The often avoided and Dreaded "SHIPPING" question

[SIGNGUY]

I've been reading back through some older posts about shipping and really there is not a definative answer out there about who is best when it comes to shipping. I think there is a consensus that Forward air is cheapest if you can do terminal to terminal and have it crated.
BUT looking for some advice on door to door service on a Crated machine. I have some interest in my restored machines, but need to get them to Florida, price is not really the issue, more on handling and timing.
Any new news shipping lately... and I'm sure with gas prices, rates will climb.
Thoughts?

[Sodaman101]

Well, I can tell you that for normal ground shipping I have used Uship.com a couple of times. Basically its Ebay but for shipping. You have feedback and it costs nothing. you can set a target price and a " ship it now" price for what you are willing to pay and or you can have shippers bid on your item " ie the privileged to ship it for you" And of course haggling is the name of the game.  sign up and test it out, its free so.........

[MoonDawg]

      This is so true! Truckers with less than a full load will bid on freight that is on
their destination route! 

[bubba]

We use Fedex National freight at work... I've never shipped any kind of Coke machine through them, but most other stuff in or out survives fairly well. I would definitely crate it though. There are also different classes of freight for different types of stuff.. I don't know what its purpose is, but we ship via class 70 (I think), which is for used machinery and get good rates. If we don't mark the shipping paperwork properly, we are put into a generic class and it costs more. I think it is still insured the same though....

[sodaworks]

I use a broker called Global Tranz, my shipping agent is Mark. You can drop the machine off or they can pick it up. The website is www.carrierrate.com