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Has anyone in the Puna area tryed Azure Standard? It`s a web based food store that is located in Oregon. You order a min. of $40 worth of stuff and they will deliver it free to a locol drop off spot in your area. They claim that they deliver to Hawaii, via barge, for a fee. They sell a lot of organic stuff at near wholesale prices. This might offset the shipping costs to Hilo. Maybe if enough folks got together on an order, it might be worth it. They sell a large variety of other items as well.
http://beta.azurestandard.com/
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Some friends of mine and I have ordered from Azure Standard a few times. Their stuff is good.
The challenge has been to get enough people to make the shipping worth while and coordinating the timing of need vs. ship date. Generally, we have one person do the pickup and pay and then we all pay that person. It works well with a small group who knows each other, but could pose problems if some people got flakey.
Robin
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Azure Standard is a great family-run company that has really grown lately. Their prices are fantastic! I depended on them for about half of my groceries & ordered from them every 2 weeks for decades, back in Idaho.
Here in Hawaii, I've ordered only once, with a group of friends. When the barge shipping costs were added on, it seemed barely worthwhile. Several items were damaged in transit: an entire 50# sack of grain that broke, leaking bottles, etc.
I don't want to sound totally down on them; I would give them another go, maybe.
The way they do it, the shipping will be calculated on volume, not by weight. Makes it a little tricky to figure out ahead of time if a particular item will be worth it by the time it gets here.
And remember, you can't order the refrigerated, frozen, or produce items.
aloha, Liz
"The best things in life aren't things."
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http://www.azurestandard.com/
We have a neighborhood group up the Hamakua coast which uses Azure Standard. Everyone gets their orders into Azure Standard by a certain date with a note on which shipping route to use and then lets the coordinator know roughly how much stuff they ordered so the right size van or truck will get to the dock to pick the order up. After the shipment is delivered, the coordinator calculates everyone's shipping portion and we pay them directly for that when the items are picked up from their house. Sometime the order is pretty big when folks order fencing supplies and big bags (50#) of grain and flour. I usually get the smaller 5# bags of beans and peas as well as quarts or gallons of molasses. Small and heavy is the best things to buy when shipping by barge. The molasses is listed under the refrigerated section but it doesn't have to be refrigerated until it is opened.
The way it is set up now, our coordinator pays for all the shipping when picking up the shipment but all the stuff is prepaid so it isn't likely that folks are not going to get their stuff. Any complaints or difficulties are between Azure Standard and the person ordering the items, not with the coordinator. It might work for your neighborhood, too. I'm sure Azure Standard wouldn't mind adding a few more pallets of food to the orders going by barge to our island. Gather a group and arrange a shipping route so the entirety of the orders will get a good shipping rate. Shipping one boxful is expensive, shipping a pallet full is much less expensive by a per item accounting.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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This sounds very interesting! I would be interested in participating in a Puna-based buying group, if some control could be exercised over the shipping expense.
It sounds like the success (and my interest) hinges on maximizing the shipping expense. If I understand the information presented here so far, a pallet needs to be filled as close to the maximum volume as possible, to make the order worthwhile. And it would be a disaster if the order went slightly over a pallet, and unfortunate if the order didn’t fill the pallet.
With this in mind … Hotzcatz – Can you tell me if Azure works with a group placing an order to let them know what volume has been reached -- (ie, before shipping it out) – whether it’s “over” or under”? And are you able to "tweak" it before finalizing it?
Mahalo
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I am so down to do this if a Puna group is organized. I think Island Naturals charges way more than is fair, and it doesn't make sense to drive all the way into Hilo just to go grocery shopping.....
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."
"How do you know i am mad?" said Alice.
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MORE ABOUT THE SHIPPING EXPENSE . . .
After my last post on this subject, I had a conversation which enlightened me that the volume shipping expense is not tied to pallet size (as I was supposing before). . .
So ... how much should one add to the base price of the Azure products for shipping ?? (To determine if ordering from them would be worthwile) Is there a rough percentage we can apply? I will look into getting an answer to this from Azure.
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Yes, birdseye, I think you're on the right track. If you find out the formula they use for figuring shipping, that would be extremely helpful!
aloha, Liz
"The best things in life aren't things."
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Everything is shipped by ocean freight so what ever is cheapest via ocean freight is the way to go. They don't charge by weight, they charge by volume. With that in mind, it should cost more to ship a large yet light bag of potato chips than a small but heavy pint of honey.
When shipping by ocean freight there is also a "classification" of freight. Things like manhole covers get charged a different rate than something like surgical equipment since one is a lot less breakable than the other.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
