It's Never Too Big to Ship

Don't you love estate sales? You're wandering from room to room, grabbing up a few treasures along the way. Then boom! You see it. A 1928 wood panelled commercial refrigerator, still in use. You drool over the gleaming steel hardware, the enamel lined interior and the inset glass doors. You dream of the mansion this should be in and contemplate the $$ value. Then you shudder.....ship THIS? No way!! And away you walk, leaving thousands of dollars behind you. 

A reproduction built by Iceboxes.com

This has happened to every online seller I know at one point or another. In all of our minds there is THAT item that we won't even deal with because of the shipping risk. But I'm here to say don't be intimidated by big. Big can be good. Very good.

1960's Kidney Shaped Table by judygovintage

There are several shippers that will help you and if you've got a hot enough item, your buyer will be willing to pay. A low cost option that I adore is Greyhound. Yes, the bus company. According to their website (which is very easy to use), package dimensions need to be within 30 inches x 47 inches x 82 inches. The weight limit is 100 pounds. These size limits are very generous and allow for a huge range of items. (My Danish modern teak sideboard, 73 inches long shipped this way!) 

Rustic fruit dolly table from honeystreasures

A high end option is Craters & Freighters. They will come to your home or place of business, pick up the item, build a crate for it and ship it anywhere. I have used them for over 2 dozen items and been very pleased. The most recent was our family heirloom 6' high clock, built by Great Great Grandpa. It arrived in fabulous condition, wrapped, padded & in a custom crate.

South Texas long horns from ohmermaidme

 If your item is too big for Greyhound and not worth the cost of Craters & Freighters, consider shipping it via truck. This means you'll be packaging it up yourself. The easiest way to ship is via "less than load". This means you don't require an entire truck, just a portion of it. It's important to find out if your customer can pick their item up at the local freight terminal, since delivering to a residence really hikes up the bill. To find trucking companies that offer this, type "LTL shipper" into Google. This will bring up a whole range of companies that cater to that need. 

Tiffany protege window by BeautyInfusion

While some of these options may require some major elbow grease, the items involved are generally worth it. Nothing kills a potential sale faster than by saying shipping isn't even an option. By taking a little time to educate yourself about these options now, you'll be prepared when you run across that Have-To-Have-It find this Summer. A much better option that trying to make an uninformed choice on the spot. Go Big!  

Packaging Up the Impossible: How To Do it Right

Two days ago a large, fragile, expensive, antique medical item sold in my shop-providing the perfect opportunity to illustrate what I preach to you about shipping. (I included a photo of his flattering side. His other side is rather graphic)

How you ship and how your shipping is perceived by the customer is critial to your shops success.

Two things are important to keep in mind with every package, especially large ones. 

1. They will be dropped from a substantial height. 

2. They will be bumped, jostled, possibly kicked and will have heavy items piled on top of them.

With these two points in mind, we began our packaging. Our item was 28 1/2 inches high, made of antique plaster, was around 90 years old and sold for $750. The pressure was on. Fortunately, we had had the foresight to charge the customer enough for shipping. Mr Anatomy was wrapped several times with bubble wrap which gave him a thick padding. Even his wood base was wrapped in order to allieviate any vibrations. 

The first step was to find a box. After several minutes of try outs, we realized a box would have to be made. Kelly is my amazing assistant and tackled this task admirably. She got a little goofy while doing this since the entire packing job took over an hour. Well worth it though. (and to be honest, what we love about her is that she's generally always on the verge of goofy) 

  

She found a box that was just 1 inch short of the statues height. We knew we wanted at least 6-8 inches of padding on all sides so she built the box up by 7 inches. This much space is critcal in packaging fragile items-peanuts should be firmly packed in to absorb any shock caused by dropping. 

The peanuts that went under the statue needed to be secured. Every time I've received a heavy item, the weight of the item has pushed all the peanuts up the sides, leaving the item against a bare box bottom (and often shattered as a result). Not too good for absorbing shock. We handled this problem by cutting a piece of cardboard the same size as the box bottom and taping it over the peanuts. Problem solved. 

The peanuts were packed around and around and around. Pressed down over and over, firmer and firmer. Why? 

Imagine your item packaged with lots of peanuts, but rather loosely. Now imagine a bag of potato chips. Those start out full. By the time they reach us, they've settled due to being jostled and thrown about in trucks. 

You need to compensate for all that jostling. The postal employees probably do not think about what's inside the box when they're lifting it. They want to get home to their families. It's our responsiblity to make sure the package gets there safe, not theirs. While we can't control the trucks, we can control the quality of the item riding around in them. 

Peanuts were put between the double box layers. Extra insurance and well worth the effort.

The box was built. It wasn't pretty so Kelly put another box over the bottom one to hide the imperfections. It will also help the package escape any damage from machines that might catch on loose cardboard pieces.

Finally it was taped up and ready to go! Kelly did an amazing job and our customer is sure to be happy. He said he'd already ordered one of these and it had arrived shattered. He specifically requested an excellent packaging job. Here's to success!