# How to ship larger items?



## pashley (Mar 22, 2008)

Can someone give me advice on how to ship a larger piece?

I may be shipping a coffee table soon, and was wondering what courier to use?

Also, I guess I'll have to make some crate for it?

I've only shipped smaller boxed items, nothing large like this….


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## rustfever (May 3, 2009)

Shippers such as Fedex, UPS and USPO all have measurment and weight restriction. You may need to go and find a common carrier. Be carefull however. The shipping rate for furniture is amount the highest of any commodity.

You might want to consider making the item in pieces and have it assembled at the other end.


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## cranbrook2 (May 28, 2006)

UPS is 180 sq inches or less . I don,t know about the rest of them .


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## SteveMI (May 19, 2009)

I was told by person working for one of those carriers that you want to ship items with the heavy portion down or you have a big risk of it tipping and falling over. On a table, you would want to put the top facing down. Made sense to me.

I went to furniture stores once to get a box for table when moving and found the larger ones not interested in helping me, but a smaller independent store took my dimensions and called couple days later with almost the perfect one. It was free!

Steve.


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## pashley (Mar 22, 2008)

Looks like UPS, believe it or not, will ship this coffee table. I'll crate/box it. Looking at $200 to ship from Rochester, NY to Lincoln, NE. Yikes. I need to up my shipping prices.


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## lumberdustjohn (Sep 24, 2009)

Put it in a two trash bags. Tape it closed.
Line a card board box that it fits in with another trash bag.
Spray expanding foam insulation in to the box and set the table in it. Close the box and seal it up.
The table will unpack fine.


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## pashley (Mar 22, 2008)

Now that's creative. I have yet to get the order, but it's looking good!


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## mikedrums (Feb 1, 2010)

Amtrack. 
As long as you can take it to one station, and the receiver can pick it up from another, it's pretty cheap. However, I haven't looked into it since 9/11. Since Amtrack is Gov't owned, things may have changed.


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## pashley (Mar 22, 2008)

Tell you what I WON'T be doing - is ship something thru the "*UPS Store*" franchise. I made an urn to send to a friend. Time is getting tight, it has to be in Florida by next Tuesday, as the service is Wednesday. I had messed up the finish twice - long story short, it didn't get done until last night. So I took it to my UPS Store down the street, since it was getting late and I really had to get it out that night. I had no box, so he would have to box it up for me. My friend has a biz, so he gave me his UPS account number, so we could just bill him.

First off, he couldn't bill him, said he "didn't have the paperwork".

The packing was $14 - that's a decent price.

Shipping was *$73* (it would have been *$140* for Monday) ! This is for a package about 15×11x6 and 5 pounds - not exactly a casket. I mentioned that it seemed high, that I didn't think it showed to be that much on the UPS site, but maybe I was wrong.

So I had to pay the $87 out of pocket, which my friend would have to pay me for, making me look bad.

Came home, checked the UPS site. From what I can tell, the shipping should have been $32 for the same time frame. So, they basically doubled my shipping cost!

Look, I understand that these guys need to make money too. But that's their concern, not mine.

I won't be using them again - next time, I'll do some better planning and go the UPS depot - even though it's 10 miles away. I would have went to begin with, but figured it would be closed.


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## LesCasteel (Jan 9, 2010)

I commonly ship my rocking chairs in crates. The crate I build is 4' x 4' x 4'. First I travel around the air conditioning places. they throw away a ton of softwood pallets for free. I build my crate with 2" x 2" blocks on the inside for re-inforcement. Then the crate goes on top of the pallet. Note that 3 pieces of 1/2" plywood cut in half at the big box store makes a 4' cube. Let those guys cut it in half and saves you time and effort.
Then, I use FEDEX GROUND. Call them and tell them your a furniture manufacturer and ask for a discount. They will usually do so. Then you get an account number. When your ready to ship, you call the 1-800 number for a quote. You'll supply the size of the crate, and the approx weight. Pass the quote onto the customer (its good for 30 days). then build the crate, take to the nearest terminal and the fork lift picks it up. If you build a nice crate FEDEX will treat you very, very good. Good crates equal no damage for them. If your pretty close to the weight they have a feel for it and they don't even bother weighing it. They take your word. Crates are stacked which means something might be on top of yours. So, I use 1/2" plywood from the big box stores. I have a standard charge of $175 for crating. I'm in Arkansas and can ship to Beverly Hills for $541. I ship to New York for $213 same crate. Figure that? My crates and rocker combined is 165 lbs. Size and weight is the combination that give you the price. Also, the price changes almost daily so if you don't like the quote wait a few days and ask again, you'll be amazed at how much it changes sometimes. If your furniture will "knock down" it can be shipped much cheaper without changing the size of the crate or the weight. However, if it's knocked down they will sometimes want to look at it. Finally, shipping to the nearest terminal is cheaper than delivery to the customer's house or business. A business is more than pickup at the terminal but less than house delivery. The most expensive is delivery to a house, with a lift truck.

Good luck!


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