Charging for postage

We sell goods that we ship to customers, and obviously the shipping has a cost, so how do we cover that?

There are a few approaches - some companies factor the cost of shipping in the price of the goods. That can work for some goods in some markets or if the volumes are high enough for it all to average out, but does not always work.

The approach we normally take is to charge for postage. As a general principle we try to do this at cost - not making a profit on postage, but it turns out not quite as simple as you may expect.

For the goods we ship on our main web site, like routers, VoIP phones, or even SIM cards, it is not too hard. E.g. for a SIM card we know it is small and fits in an envelope so offer options like 2nd class, 1st class, recorded, or tracked 24. The prices are based on the price we pay Royal Mail.

For larger items, we will weigh, and check Royal Mail or a courier, and quote the postage exactly as part of a quote.

Of course even that is not totally simple as RM charge VAT on some things and not on others, but we have to charge VAT regardless. Also, we have rates for account postage which do not match exactly the rates you may pay for a stamp. We also have a fixed rate for tracked 24, which is based on volume and sizes each year, so again not necessarily what people would expect if they compared to going to a post office themselves. Also, RM charge some sort of extra "fuel surcharge", just to add to the fun, and quite a lot for collection from our offices. With all of this I suspect we make a small loss on the postage we charge most of the time. We also don't usually factor in the envelope or packaging or staff time. These other bits being generally factored in to the price, in effect.

Fortunately, at least for now, we generally only ship to UK for such things.

Tindie sales

Selling on Tindie is way more complex when it comes to packaging and shipping costs. This is largely because we ship all over the world. This is mainly my small development boards.

For a start, Tindie have some simple shipping pricing options - we can set per country, and per product, and for first and subsequent items, but not for options on products, for example. And we cannot really work out the actual postage - I try to set the "subsequent item" price at a level such that it first with how many I can fit in different size envelopes.

In practice the postage and packaging costs depend on a rather complicated way on the combination of products purchased. E.g. I can fit 2 Faikout with cables and cases in and A6 envelope shipped as "large envelope" and pay one price for postage, though I think even that has a difference when it goes over 100g. This is the same as one Faikout. But I can also fit as many as 4 Faikout in that if no cable and case. Tindie will quote and charge shipping for initial plus extras, so for those examples 1+1, and 1+3, very different prices. I try and make sure this covers the postage we pay. It is shipping and handling I think, so the price can reasonably cover my time, the packaging, and what we pay royal mail, but some combinations add up to more than it costs, so yes, in some cases shipping and handling is making some profit (depending on how I cost my, or my staff's, time).

I did try and set up some options to address this, for some items allowing an option for buying two or three of the items as one item because I know that many fit in the same envelope. This just caused customers confusion even when labelled as "save postage". So I gave up on that.

It is also complicated by changing exchange rates - Tindie is in US dollars, so I have to adjust postage prices (and item prices) occasionally to be based on the UK pound price I pay.

Also, RM started charging for collection, which was previously free on click'n'drop.

If someone feels postage is too high, they are welcome to message, and I'll review it. Indeed on a couple of occasions someone has done so, for a UK purchase, and we arranged to bypass Tindie (which I am probably not supposed to do) and sell direct with a lower postage. Sadly another thing Tindie do not make easy is a specific partial refund, if I wanted to do via Tindie but charge less postage.

However, at the end of the day, the price charged is the price quoted (by Tindie), and is what the customer agreed. It is a take it or leave it - customer's choice, just like the price of the product itself.

US sales

It then got more, err, fun... US import tariffs charged by Royal Mail, so I pay postage and tariff, and an admin fee on top.

So the shipping and handling for US shipping on Tindie now includes an amount to cover US tariffs. This is impossible to match exactly - it is a shame Tindie do not have a shipping option to add a specified percentage of the sale price. They do not. So I created US shipping rates to cover "up to $5 tariff" and "up to $10 tariff" by adding $5 and $10 to the rates I normally quote.

Again, the shipping price is what is quoted and agreed by the customer.

Illegal tariffs

Now we really get in to the fun... US supreme court decides Trump's tariffs are illegal. So obviously I have asked Royal Mail how we get a refund of them. Do we get a refund of the admin fee too? It will be interesting to see what they say. I bet it will be "tough".

Of course, I have no idea if Tindie could cope with hundreds of "please refund this customer $3.50" or some such. As I say, they have no web site based refund option for me. I may simply have no practical way to send the tariffs back to my US customers, assuming I can get it back from RM (LOL). I may be able to create voucher / discount codes on Tindie, I'll have to check, that may be an approach to discount future purchases - but not ideal.

