Postage charges

[Grealish]

I forgot to order 4 kilos of malt from my last order. It would cost me nearly as much in postage as in goods if I wanted to order from any online seller unless I buy at least £65 - £100 depending on the supplier. When I order flour, which is similarly heavy and bulky, it is free once I reach £30. At this moment in time, I don't have £65 to spend on brewing ingredients. I don't get why Homebrew suppliers are so out of step with other businesses on their p and p costs. How I wish my local shop was still going.

 

[borischarlton]

Hi,

We do collection, just pop the order in and we will sort it for you.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I forgot to order 4 kilos of malt from my last order. It would cost me nearly as much in postage as in goods if I wanted to order from any online seller unless I buy at least £65 - £100 depending on the supplier. When I order flour, which is similarly heavy and bulky, it is free once I reach £30. At this moment in time, I don't have £65 to spend on brewing ingredients. I don't get why Homebrew suppliers are so out of step with other businesses on their p and p costs. How I wish my local shop was still going.

Where are you as the South Cheshire cooperative sell malt at bargain prices.

 

[Grealish]

Hi,

We do collection, just pop the order in and we will sort it for you.

All the big suppliers do collection but I don’t live near enough to any. I used to be able to pop to a local shop for malt but it couldn’t compete and closed.

The fact remains that small orders from Home Brew suppliers seems disproportionately expensive compared to similar businesses. The main reason I don’t use your company is that I can rarely afford the £100 threshold for free delivery.

 

[Grealish]

Where are you as the South Cheshire cooperative sell malt at bargain prices.

I don’t live all that close but I sometimes visit the area so could be an option in the future. Are they on the web?

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Just search this forum by South Cheshire and you will find them.

 

[Clint]

I forgot to order 4 kilos of malt from my last order. It would cost me nearly as much in postage as in goods if I wanted to order from any online seller unless I buy at least £65 - £100 depending on the supplier. When I order flour, which is similarly heavy and bulky, it is free once I reach £30. At this moment in time, I don't have £65 to spend on brewing ingredients. I don't get why Homebrew suppliers are so out of step with other businesses on their p and p costs. How I wish my local shop was still going.

Are there any fellow brewers in your locality that you can get together with and generate an order to qualify for free delivery?
Also do you have any breweries near you who may sell you some gear?

 

[Grealish]

Good suggestions. It’s just so frustrating to miss one item off an order and the postage fees are nearly as high as the cost of the malt so now I can’t make a brew! It just seems out of kilter. I order every three months and this was my last brew from last quarter’s order so I’ll just wait until next month now for my usual order in February.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I don’t live all that close but I sometimes visit the area so could be an option in the future. Are they on the web?

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/...buy-by-the-south-cheshire-co-operative.95967/

 

[Grealish]

I like the look of that.

 

[Nottsbeer]

You could try CML to see if they have the grain....no minimum order and free P&P. I made a mess of a recent order, ending up buying grain over 2 orders. If I'd ordered at the same time I would have saved a few £. When they processed my orders they realised my error and refunded me . Great service.

 

[Rodcx500z]

You could try CML to see if they have the grain....no minimum order and free P&P. I made a mess of a recent order, ending up buying grain over 2 orders. If I'd ordered at the same time I would have saved a few £. When they processed my orders they realised my error and refunded me . Great service.

They are a great company to deal with, only ever had one issue and it was sorted very quickly

 

[Agentgonzo]

I tend to buy ingredients for 4-5 batches at a time (every 6 months for me). That helps reduce the postage cost by spreading it across many brews. It takes a small amount of planning, but malt easily lasts that long (I've had some over 2 years old that's still viable if you mash 15 minutes longer) and so does hops if you freeze them. The only thing left is yeast, and if you use dried yeast, that lasts well over a year!

 

[Agentgonzo]

(oh , and slight hijack, but if anyone is in the Southampton region, I'll be putting in an order in the next week or so if you want to share the postage!)

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

The threshold for free shipping does seem to have risen over the last few years. Is the disparity in carriage charges for flour vs grain not a volume issue as well as weight issue? Flour is very fine, so takes up less space per kilo. You can probably get more flour on a lorry or van in terms of weight.

Once you get to retail level there'll be more dead space in your average box of homebrew ingredients than flour. I'd also imagine your average flour mill fills bags by machine. Homebrew suppliers if they mill their own grain will probably package by hand.

 

[Harbey]

Another vote for CrossMyLoof. I buy all my speciality malts, hops and yeast from them. Fantastic service.

 

[moto748]

It's definitely worth trying any local breweries. I gather that some won't sell grain to the public, but I rang the local one here and asked and they said sure, they will sell me a 25 kg bag of Crisp's Best Pale no problem. Had a couple of bags off them so far, and will need a third soon! They offered me hops too, but that was by the kilo, so I wasn't interested in that. I have a HB shop about ten miles away that I use for everything else, and only resort to mail-order for the exotica that the shop doesn't keep, liquid yeasts, etc.

 

[Sozzled Sab]

I recently placed a large order that qualified for free p+p. Unfortunately the supplier did not have the type of dried yeast I wanted.
I found a supplier that had it and was about to place the order when I noticed the postage charge was the the same price as the yeast. I know they have costs to cover but I do think this is excessive for an item weighing 12 grams. I also find the packaging a bit over the top on small non fragile items.
Ordered it on ebay, same price and free p+p.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I recently placed a large order that qualified for free p+p. Unfortunately the supplier did not have the type of dried yeast I wanted.
I found a supplier that had it and was about to place the order when I noticed the postage charge was the the same price as the yeast. I know they have costs to cover but I do think this is excessive for an item weighing 12 grams. I also find the packaging a bit over the top on small non fragile items.
Ordered it on ebay, same price and free p+p.

Dried yeast go with CML. Great yeasts, customer service and value.

 

[Grealish]

I tend to buy ingredients for 4-5 batches at a time (every 6 months for me). That helps reduce the postage cost by spreading it across many brews. It takes a small amount of planning, but malt easily lasts that long (I've had some over 2 years old that's still viable if you mash 15 minutes longer) and so does hops if you freeze them. The only thing left is yeast, and if you use dried yeast, that lasts well over a year!

That's exactly what I do but I missed off one ingredient and can't buy it without spending nearly as much on postage as the malt. Which is nuts and seems unique to home brew suppliers.