First off, I am new to the forum. My name is Bill and I live in Columbus Ohio.
I posted earlier selling some kites and buggies, and thankfully have received a few responses. (THANK YOU!).
The folks responding had questions regarding shipping costs and methods. Since I am a total newbie at this, I thought I would ask if anyone had any suggestions or recommendations. I want to make this as easy as possible for the potential buyers.
As mentioned, I have never done this before, so any help is greatly appreciated.
TIA,
Bill

Been on the receiving end for most stuff.

Smaller stuff has come to me by Priority Mail

Large stuff has come either UPS Ground (from Nevada) or Parcel Post (from Albany). Land boards in both cases. Tracking was available for both. Insurance cost seemed fairly reasonable.

Parcel post from Albany to MA was quoted with a transit time of 5-7 days.

I am not currently on the run from federal authorities, so was willing to stay stationary rather than incur the additional cost of a faster shipping option.

Being on the receiving side, I have been happy and fine with the above two methods.

Angus, Kent, Dino, Corey, RSK, SW (Guam!), and a host of non-commercial sellers should be able to chime in shortly with oodles of experience from the shippers' perspective.

Hope that helps.

All the best,
Sam

From a Canadian point of view it is a real pain if you ship any other method than USPS. UPS and similar carriers charge insane brokerage fees that are semi-non-avoidable. Where USPS might charge a $5 brokerage fee, the others can be over $100. All that just to assess sales tax on the item. You can mark things as gifts or as samples, that works but it's your call. I don't know the legal ramifications to doing this but would NEVER expect or demand that any US shipper do this for me if they aren't comfortable. You'd be surprised at the size of stuff that USPS can ship with ease.

I've noticed, within the US. If you go to an authorized fedex shipper (not one of those "we'll ship it from whoever is cheaper" places) the larger boxes are cheaper. I just shipped my venom 13 for $13 where something like that would have cost me $25 at the "shipping central" shop.

Like Mac' said,
USPS ONLY to Canada please !!!!

Thanks Guys!

I've always found USPS to be reasonable, even with large stuff. I bought a Flexifoil buggy from a member here and it was $45 to ship it from CA to NY. Pretty reasonable for such a large package.

stay away from the shipping centers ... they cost a fortune.

The kites you will be fine with usps and the buggies should go ups. I like priority USPS better because they are much faster than ups ground, but on larger oversized packages USPS is crazy expensive. For just the every now and then shipper like yourself if you use paypal as payment method you can use their shipping rates and its much cheaper than walking into the post office or ups store.