I guess another option if I got a tariff refund would be to find a suitable US based charity to send it to.

Direct refund?

Of course, as someone else pointed out - it may be a matter that the importer is the one that was liable to pay it, and they paid it by paying me, who paid RM, who paid US customs, but ultimately it is the importer that should directly get refunded for the illegal tariff directly: US customs to them. Which is fair enough.

But this idea does rather fall down in the face of Trump's repeated comments insisting that the sending country pays the tariff. It seems to me that RM have a lot of quotes of him saying that as justification for a refund of the tariffs that they did in fact pay as sending country.

I have no clue.

Companies House ID checks

Apparently this petition is confusing a few people. So trying to explain.

At the simplest level Companies House have to ID people now - directors and persons with significant control (PSC). This seems not that unreasonable to be honest.

ID means somehow proving a real ID, and that has a lot of issues - but they have some government ID app, or you can take ID to a post office or some such. The actual ID process is not the issue, and having to have a proper ID to be a director or PSC is not that daft - Companies House have always published the identity of people behind companies. These days there is more privacy over things like actual date of birth and home address, thankfully. But the names of company directors and PSC are a matter of public record.

So the new system means proved ID for director or PSC. Simples. You would think.

But no!

The reason for the petition, and my concern is simple.

My wife is PSC for our company. No problem. We know next return is June. So no action, surely?

Companies House have a deadline for proving her ID, and the confusion here is that is not the same as the annual return and the deadline for me to prove my ID as director. So we did not expect it to be an issue.

Turns out the deadline for proving ID for PSC is 14th of month of birth, so for her, last December.

Well, Companies House could have let her know - but they CHOSE NOT TO. Instead they waiting until the deadline was past and then sent her a letter basically saying she was now a CRIMINAL.

The letter was actually very very badly worded, and it seems that doing the ID process promptly and before end of December was enough to shut them up, thankfully. But from what I can see my wife is technically a criminal for not having met the deadline.

Someone else I know nearly had their bank accounts frozen over this even.

Of course, I was a tad panicked, and so wanted to sort my ID at companies house.

There is a snag.

I can't.

This it what the petition is about.

The stupidity.

I have to wait. I cannot prove my ID now!

I have to wait (1) until 1st of month of my birthday as PSC for some other company. And (2) July for many other companies for which I am director and PSC.

I have done my ID as a PSC now, but not as director, so I have to do again, and I cannot do that now. I cannot do in one go. I cannot do BEFORE the 14 day window.

I fully understand a legal deadline.

I do not understand an startline.

I do not understand why I cannot prove my ID now, and be done with it.

The only possible reason it to catch people out and make them unwilling criminals.

FFS 14 days! People have holidays. People can be off sick.

That is what the petition is about.

What dreams are made of

I had a daft idea.

Connect a BBC Micro B monitor port to ESP32 and use quad SPI to clock RGB+line sync triggered on frame sync and then mapped to original resolution PNG image via WiFi/web page.

Technically tricky. Tiny bit of circuit for sync and levels. Small. Powered by the port. Could be in-line working to a monitor.

I decided not to, as you can just buy RGB to HDMI, and HDMI capture cards, and job done, to video/stream even.

And, I’d have to fix one of my beebs.

The fun is I spent all night going round in my head how possible it would be. How it needs checking where line syncs appear in data stream, and adjusting SPI clock. Working out which interlace frame is which. Trying to recall how the sync line works. Trying to figure out if any way to identify mode 7, maybe by number of scan lines, as that is only mode which is fundamentally different resolution. Wondering how quickly I could refresh and send PNGs to a browser.

Yes, this is stuff I dream about.

Of course, assuming I could fix a monitor as well, I could have ESP32 generate the output a BBC would have using the same methods.

I could probably implement the output stream logic and display modes for the graphics a BBC micro could normally do over TCP or serial even!

Battery powered board

OpenMic Audio recorder

I have a few of my ESP32 boards which are battery powered.

The charging side itself is not too hard A TP4054 can charge a 3.7V LiPo from 5V USB. A simple regulator such as ME6211C33M5G can regulate from the battery to 3.3V.

The ESP32-S3 has a number of low power modes, meaning you can make a device, e.g. a Watchy, which can run off a small LiPo for weeks with the ESP32 in a low power mode for longer periods.

But there are a couple of challenges. One is powering down other stuff on the board - a good example being the WS2812 style LEDs - these use a small amount of power even when not lit. A simple fix for these is a point of load device like TPS22916 - it acts as a power switch and can easily cut the power to parts of the board.

