Questions about shipping sold items & boxing crap up.....

Was wondering when you guys sell stuff off the site which shipping service do you choose most often (UPS, FEDEX, or USPS)? Or do you let the buyer decide which to use?

And on hard to box stuff (big or strange shaped) like headers where do you get boxes? I have heard of some people just using zip ties to hold the headers together (and not use any box at all) but that sounds like they would probably get beat to crap during the trip.

UPS Fired, They Don't Honor their insurance. FedEx for big ticket stuff and USPS FlatRate for the rest.

I have all kinds of boxes I get sheet metal parts in that I use plus plenty of bubble wrap. USPS flat rate for "anything that fits"lol. And fedex because they have a place to drop off.my only local ups is open for something like 3-5 pm BS for drops!

I use USPS for the small stuff and normally UPS for the rest, except for items going to Canada. The buyers seem to prefer USPS due to the import duties for some reason.

#1 USPS, #2 UPS, #3 FedEx.

I've had issues with all of them but if you ship enough stuff everyone will at some point. Lately the USPS has been the cheapest and fastest.

My son just shipped a turbo set up, Fed Ex beat UPS by a third

I work in shipping and receiving and I will tell you, UPS customer service is non existent, they are awful to work with, and they also don't honor their insurance like someone else said. If the box gets torn up, it was improperly packed, it is always your fault and never theirs, I talk to a couple of drivers daily coming by where I work, and the HATE working for UPS, they said if the money wasn't good they would be long gone. USPS has always been good to me, and the same goes with FedEx, also both are cheaper than UPS.

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JBR-3 wrote:I just have to chip in here.

My advice is to avoid UPS if AT ALL possible.

I second that. I have had packages that were packed at UPS and were damaged and they still denied the claim due to packaging...

^^^^^ I agree UPS sucks...and as for the cross border stuff it is not the duty that is standard, UPS charges a brokerage fee and because they charge what they want it is often Very Excessive even more than the shipping.

Dave, depending on the size/weight of the items you can bubble wrap and get rolled corrugated cardboard from shipping supply companies and just wrap the item like a package, an sometimes I split up things like headers and cylinder heads and it is cheaper and meets the size requirements of USPS even insuring each part for the combined value.

Thanks for the info/opinions.

FedEx here. They even paid out a claim for me in a timely manner when they damaged a glide I bought from Curt on this site.

UPS could break a truck tire if you packed it in a vault full of nerf footballs.

Would a cast aluminum tunnel ram (Weiand, Offy, etc) be too heavy to trust USPS?

DILLIGASDAVE wrote:Would a cast aluminum tunnel ram (Weiand, Offy, etc) be too heavy to trust USPS?

A UPS driver once told me to pack my stuff to survive a 6 ft. vertical drop.

unless they changed recently the weight should be ok, you can use heavy plastic bags and spray low expansion (window/door) spray foam into the bag sitting in the box then set the intake on the bag... do the same for the top. It sets up pretty fast and has amazing protection abilities and will be molded to the shape of the part.