High Costs of an Individual Shipping to a Residence - Updated

[Cowtown Commander]

Trying to help a club member with some door moldings. Have 13 lbs in a 31 x 21 x 7 box. I will be shipping from shippers facility to a residence. Computer estimates are UPS is $49.36, Postal Service is $41.02 and Fed Ex $25.15. It appears that the shipping companies are really expensive for an individual shipping to a residence. Got an order from Summit two weeks ago that came in 3 shipments - a 6 volt excide battery and master cylinder via Fed-Ex 24 hours after ordering, a wheel cylinder via US post office 3-4 days via USPO, and the back ordered wheel cylinder from the manufacturer via Fed Ex in 3-4 days. Since my order was over $99 - I had no shipping charges. Obviously Summit is not paying what it is costing me to ship.

Guess we don't have any option but to ship Fed-Ex and be happy that they are there but it sure hurts to pay that much for freight.

Update - When I took the freight to the local Fed-Ex store front the price was $54.32 so I tried to go directly to the main Fed-Ex Terminal for Fort Worth which is about 9 miles away and found out that they do not take shipments from individuals --- if you have an acount with them you can leave the paperwork and shipment but if not there is no way to ship a package.....guess we will use the post office in the morning. This really sucks poor Dennis is going to pay $40 shipping on $75 worth of parts.
Thanks for the suggestion of PVC but the problem is these are vent windows and U shaped front windshield molding for a 1938 Studebaker so that is not an option - shipment is about as small as possible. Might have been able to save an inch in width with another box but thats about it.

[rkapteyn]

Ask your customer if you can ship it to his work address.
Shipping to a business is sometimes cheaper.
Also the USPS has a cheaper parcel service that is slower and sometimes much cheaper.
It is called "Parcel select"

Robert Kapteyn.

[BRUCESTUDE]

I know! I just shipped, via UPS, about 100# of household goods for my daughter who moved back to Washington State from Chicago. The cost was over $1.20 per pound...what a rip off! If we had more time etc. I would've shopped around for better rates; it used to be UPS was the "go to" shipper, but no more......
(I realize this is not Stude related but I do ship and receive Studebaker parts.)

[wittsend]

Are you referring to door moldings such as beltline trim that would typically be 1" to 4" in height and the length of the door? If so I'd assume unless there is a significant number of pieces you could either:
1. Ship them in a cardboard tube.
2. Cut down your box in a triangular shape. You might be able to cut out half or more of the volume and make the box more ridged in the process. You didn't mention the weight which may have be a factor in the cost.
Does this party have family of friend that is a commercial address they can ship to?

I agree though, how do these companies ship such large items and make any profit with free shipping??? I once ordered a box of 10 plastic ridge vents for my re-roofing project. The box was about 36" X 18" X 18" with free shipping. When they arrived one of the ten vents was quite distorted. I called the company and they said they would ship another one out right away. A few days later the delivery truck showed up. From my roof vantage point I noticed the box was the same size for one vent as it was for ten. And as the guy carried the box he had the appearance of carrying an item with more weight than just one vent. Sure enough they had sent me another box of ten vents. My guess was even though ten vents were $100 they had a huge mark-up. And it was probably more work to procure and box up just one vent than to send me a whole box.

The irony is that I wound up using only nine of the ten original vents. The distorted vent returned to its original shape after leaving it in the sun and using a bit of carefully placed weight to re-shape it. I'd try and sell them, but with the cost of shipping.... LOL.

[PackardV8]

What you're noticing is the same business decision which eBay made. Some years back, eBay, UPS, FedEx, all decided they'd prefer to serve a few huge professional customers than millions of individuals.

If an individual takes a package to a UPS Store, he is charged 4X the money a major client is charged for the same size/weight/distance. That's how so many e-stores are able to offer free shipping.

And don't even think about trying to file a claim on the insurance bought on that individual shipment. They've outsourced their claims to a third party who gets a bonus on how many attempted claims are never paid out. I'm a fairly persistent guy, but FedEx wore me down to the point I gave it up. I took the box into a FedEx facility myself for shipment and was home when an empty box was delivered. Even though I had their delivery man sign the box that it was empty when he brought it to the door, and thus it was an internal theft, I was never able to collect a cent. A family friend had the same experience with a broken shipment, even though they'd paid for professional packaging. Don't waste money paying for insurance.

jack vines

[Pat Dilling]

Whenever I can I use the USPS flat rate boxes, almost always cheaper and they usually are there in just 2 days, even half way across country. Even when I have to use different boxes their Priorty Mail is usually very competitive. FedEx is on my sh*t list these days, they completely smashed a box I shipped with a plastic radiator shroud in it and broke the shroud. Refused to cover it saying it was insufficiently packaged. Interestingly it was a shroud I had purchased and never used, and had received via USPS in the same box that Fedex later crushed. Our local UPS is only open from 2-6 to take packages in and acts like they are doing me a favor by taking my money.

I would say the mega shippers get a greatly discounted volume rate.

[rkapteyn]

I use PVC pipe to ship long moldings.

Robert Kapteyn

[70Avanti2]

Try Grayhound. They will ship station to station. Better prices better handling.

[TX Rebel]

shipping

Try Grayhound. They will ship station to station. Better prices better handling.

greyhound can still be a viable option but their prices have escalated way up in recent years so I seldom use them. Seldom does a hood, fender or seat ship for under $100. on the bus.
FedEx only lost one item out of all the things I shipped through them last year. Of course, it was the most expensive single piece I shipped the whole year- a freshly re-plated center grill for a '55 Stude. Even though I provided a replacement core & paid to plate it out of my pocket, I lost the customer over it, thank you FedEx. In another instance, a bozo made me wait weeks to return an incorrect chrome part belonging to another customer which I sent him by mistake, & when he finally shipped it by UPS, they broke it in half..Naturally, I never recovered a dime from either shipper. You file a claim with FedEx or UPS, & the next week, they have no record of the claim and you are back to square one. They know your time is more valuable than the claim most of the time.
FedEx also has a bad habit of upping the cost of shipping between the time the label is printed & when the charges are made to my acct. They do not send me any statements & make it very difficult to see what my charges are online to keep customers from seeing how they have been ripped off.

[jclary]

So...are we "ripe" for some upstart "Uber-Like" entrepreneur to fill a niche in shipping?

[sweetolbob]

Greyhound is interesting. I believe that for very large parts they are the most economical way to ship but for smaller parts not so much. I shipped a set of Avanti front bumper brackets a couple months back and Fedex was $15 less expensive than Greyhound.

I'm not arguing with anyone's results but pointing out that you need to check all the shipping options and not assume any method is the lowest cost. Bob