How To Save Money on Shipping...My Tweak

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dstranger99

dstranger99

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So, I'm not exactly a cheapskate, I just didn't want to pay NB's shipping charge of $14.96, and Midwest uses Fedex @ ABOUT $15.00

So, my tweak was going to brewmasters warehouse, enter the ingredients you need on their brew build area and just pay their flat rate of $6.99


I just did a quick order today and saved $9.29 in shipping for a 3 gal BIAB.

NB would have been $35.95

Brewmasters ingredients came in @ $19.67 + $6.99 S&H = $26.66

use Code BNARMY in the coupon section and save another 10% (Total w/out code was $21.86)........
 
Good Luck,

The extra shipping charges may be worth it. BMW has a a REALLY slow track record for shipping these days. Just look around the forum. They use to be wonderful...hope they get it together again. Luckily for me a new homebrew store opened 20 minutes from my house.

I hope this isn't the case for you. They usually send an email when your order ships. Lately they have been known not to contact customers when out of stock on items unless you call. SO I would recommend following up with them.

FYI I just received the missing items from my 2/20/13 order last week.
 
I've had orders of nearly $91 from midwest,& fed-ex shipping was $12.72. Never spent $15 on shipping with them.
 
MoreBeer.com has a free shipping program. Yeah, it takes a couple weeks to get stuff, but well worth it, so long as you plan ahead.
 
Seriously hope you get your supplies in a reasonable amount of time, as I have not in recent orders. My credit card was certainly charged quickly enough. Take some time and look through the Vendor Review forum.
 
unionrdr said:
I've had orders of nearly $91 from Midwest,& fed-ex shipping was $12.72. Never spent $15 on shipping with them.
Click to expand...

Midwest is the worst shipping option for me. I'm in the PNW and they hose me on shipping. I still get a few things from them once in a while though.

Midwest via amazon isn't as bad.:D

AHS, Williams, Morebeer works best for me.
 
Darwin18 said:
Seriously hope you get your supplies in a reasonable amount of time, as I have not in recent orders. My credit card was certainly charged quickly enough. Take some time and look through the Vendor Review forum.
Click to expand...

Yup, ordered from them about a month ago. Expect a 4 - 5 delay before your order is even shipped. When I first started using them it was super quick...

They are nice people, but slow.
 
I recently had the same issues with BMW on a hardware order, charged my cc immediately and then showed my order as pending when I checked on it ten days later. When I called them they blamed it on the mfrs drop shipping, contacted the mfr and found out they hadn't placed the order. Canceled and placed with another vendor, had it within a week.:confused:
 
Placed my first order with Brewmaster's Warehouse less than two weeks ago and it arrived yesterday. See my post in the Brewmaster's Warehouse thread. They DID NOT charge my credit card until my order was processed and they notified me that my order would be delayed a few days because they were waiting for an ingredient that they were out of. Quite frankly, i've paid MUCH more than $6.99 shipping when ordering from the other places, and it took just as long to get my order. AND, my order from Brewmasters Warehouse was packaged much better than anything i've ever ordered elsewhere. I will order from them again.
 
I do this same thing only use AHBS. I'm an hour and a half away from Northern Brewer and shipping is always like $15. Even making the kit on AHBS the price is still normally cheaper than what MW or NB sells it for
 
Teromous said:
It depends on what you order too. I recently ordered some stuff from them and it cost less than $8 and arrived in 3 days. I just checked the price to ship a kit and it's $12.26 to VB.
Click to expand...


I entered a VB zip and it was (Home Delivery $12.26)

But the same results with my zip = (Home Delivery $15.74)
 
BridgewaterBrewer said:
www.graintoglasshomebrew.com has $5 shipping on orders over $25. Shipping took about a wk to NJ.
love2brew.com has free shipping on orders over $75.
Click to expand...

Just ordered from this company a couple of days ago... Still processing order. I did save over $20 compared to my LHBS on a $60 order though.

It's just a matter of buying in bulk. If I were only to order one batch worth of ingredients it would be cheaper to go to my LHBS which I often do when I only have enough money for one batch at a time. Plus those guys are cool and they have a ton of inventory.
 
This is why I pretty much stick with Austin HomeBrew now. If I place a big order 4.99 smaller order 6.99. I used to be a Northern Brewer customer. And don't have anything bad to say about them. Besides there shipping cost are now just too much. I know they have had to lost more customers then just me over this. They want to charge me 14 bucks shipping for a 30 dollar order. That's just too much IMO if AHS can do it I don't see why they can't.
 
I've ordered from BMW and have had both sides. I live in Ga about 30 minutes away from them. A few orders arrived within a few days when they first started shipping to Ga, the last several orders have taken a week plus to arrive. The last order I got tired of waiting for so I went to pick it up, when I got there they informed me that one of the ingredients that I ordered was on back order and asked if I'd like them to credit my card. I picked up what they had, stopped by Winecraft in Woodstock on the way home and got the rest, they credited my card within a few days. I do love their create your own recipe thing, and I'll order again from them, but now there's Bind Murphy's Craft Beer store in Alpharetta that has a full home brew section and their prices are just as good if not better. Plus, the owner is a great guy who loves all things beer related and is always willing to help you out with recipes or ingredients.
 
EPS said:
This is why I pretty much stick with Austin HomeBrew now. If I place a big order 4.99 smaller order 6.99. I used to be a Northern Brewer customer. And don't have anything bad to say about them. Besides there shipping cost are now just too much. I know they have had to lost more customers then just me over this. They want to charge me 14 bucks shipping for a 30 dollar order. That's just too much IMO if AHS can do it I don't see why they can't.
Click to expand...

Shipping charges to ship a brew kit to my grandparents in FL on their website is cheaper than it is to ship it to me 1.5 hours away from their Twin Cities locations. I emailed them the other day and here's the response I got from them about shipping charges.

Our shipping costs are based on your ZIP code's distance from the nearest UPS depot, the location from which UPS' package delivery trucks must travel in order to deliver your order. We unfortunately have little control over these shipping rates which include a portion of the fuel surcharge paid to UPS on each order. We understand that no one likes to pay more for shipping costs but we unfortunately have little choice in the matter in order to keep our business viable in the long run while continuing to provide the level of service & selection of products that our customers have come to expect. Please let me know if you've got any further questions & thanks for shopping with us.
 
A few options:

As stated above...bulk buy grains and hops. I won't need hops at all this year unless I am doing something special that I need a very specific hop for. Get your grains and crush them yourself. The money you save not repeating orders and paying shipping will go towards a grain mill if you don't already have one. Get everything else locally.

I live in South Shore, Mass and just recently a LHBS opend up about 20 miles from me. They even went online but I will wait a few more months for them to go through their growing pains and make sure they have their act together (not that I have heard bad things.) As for now, I'm ordering from Midwest and its like $12. I still try for bulk orders and I am a member of their rewards program. Any order over $100 gets you double points and I get "free" shipping every 2 orders or so. I really like Midwest, I have several amazing stories from them about their customer service with me...its made me very loyal.

I have a 1 year old right now so taking 2 hours out of the weekend and going to the LHBS is very difficult. I'll start taking him when he can walk but for now, I am ordering online.
 

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