UPS rates - wow.

[HCHTech]

We are very lucky that we don't have to ship much in our business. Most of our customers are local. I have a new customer, though, that we had to prep and ship out laptops/docks/monitors/keyboard-mouse-combo to 2 new employees - one in Wisconsin and one in North Carolina. We have a seldom-used business UPS account, and show up at the UPS store on Saturday morning last with everything in the original boxes. The monitors can ship ok in their boxes, but we wanted the laptops, keyboards & docks packaged together to give additional padding and minimize the number of boxes being shipped. In all there was one 10# box going to Wisconsin and a 10# box and 2 14# boxes going to North Carolina. We got insurance, of course, totalling $5,000 split between the two destinations. Take a wild guess what they wanted to ship them for arrival on Tuesday the 7th.

Spoiler: You might want to sit down before pressing this button.

$911.86

The only reasonable option available was straight ground shipping, for arrival by end-of-day on Friday the 10th, 6 days after drop off at $240. I appreciate there is a holiday in there, but jebus h christ on a pogo stick I was not ready for how much that expense was going to be.

 

[britechguy]

I have, for years now, found that FedEx Ground and, when it's something that fits in one of the "it fits it ships USPS Priority Mail" boxes, are both absolute bargains compared to UPS.

Insurance also escalates costs to a much greater extent that I think is warranted. But there are times you just don't want to go without it.

 

[nlinecomputers]

You’ll pay a small Fortune to have UPS box things for you. Never do that. They charge roughly 5x the costs for packing materials.

 

[Sky-Knight]

The problem is the huge box... it's not the weight, it's the volume. It's always cheaper to ship multiple smaller boxes because they can play packing tetris with them.

 

[britechguy]

The problem is the huge box... it's not the weight, it's the volume. It's always cheaper to ship multiple smaller boxes because they can play packing tetris with them.

Agreed. And most things don't need an awful lot of padding to protect them more than adequately. And this is coming from someone who routinely shipped ceramic decorative pieces for many years. You quickly come to realize that "enough is enough" and any more is just waste and overkill. For computers and components a single layer of bubble wrap around "the fragile stuff" and packing to stabilize the non-fragile stuff is enough.

 

[Markverhyden]

I've got a seldom used UPS business account and have found that it's regularly more expensive than just walk in retail. They bank, literally, on those who have regular shipments with them. Got one who sells, no store front but B2B, and ships dozens a day and they get negotiated rates every few months. I stopped using my account online to create labels and just use the retail. And @Sky-Knight is correct. You get it without vaseline when you go with really big boxes. If everything was in the OEM packaging there's no reason to consolidate everything excepting a bunch of small boxes.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@Markverhyden I find the exact opposite... labels costing 50-60% more from the local UPS store than they do on my ups.com account. So I print them myself and drop them off!

 

[timeshifter]

I believe every UPS Store is a franchise and they probably charge what they want for the shipping part, and of course the packing supplies and services. You’ll do much better packing it yourself and printing the labels at home and just dropping off the ready to go packages there.

On a side note, ebay has gotten much better with their UPS integration including the rates. If you sell something on eBay and ship it through their site linked to UPS the pricing is surprisingly good.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@timeshifter Yeah anyone that ships any volume gets absurdly good rates.

Before the pandemic, Nexgen could ship any of our smaller servers anywhere in the continental US in 2 days for $20. I could get my largest device anywhere I wanted to in the world for $50 in 3 days.

Now? I'm lucky to have it there next week for $50.

 

[Markverhyden]

@Markverhyden I find the exact opposite... labels costing 50-60% more from the local UPS store than they do on my ups.com account. So I print them myself and drop them off!

Sorry I guess I wasn't clear enough. I meant buying it online, not onsite. I'd expect anything onsite to cost more.

 

[cypress]

I rather ship with USPS than Fedex who has lost 2 packages in the past couple of months and hasn't done anything to help. Thank goodness the vendor has stepped in quickly and shipped out the replacements.

 

[lan101]

I rather ship with USPS than Fedex who has lost 2 packages in the past couple of months and hasn't done anything to help. Thank goodness the vendor has stepped in quickly and shipped out the replacements.

Yeah Fedex has been garbarge the last several months. Nothing but delays and tracking headaches. I'll gladly pay a premium for UPS at this point.

 

[GTP]

I shipped a laptop from Adelaide to Date City, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
Sent it in the original box inside another box with a single layer of bubble wrap around it.

Sent/picked up Monday morning 9.00 AM local time by "Couriers Please" and it arrived on my clients doorstep 2 days (Wednesday) later in the afternoon, around 4.30 PM Japan time..

With $5000 insurance and freight the total was $350.

I was happy with that.

 

[Markverhyden]

I shipped a laptop from Adelaide to Date City, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
Sent it in the original box inside another box with a single layer of bubble wrap around it.

Sent/picked up Monday morning 9.00 AM local time by "Couriers Please" and it arrived on my clients doorstep 2 days (Wednesday) later in the afternoon, around 4.30 PM Japan time..

With $5000 insurance and freight the total was $350.

I was happy with that.

That's actually a very reasonable price for all that happened.

 

[MudRock]

Insurance also escalates costs to a much greater extent that I think is warranted. But there are times you just don't want to go without it.

These companies pretty much consider insurance on their packages to be straight profit. It doesn't cost them NEAR what they charge you. They carry their own insurance but will never let you touch it unless you can prove gross negligence on their behalf and they themselves don't usually touch it. That said, trying to CLAW insurance out of them is like pulling teeth, and they will make you try to settle for pennies on the dollar of value, UNLESS you're a big enough account to fight it or the patience.

One of my wholesalers stopped paying the insurance and still stuck it to UPS and DHL if they trashed items. I tell you what, when that happened, I was lucky to have to make a claim once a year. Prior, I couldn't get a computer case in without a hole punched through it.

We're paying a "tax" being the small guy for them giving stupid deals to the mega-boxes. Fill their planes with Amazon, and you pay for Amazon's cheap rates. (We were seeing that in Canada on wholesale electronics too, paying well above retail in many instances, or at least trying to.)

They're leaving big holes open for smaller delivery companies to jump in, or sub-couriers. Big market starting to show up in big centres up here for discounted shipping that still heavily uses the big delivery companies.

I don't know about the U.S., but see if any tech associations or business groups/chambers you might be part of offers cheaper rates.