not everyone has Venmo. “What will you do if someone has no cash and no other way to pay?” they asked, as if it were the definitive deal-breaker. But an answer came to me immediately.
I said, “If they don’t have cash and can’t pay any other way, I’ll tell them ‘That’s okay, you can pay me when you come back…because those tomatoes are so good I know you’ll be back.'” My co-workers howled and told me once word got out that I was letting people leave without paying for their tomatoes people would come from far and wide to rip me off. I didn’t think so. And I was right. In the four seasons we sold tomatoes I let a half a dozen people each season leave without paying, and every single one of them came back, and every single one of them brought friends with them.
And it turned out that not taking credit cards had some unintended benefits. It led to conversations about all sorts of things. It humanized the interaction instead of dehumanizing it. We laughed and we learned and we shared with the community we were connected with. When we started the website at the end of the first season we had the conversation again. Sure, you can maybe get away with no taking credit cards at a roadside farm stand selling tomatoes, but how can you operate an e-commerce website without taking credit cards? That’s unthinkable! And the conversation went like this, “Well, I guess we’ll probably have to…but let’s come back to that, first we have a bigger problem, how are we going to charge for shipping?”
In engineering they call it an “elegant solution” when the same things solves several problems, or when one solution improves multiple systems. What we realized was that if we’re not taking credit cards we don’t need to have a shipping solution that tells people what the shipping is at checkout. And if we have a shipping solution that doesn’t tell people what the shipping is at checkout, we don’t need to take credit cards.
So we instituted a better system. We charge everyone the exact amount their order requires for shipping. We calculate it on a case by case basis, which allows us to have conversations with people, and allows us to fill boxes to the brim, if people want that. Also, since you push the payment to us, we don’t have any of your sensitive information. You can choose when to pay as a way to choose when the order ships. You can tip us if we really do a superlative job, which incentivizes us to do a superlative job. You can split payment across multiple methods. You can add or remove items from your order all the way up until the time you tell us to close it up.
The longer we do things this way the more benefits we find.