Simple charger circuit

But what if you want to have an off mode, where, instead of running in a low power mode for a few weeks you want something that uses no power when off, and holds battery charge for months or years (subject to internal leakage). My OpenMic Audio recorder is a good example of this.

The answer is to use the TPS22916 to control the power to the whole board, including the processor.

I tried a couple of times and now have this circuit design...

Power on circuit

To explain this... The switch SW3 is a nice little push button. When pressed it connects the battery (pin 3) to the ON input on the TPS22916. This powers on the board (VSWITCHED).

The very first thing the software does is set PWR GPIO to output HIGH level. This, via the diode (because GPIO is 3.3V and battery is 3.7V) holds the ON pin high.

Releasing the switch disconnects the battery from ON pin, but the PWR holds it high and keeps power on.

Separately the software sets the BTN GPIO to an input, weak pulled low. This is connected to ON which is connected to PWR (3.3V less a diode). This allows the software to read this as high when button not pressed.

Pressing the button when on simply changes ON from 3.3V to 3.7V and has no effect, but it disconnected BTN, which goes low due to weak pull down. Thus allowing the software to detect button presses when running normally.

Finally, when turning off, the software sets the PWR output low. The ESP32 actually has a mode to hold a GPIO at a level over reset, which allows the pin to be held low as the processor loses power and goes in to reset (brownout detect).

Once off, the whole board is not powered and only power usage is the tiny amount the TPS22916 may use, and any used by idle battery charging TP4054.

So far tests show that even after months, my audio record still shows a full battery level when turned on.

Finally I have simple potential divide in to an ADC input from VSWITCHED to allow battery level estimation.

Next steps: There are chips designed to use fuck all power but provide a configurable periodic wake up output. These could be used to power on the ESP32 periodically, much like the low power mode on the ESP32 itself, but lower power - so devices could wake once a day, for example, and run of a battery for years if needed.

Conspiracy theories

Someone just asked me...

"can anyone name a conspiracy theory that has not come true?"

Well...

Santa Claus.

I mean seriously, it is THE conspiracy theory - millions of people all working together to perpetrate it at every level - parents, relatives, companies, film makers, even US Defence Santa tracker. It is a massive, huge, co-ordinated, conspiracy way beyond what flat Earther’s could imagine. It really is...

It is almost as bad as most religions

Easter bunny and tooth fairy do not get close.

So... My kids, and even more so my grandkids... Santa has been sold as make believe, fun, let's play a game.

Never sold as reality, always a "pretend" and "fun".

I feel massively happier about that approach than selling as "real" until you get older.

It also causes issues with trust, I think.

If there can be a massive conspiracy, as there really is, of "Santa Claus", what, and whom, can you trust. 

And religion is another one - sell as "some people have these ideas and it reassures them, but think for yourself", and "there are some things nobody knows for sure, and you can consider". Religion can be a comfort for many. I am happy with that as a "comfort", sort of. 

We can always have "fun" and "fantasy". Indeed, it should be encouraged, but as such.

But, I really understand why some people come to religion.

I have really not.

I had a proper CoE background (school and parents), but quickly worked out Pascal's wager, and then realised that only worked with one specific "God or not" and so not a thing. No way to do with many Gods.

I understand people find comfort in such things, and why they want to feel comfort in such things.

I prefer to feel my own morality and my own judgement or my own actions, than something divine over me. I am responsible for what I do.

