Is there any way to avoid costly shipping?

[shunt2011]

I'm another one who thinks WSP is expensive after comparison shopping. I do order a few things from them but I find there service slow and I live in Michigan. I just received my order that was placed on the 30th so not too bad. Last time it was 2 weeks or more before I recieved it. I order quite a bit from Nature's Garden as they are so fast and their prices are good in comparison even with shipping. Plus they deliver so quickly. If I place an order today I will usually get it tomorrow or the next day. Essential Depot is exceptionally quick with fair prices too as is Peak and Aroma Haven. I do order once in awhile from Brambleberry but they take forever to get here same with MMS

 

[mgelsimino]

mgelsimino, where are you located? Some soap making suppliers offer local pickup, so depending on where you live, that might be an option to save you the shipping costs altogether. This is an option I'm looking into personally!

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i thought i replied to this but don't see my reply here.
i'm in western ny state, and i looked at new directions aromatics, which ships out of missisauga, ontario, but to send shipments to the us, they first go to cheektowaga, ny, which is not far from me. i was hoping to be able to pick up items there, and emailed the company asking if i could, but they responded sayng "we ship out of missisauga, you may pick up shipments here". i'm not sure if she understood my question though because i'm hardly going to cross the border just to save on shipping. first of all i don't have a valid passport right now, plus it takes forever to get across since 9/11. i replied asking my question again, but haven't heard back from them yet.

 

[ilovesoap2]

I'm very glad for this thread because I was on the WSP site today and was no less than confused looking at the same item but with 2 different prices. I did figure out it was the shipping farce but couldn't figure why they would have both staring at me from the same page, one under the other. It was wierd.

 

[cmzaha]

Maybe I'm being a grinch about WSP, but in doing a whole lot of price comparison shopping, I find that their 'free' shipping reflects higher prices than I find on other suppliers' sites, even with shipping. Yes, there's their free shipping over $40, but I can always find better deals without a whole lot of searching. I always shop sales from NDA, Peak, and like to get things from Soapmakers Choice, TKB Trading, Nurture, a few shops on Ebay, Essential Depot, and others. Unless there's way more than a 10 percent deal from WSP, I'm not gonna buy at 10 percent off when I can still get what I need at regular or sale prices from my other suppliers, and still at lower prices than WSP. I admit it's nice to have WSP's one-stop-shopping, but I'll take NDA any day for their huge selection.

Grinch, grinch

You are most correct. Their "free shipping" is not free shipping. Every item they sell has shipping cost added in, so if you buy 10 items shipping could realistically be more than what it should cost. I have 1 fragrance I purchase from them and that is all I buy, I bottle. It also meets the min order amount for free ship. I will never place large orders with them. Also a couple of years ago 3 different orders for butters were shorted on weight. They did credit me back the difference in cost after several emails. Of course was told that never happens. Well I have a calibrated scale with apparently was calibrated better than theirs! I love NDA! Soapalooza has flat rate shipping as does Soapsupplies.net. Soapsupplies.net only has fo's and a few colorants, but their fo's are great. Also depending how much soaping you are going to do, it saves a lot to look for a local chemical house for purchasing lye. Restaurant supplies are good for oils and also google to see if you can find a local supplier of oils. This is a great site for looking up suppliers http://suppliersbystate.com/

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

My favourite supplier has free shipping over 70€, but up to then it's still very reasonable. But then it takes less than 10 hours to drive from one side of my country to the other...................