Hey builders, Who do you use to ship overseas from the US?

[lawrence scaduto]

I hate the USPS with a passion.

However it seems to be the cheapest way to ship over seas.

It kills me to ask some one in Europe or Australia/NZ to pay $25+ for shipping. There must be a cheaper way.

If you try to print your labels online with the USPS (which i do) the cheapest option is Priority International at $25.18. It looks like first class mail is the cheapest at usually $15 less or so but that has to be done at the post office.

My post office is the absolute worst. with out getting into the horrible details, i simply can't spent an hour in line each time i need to send something over seas. it takes away precious time from making things (which is why i started ohnoho. i like to make stuff).

one of you wise sages out there must have figured out an option to game the system and not put more unearned money into the USPS.

any help or wisdom will be appreciated

[aen]

Ugh. International, there just doesn't seem to to be a good option. Fedex and UPS are amazingly expensive. USPS usually gets it there, for a not usually too insane price.

Important facts:
1) Flat rate is NEVER the cheapest option, it's usually a fucking rip off. unless you're shipping something that's like 30 pounds and 4 inches square (like a Lead Zeppelin?)

2) Insurance is bullshit. By the time they will admit that it's not just delayed, it's too late to file a claim
3) tracking or whatever else they offer is BULLSHIT. Doesn't make a lick of difference once it leaves the US.


All I see for international options are
a) Absurd price
b) Risk.

[Ryan]

Hi Lawrence!

I know we're in Canada but our shipping situation is just like yours, the pricing and delivery standards of the different levels of shipping within Canada Post are basically identical to the levels of the USPS.

There's really only 2 options to use, the Express or Priority level at $25 to $40 for a single pedal or the International Small Packet Air or First Class level at around $15. The former is usually 5ish business days and the latter is 6 to 10, barring holdups with customs. There's a third option here too, the Small Packet Air Mail sent by ground.. I don't know how that works, probably using ancient alien under-ocean walkways... That option is a couple bucks cheaper but can take 6 weeks for delivery.

With Canada Post you can choose either option online and we do all of our shipping on the computer, local post offices are a drag everywhere I think... I can picture your hour long wait in line.. why do they like such long lines at their outlets?? The USPS online shipping version is called Click-N-Ship, right? That's really lame that you're forced to use a more expensive service if you want to do it online... you should get a reward for not taking up time and energy at the post office.

Having a courier company like UPS or FedEx ship a single pedal can cost $60 to $80 to Europe... kind of makes Canada Post/USPS seem reasonable!

I find shipping to be a real frustration sometimes... not being able to insure for full amounts, having customs hold packages for 2 weeks for no reason, having UPS just leave packages at wrong addresses, the bs brokerage fees.. the more we use courier companies the more I realize things aren't so bad with the government shipping options.

Sorry Lawrence, I'd love to hear some good shipping news too!

[Ryan]

That's a big thing for us too, Aen, the risk! Max insurance for Express packages to the US or international is $1000. We've done it lots in the past, sent out boxes that were way under-insured and if anything would have happened we'd have been royally screwed.

I was wondering if any of you guys have ever used an insurance agency for your shipments? When we started sending out relatively large shipments we started asking all our stores to let us use their UPS or FedEx accounts. I know that's super expensive for them but it lets us insure for full amounts and it arrives very fast... big relief for us.

[letsgocoyote]

Also I like the post office. At least my local ones.

The people are used to me/know me-ish. I know the best times to go. I usually just go when I am already going to be in he neighborhood anyhow.

Besides, I was thinking today, if everybody just did click n ship then the post office workers would be out of jobs, and I dont want robots to take over the world.

[lawrence scaduto]

Ugh. International, there just doesn't seem to to be a good option. Fedex and UPS are amazingly expensive. USPS usually gets it there, for a not usually too insane price.

thanks for seconding that. I checked every carrier including DHL to see if there was any chance someone did it cheaper. and i got a big fat "no" in return.

