I find that shipping a large package cost so much. Including box, care, insurance, etc.it cost me 35$ for my last one. I may not have enough experienceor kknowledge but tell me what is your method, tip, and service you use?

U.S.P.S. priority is often cheaper than UPS/FED-EX. I usually take the kite out of the bag and try get as much air as possible out of the kite. This way I can use a smaller box at a cheaper fee.

post office....send as media mail

If it doesn't need to travel to the Outer Hebrides and the receiver hasn't glued & stapled himself to the mailbox, Parcel Post works fine.

You can have tracking, delivery confirmation, and signature confirmation tacked on.

A few years ago, I shipped Cheezy a set of skis and boots. The concrete forms I used to pack the skies in just brushed underneath the size limitations and it was padded and taped within an inch of its life.

If you ever want to get strange looks and whispers at the Post Office, two concrete forms duct taped together, reinforced and trims to just under the length limit will do the trick.

When Blake sent me a kite from Canada, he seperated the bag from the kite. In its bag, the kite can leave a lot of unnecessary dead space in the packing box which translates into having to use a larger box than needed. Freed from its bag, the kite can conform to a smaller box and fill it to capacity. Then the bag which is pretty flat when empty can just be tossed on top of the kite.

ATB,
Sam

The postal system does work well (shocking to me).
I have sent well over 10,000 USPS packages in my business and they have
A) lost 1 - but fraud was involved from the start which I would have known except I did not review my paypal emails carefully enough before I sent it - they gave my website an electronic ok so I updated my database but then retracted it by email before I shipped. It was never signed for and/or returned going to Seattle.
B) misplaced 2 - a) for 1.5 weeks going across town of all things - b) for 4 days.
C) carriers at times update the status with not home - left note - when they did not attempt to deliver the package.

So this is so much better than UPS & FedEx that I dropped the other services from the shipping selections.

Priority is transported by FedEx when a plane is required.

Domestic Express is a joke and actually often takes longer than Priority and costs 3x.
International Express works better in some countries as it speeds up their custom processing.

On pricing:
There are some little known details in the Federal regulations that the post office pricing must be 1/2 the lowest from other carriers for an equivalent service.
So the other carriers makes sure they do not have an "equivalent" service - this is kind of like when a retailer has the guaranteed lowest price for everything but they only use custom SKUs for all items.
IMO what a bunch of bull....

A few other notes:
The USPS tracking number for international shipping will probably show the package was delivered to another country months to years ago - erg - I get lots of worried emails back from customers since I automatically send out emails with the tracking number when I ship.

UPS tends to be better if you ship heavy or dense things.
UPS or FedEx if you have to get it somewhere overnight.

So that is the good and bad as I see it but
USPS is often cheaper, faster and better - YMMV

P.S.
I would not recommend miss-labeling mail - it is a Federal crime equivalent to giving false information to a Federal Official.
Most packages are photographed - some get x-rayed and this info will be stored forever

I haven't shipped as much but all my troubles have been with USPS. Lost parts out of a box that had to be opened to get teh parts out. 6 weeks to get a kite to Guam once.

I set up a fedex acct and prices seem reasonable. Cross country large arc shipment for just over $20 and insurance is just a few dollars more. All Fedex packages have arrived intact for me.

I'm a fan of FedEx... I've actually recently found FedEx to be less than USPS; shipped my 12m M5 (in a BIG box) complete to PowerZone (Atlanta all the way to Oregon) and insured for like $25.

For me, UPS if preferred.

USPS wont come to my house and pick up, they insist everything is to be up by the mailbox (on a Rural road). they are too lazy to drive 800 feet to the house.

USPS and UPS (because I have an account) are pretty much the same price until I get to anything really big. then USPS wins. Time for the customer, USPS usually wins on anything over 1000 miles. Tracking...give up on USPS. Insurance, UPS will pay you when they screw it up. USPS. maybe someday. My biggest problem with USPS is drop offs. I've got to usually wait up to 40 minutes to drop off a USPS package at a post office, and can walk into any UPS store and say 'got one for ya'

Note: UPS and FedEx (but I have not keep current on FedEx rates after dropping my commercial account with them) charge 2% of the value of the package for insurance.
They both used to have a payout ratio of 0.5 to 0.7% so this was a money making service.

So your probability they will lose you package is low!

Large commercial accounts never buy insurance because it costs too much and you have to use 2" inches of padding all the way around the item(s) for the insurance to apply for damage. Depending on the item weight you can not use single thickness boxes or standard packaging tapes etc.
No one wants to increase the packaging and filler costs enough to cover this unless you have a very standard sized set of items for which you can make a custom sized box & insert system of some kind. FYI - having done this in the past it was silly expensive in both setup charges and per unit costs unless you are shipping really expensive stuff.

In some areas - FedEx or UPS is much better.
In Portland - FedEx was clearly better (more careful/professional etc.)
In my part of the Oregon coast - UPS is the clear winner and better than they were in Portland

If you use UPS - the workers are unionized and negotiate the contact every few years - during a longer negotiations use FedEx - I have seen 100% of incoming and outgoing packages for weeks have boot prints on them when they did not crushed to bits.

The best thing you can do to get your packages to your intended location is to computerize your data input, address verification and label generation.
I automated this process with USPS (via Endicia) - UPS and FedEx lets you do it with a lot of manual keyboarding and a very clunky interface.
Actually UPS and FedEx have good interfaces but they will only let you use if you ship 100+ packages per day.
Both used to let you interface to their web servers assuming you could write the custom software but both have disabled it so they could sell the service for high $s.

Being able to pull product, package, ship, send a tracking email and update the database with serial number(s) + shipping info in less than 1 minute lets me lower prices to customers.

It will be interesting going forward:
USPS - has political problems
UPS - has union issues
FedEx - has legacy contracts
Hopefully all will get better but ...

Yep, I've shipped quite a few kites myself over the years. I've found once you get to a certain weight FedEx ground usually beats out USPS priority. For smaller stuff under 2-5 lbs though USPS is unbeatable. Parcel post might compare to the others ground rates or beat them on heavier stuff but it's slow as heck vs priority. Heh.

Wow....I believe there are such a wide range of experiences with these shippers that are all legit.

Most of my shipping is now done with USPS. Before I used to use UPS. I actually own stock in UPS!

I once signed up for shipping discount thru eBay as a frequent seller on the Special Pricing Program after they solicited me by email. Then they took away my discount WITHOUT NOTICE(rude..) several times and reinstated it after I called.


".... UPS may terminate the Special Pricing Program for existing members at any time..." Yeah..and without any warning or notice! :


When I called to specifically ask what volume( $$)of goods I needed to ship to keep my 'Special pricing discount' They refused to answer me, and I accused them of having no set schedule on pricing discount and it was subjective and arbitrary. They fact they could not provide an answer seemed to suggest such.

It was frustrating having you lower package rate disappear while trying to ship, and more so in all the time I wasted talking to the next in charge , and the next-all in charge of nothing but baloney :moon:

Anyways..interesting thread here.

I had USPS deliver 1/3 of a standard branded mailing tube and claim that was how the commercial shipper delivered it to them :o and they had the audacity to stamp "damages package" all over it [um D'uh] and deliver it.
Needless to say the spars were not IN the package when they delivered it. The retailer [a stunt kite dealer out of the midwest] made good on it and went after USPS for the insurance.