Not another shipping rant!

catfishblues

catfishblues

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2005
Location
Pfafftown, NC
Why is it that I can order 50lbs of brake rotors off Amazon, have them shipped to my door, and ultimately save 30% or more over buying them locally. However, I try to ship a 50lb box to TX, and neither USPS nor UPS can help me for less than $75! What the Hell! How is the little guy supposed to make it these days? You can say what you want about volume discounts, etc, but you can't honestly believe that they aren't passing the losses onto the walk-in customers.
 
Yeah. I counted on like $40 when I negotiated the selling price, which was already about fire sale low. I can't afford to take that big of a hit on the sale, though.
 
Volume. All the large online companies are shipping out items left and right. Therefore, shipping companies give them larger discounts. If you ship stuff often, FedEx is usually the best way to go. Also, having an account will help you out. I ship all my items with going postal. Much cheaper
 
If you aren't talking to an account rep before you ship, if you regularly ship, you are literally lighting money on fire.

If you are smart you will play them off each other every 6 months or so. Fed Ex, UPS, Conway take your pick call and ask for an account rep or account manager.

Tell them you have been using XYZ and are looking for an easier and cheaper one stop shop solution.

Small business usually gte a .42 multiplier from FedEx Freight (that is 42% of cost not 42% off) Large business can get into the high single digit multipliers.
 
Just shipped a 28 lb bumper cover to CA in an over sized box, UPS.... to the tune of $291... When my employee got back with the receipt I almost shit myself. I figured $80 maybe $100 max, $291 is rediculous. I don't ship a whole lot and most of what I do ship is small flat rate usps stuff so I told my guy to just ship it, now I am definitely wishing I looked into it a bit more!
 
You're not going to the UPS Store or something, are you? They are franchises and aren't part of corporate UPS, so can set their prices to whatever they really want (including markup for their profit, which is how they make their money), so their prices aren't necessarily the prices you would pay with a UPS account. So they're charging full retail, plus markup.

For something as big as a bumper cover you're paying dimensional weight, so you get pretty beat up on pricing no matter what...
 
And that "oversized box" will count against you too...

I ship unassembled cage kits semi-regularly, almost exclusively FedEx ground. Over the years, I've got the packaging down pretty well (Saran-wrap w/ DG box tape)... I mean it's fawking 1.75" DOM, what does a box get me? Exactly a $5 upcharge, but it keeps the "girth" (LxWxH) exact and to date, I've only lost 1 shipment to "transit damage" (fawkers in Cumming, GA tried to blow it off as "belt damage", despite the *TIRE TRACKS* on said DOM and scratches that appear to have been caused from the ramp it was leaned against while being driven over).

Anything "un-boxed" and over like 35# is automatically billed at the "over 50#" rate...
 
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