Anyone else notice UPS is now drop testing from 25 feet and expecting packages to be made of plywood?
I’ve had two 16x16x16 5lb boxes skewered by a forklift (different shipments different times) and now both have been picked up and are sitting in “UPS Inspection purgatory” where they will deny the insurance cause they will say the package fill wasn’t enough. Not sure how package fill will stop a forklift but we all know that’s what they are going to say!
They are extremely rough with packages. It’s why I try not to ship with them. I don’t have large packages, though.
Fact is stranger than fiction. Years ago we did a lot of tradeshow displays. We would ship them LTL to the show for our customers.
One day we thought wow, these work so good, let’s do it for smaller but fragile displays…
UPS refused the package. They will not ship plywood boxes by ground or air.
Our solution used XPS foam, we call it “Build a Box” if a SAS seller has a need let me know. I will outline it here on the SAS.
Sorry, plywood was a joke but I mean i use new boxes, proper pa king tape, switched from loose peanuts to paper fill (and have had success with paper for MONTHS). This just baffles me. My only saving grace is customers have been great.
Ups I feel is better then FedEx whom launches boxes when ever they can.
For reference my items are either in 16x16x16 (17x17x16 dim) 5lb boxes or 36x16x16 (36x17x17 dim) 28lb boxes
I may not need your build a box method next week, but please outline the process. It could come in handy in future as we are de-accessioning.
FWIW, a recent shipping issue we had was shipping two pictures to a dealer in South Carolina. It turned out U-line had very expensive boxes that would have worked, but Home Depot offered reasonably priced (but still quite expensive) shipping boxes mostly intended for shipping flat screen televisions that worked quite well for our pictures.
A few years ago, I sold a book about shipping art works that had been published by a NY State arts organization for nice money that surely has been replaced by a you-tube video…
We used a similar size to this. We actually lined all four 6 sides of the box with EPS. It was slate that we mine from a quarry. I will review this in a new thread.
I will do a new thread on it. As soon as I can focus on creating it.
Fascinating that you did a book on shipping, we are looking to that market right now. Not for shipping instructions but some other subjects close to our heart.
Back when I ran my website, we shipped a lot of art, packed in cut down bicycle boxes. The thickness of a bicycle box is greater than the thickness of the plywood crates than some artists had used to ship their works to us, and we were extremely generous with the fill.
The thickness of the cardboard was as great as anything we could find readily available.
I am no longer up for packing art. Which is why I am still seeking an auctioneer.
Yes, I have more breakage with UPS than USPS by far. Often the Ground Advantage rate is close enough to UPS Ground, but delivery times are longer.