Telescope issues

 New video

So, sorry. First off, yes, still a cough.
Um, almost gone. Clearing up a lot.
triggers it. I went outside for 5 minutes in the cold, triggered it. Ihave doctor's appointment 16th. I will, if it's still going, talk to them. So, panic nod.
However, today's rant is about a telescope.
So, my well, one of my granddaughters has expressed an interest in the night sky, stars, telescopes, and the like.
And I thought, well, let's help get her a beginner telescope. And I Googled a bit and I probably fell foul of some AI because what I found was um a review of a Sonara telescope that was apparentlyquite good as a starter kids telescope.
And so I went to their website and there it was and it's 169 quid.
And I'm thinking, well, firstly, obviously, my granddaughter is worth this.
Duh. Um, but, you know, it's it's not cheap. Claims to have, you know, really advanced optics and whatever.
Anyway, based on the review, which in hindsight I think the review was just but anyway, based on the review, I ordered one and it's from a site that has UK in the domain name and charges in poundsand then ships from Hong Kong for sake. And I hate this. The website does not have on it who the legal entity you're buying from is.
And this is actually I think a legal requirement. Uh and they don't.
Anyway, let's see what I got.
It's a telescope. Okay.
F370.
I think the 70 is the aperture and the 300 is the focal length. Okay. Let's just go around the sides the end. Now, I'm not going to open it up because there's no more information in there. Okay.
Okay, fine. Um, it's a telescope and it kind of meets the spec of the ...
It has no manufacturer name, no country of origin, a CE mark, but the suppliers seem unwilling or unable to provide a declaration of conformity which is a requirement as part of a C mark.
So essentially this is a scammy illegal fake CE toy telescope.
I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm not saying it doesn't even have the aperture aperture and focal length it claims.
What can I say?
But it's a scam.
If I go on Amazon, I can find this for as little as 20 for the same telescope. So I quered and they said, "Oh, no, no, it's not toytelescope. The optics are way better." Blah, blah, blah. I said, "Fine.
Declaration of conformity." Oh, no. We can assure you it meets all the standards, etc. No, declaration of conformity. Requirement for a C mark.
No, no. I mean, I went around the whole we can't read your emails. Your email seems to have the weird attachment. It's just a signature. Um, uh, they replied to me saying, "Your email seems to be blank." But I heard this before. The reply quotes my email which is not blank saying your email seems to be blank.
This is not an uncommon thing etc etc.
We're going around circles and I'm basically saying if you cannot provide a declaration of conformity then your C mark is fake. Therefore you cannot legally sell your product. You can't do that because you've got no manufacturer ID or country of origin anyway.
Therefore, I need to report it to the authorities and my bank and get a claw back.
Sad.
I was ripped off. I fell for it. I'm an idiot. I'm sorry.
Now, what I've got, Alice, now and have a look at this. What I've got Alice now is 260 quid. Okay, this is clearly an actual telescope.
Just the very fact it comes in a box labeled 14 and a half kilograms is is a clue.
And we put it together and she is so excited to go out in the night sky with this. I've got her some books on specially aimed at kids looking at the night sky.
So, I've got those. I hope she likes it.
If she doesn't, she doesn't. But this is a real telescope I've now gother. So, I now need to sort out this that I fell for, which is clearly a toy telescope that's worth 20 quid, charged 169 quid, and an absolute ripoff with I mad.
So, that's my latest rant.
I hope to follow up with her exploration of space.
I I really hope she loves it. I hope she gets pictures of Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings and nebula and whatever.
There there's a lot she can look at.
and they're planning a a sort of camping trip to take her onto the moors um with her telescope and it's got a whole clip thing for a mobile phone so she should be able to get lots of pictures straight off it. It's good.
Yeah, but the toy telescope is either going back or getting clawed back or something.
Don't fall for that crap, please.

Losing my dad.... Fuck facebook.

Hi.
I did a thing today.
What I did was kill off Facebook. No, actually, I killed it off quite a few days ago.
Facebook came up with a choice.
Pay or don't pay, and don't pay is we're going to trawl what you say and what you do even more than we did before.
And I thought I'll try it without a few a few days, you know. I did.
And then finally today I went for the whole, delete it all.
Okay, I've downloaded 2.28 28 gigabytes of stuff I've posted on Facebook just as an archive, but it's gone.
Facebook's now gone.
And what hadn't really hit me was there would be one thing that would also go, and it's this.
Oh, get out.
Ah, right.
Is this is this it's a Facebook portal thing.
And then I realized that hasn't been used for quite a while.
And the reason it hasn't been used for quite a while is we got it during COVID.
I got those for everyone in the family during COVID so that everyone could instantly video call anyone else or group of people during COVID. So, we're talking six years ago.
And the one person who kept that going for way longer than anyone else was my dad. He would randomly call me on that and it would be on my desk here and it would pop up. Hi, Dad. How are you? who have things, you know, and he called lots of other people with it, but it was the one non- tech thing that he was happy to use and his sister was even happy to use at one point.
I think she gave up on it sooner than he did, but they died within like a week of eachother. It's which is really sad.
But it was the thing that he kept using for longer than anyone else and it's been sat on my desk for years now and finally I've taken it off my desk because I've given up on Facebook.
I think I might be able to make it work with WhatsApp. I have no idea. I'm not sure how long I'll stay on WhatsApp. But yeah, the hit of leaving Facebook meant leaving that which meant that was amemory of my dad was unexpected.
I've still got all the last IME messages he sent, but we all move on. It's sad, but that was unexpected. So, that's today's thing. Apart from the fact the cold seems to be clearing up. It's not completely gone. It's really, really clearing up. So, okay.