Shipping Rates

[btkrausen]

Anybody ship lately? Rates are ridiculous to ship a box.

I sold a Precision Marine Kalk reactor and UPS wants $55 to ship ground and USPS wants $57 to ship Priority. Thats just crazy.

 

[63vette427]

They sure are crazy. They only seem to get worse. It makes it so hard to sell cheaper pack and save people money.

 

[returnofsid]

I'm shipping corals, from Washington state to Florida, Wednesday. $85.00!

 

[Hyprviperx]

what ever happened to "if it fits it ships" (dry goods, not live obviously) i have to agree the shipping is making most corals close to a 20 percent; increase, if your not able to afford much at a time, then it kills your coral fund/allowance. you could have a nice acro or some expensive zoa/palys for those prices:cry:

 

[soccerbag]

Yeah, prices have risen for sure. That's a lot for such a light reactor. But size has a lot to do with it. Crazy.

 

[btkrausen]

Yeah, this is going from Louisville (where UPS is located) to Oregon. Its just crazy man....For $7 more I can have it to him same day via Southwest Cargo.

 

[MoneyPit]

Has anyone used USPS for shipping corals overnight ? Are they any good ?

 

[soccerbag]

I would not recommend it personally. While the rates are more attractive, I prefer to have detailed (updated) tracking info at all times. USPS seldom updates any of that from my experience. If I'm going to trade or ship my nice corals, I will send them with Fedex. Others have had bad experiences with Fedex but they are (at least) more predictable.

 

[gooch Verified Sponsor]

Yep, every year they seem to take a rate increase. I think ups had a 5 percent increase this year. Everything I ship is heavy so I get killed on freight.

 

[mfdrookie516]

Cant you ship UPS ground? I'm not sure on the specifics, but BRS usually quotes me about $10 to ship anything from bulbs to buckets of salt. Perhaps they take a hit on some of the heavier stuff? I had a buddy ship me a light fixture UPS and it was only about $15 for standard ground shipping.

 

[Just Clownin Around]

I ship fish and it costs me 75$/pair, it's just crazy

 

[btkrausen]

Cant you ship UPS ground? I'm not sure on the specifics, but BRS usually quotes me about $10 to ship anything from bulbs to buckets of salt. Perhaps they take a hit on some of the heavier stuff? I had a buddy ship me a light fixture UPS and it was only about $15 for standard ground shipping.

That WAS ground pricing which is why I was so shocked. haha

 

[emerald525]

UPS ground would definitely be cheaper. I have used USPS and agree they don't provide very accuarate or utd tracking information but their prices are more reasonable. You also have to watch it when shipping from west coast to east coast. They sometimes cannot guarantee next day. I usually use fed ex and typically end up paying a percentage of the shipping so the buyer doesn't get all the burden.

 

[mfdrookie516]

That WAS ground pricing which is why I was so shocked. haha

Ahh, my apologies. You said priority, I thought you'd left an 'S' out and meant USPS. That's ridiculous. Is it really heavy or something? Could you take it apart and ship it in a couple large flat rate boxes?

 

[fraggingfish]

Usually the size of the box determines the cost of the shipping.
I remember shipping lumenarc III's a month ago and the weight was only 15 or so pounds.
Quoted online for $35 ground, but when it was shipped I was charged $115. Called FedEx and they said the size of the box was the factor.
It's funny because that was how much I sold my LA3's for, minus the cost of packing it.

 

[cdness]

Yeah shipping is getting to the point where personal sales are next to impossible unless they are large deals.

I know this won't help for any cross country shipments, but locally we have a shipper called SpeeDee Delivery who does overnight shipping within 4 states for $7 or so. That was my cost for a FULL standard LFS livestock box of corals. It isn't guaranteed overnight, but I have yet to have them miss a day.

 

[jordan3548]

Bigger companies can get away with only charging 10 for shipping or whatever because they likely have an account with them and ship large quanities. I know UPS gives discounts to businesses who ship a certain amount of packages a week youll notice all these companies offering cheap shipping for dry products all use UPS thats probably why