Important facts:
1) Flat rate is NEVER the cheapest option, it's usually a fucking rip off. unless you're shipping something that's like 30 pounds and 4 inches square (like a Lead Zeppelin?)

speaking of the USPS here:

I was wondering about the flat rate small box and using envelopes. seems like with a small sized enclosure the footswitch will protrude from the box a little bit and most likely be severely stressed in transit.

with envelopes even the smallest enclosure will break the thickness rules. we all know there's a bit of room to bend with any large organization: example. i made it a point to transpose the last 2 digits of my atm deposits (the change: $456.76 becomes $456.67) just to see how closely my bank was paying attention. they caught it one out of 10 times.

using this example of large organizations have rules built in for minor losses, i wonder if you can "game the system" by sneaking slightly larger things in cheaper prepaid boxes. does anyone have experience with that?

2) Insurance is bullshit. By the time they will admit that it's not just delayed, it's too late to file a claim

i figured the same. my math was if their loss rate was around 1% (which seems high to me) that means for every 100 packages i'd loose one. but if i paid for $2 insurance each time i would be out $200 by the time they finally lose one. i'd be better off just risking it and taking the hit when the time comes. funny thing is around pedal number 25 or so one went missing. thanks again to the coolness of that awesome customer.

[lawrence scaduto]

Also I like the post office. At least my local ones.

The people are used to me/know me-ish. I know the best times to go. I usually just go when I am already going to be in he neighborhood anyhow.

Besides, I was thinking today, if everybody just did click n ship then the post office workers would be out of jobs, and I dont want robots to take over the world.

you're a lucky person.

considering NYC is a pretty well run town where all transactions operate on a very high level of commonsense-ness my post office is the one black hole of abject ineptitude.

last week (after spending $450 online to ship 3 boxes to russia) i spent no less than 2 hours on the phone calling various departments to get someone to honor the free pick up they offer. at the end of each day i would resubmit the request. by day 3 (and getting a supervisor, who had no answer as to why they never came by, on the phone) they finally came by.

[lawrence scaduto]

I was wondering if any of you guys have ever used an insurance agency for your shipments? When we started sending out relatively large shipments we started asking all our stores to let us use their UPS or FedEx accounts. I know that's super expensive for them but it lets us insure for full amounts and it arrives very fast... big relief for us.

i haven't heard of such insurance agencies. please enlighten me.

as far as overseas distributors goes i was thinking this is one way to make sure the customer can get a better deal than buying direct. i guess as the builder you take a cut. not sure how much. i think devi posted that the usual mark up is 30% over her costs.

i'm very interested in learning how the distributors work out prices. is there a win win situation to ship one big box to one dude/dudette in each territory where everyone feels happy?

i just want the money my user spends to go into the right hands. you know, the people that care about the work that they're doing.

i never want to reward such disrespect to customers. this sort of complacency knots the very fiber of my being.

[harpies]

Ryan, if I lived nearby I'd mule them over the border for you. just need some extra fiber and rubber gloves.

[FuzzHugger]

Here's most of the PM I sent Lawrence in response to this:


USPS is the cheapest way...at FuzzHugger, international customers can select First Class, Priority, or Express.

The thing is, most "International" customers are used to paying extra for shipping...they live overseas and buy pedals (and other products from the states), some pretty frequently.
And it's funny--very rarely does anyone choose First Class. Priority is most common, but not by much...a lot choose Express (even more expensive than Priority and only a couple days faster).

Since I do free US shipping, I drop a few dollars off of International shipping costs (but PayPal also charges extra for conversion for international orders...so it's not a perfect tradeoff. I make less on International sales by trying to keep costs down for customers.).

I know charing $23-25 for shipping doesn't feel right, but I think most international customers just expect it.
When it comes to import taxes/fees...some ask me to mark the value lower. Which is legally a bit gray. What I do instead is mark things closer to "parts value," and if an item is lost or damaged, I'll just rebuild with the claim money...I've never had to do that yet, but it's one way of keeping the cost down for International customers.

USPS is the way to go...they're not cheap, but they're the cheapest. And reliable (I think I had one lost package in an entire year).