Shipping question

[Bob K]

Does anybody know of a shipper besides Eric at machinemover.com that does not require the machine to be wrapped or mounted on a pallet?

Eric basically throws a blanket around the machine and hauls it off with his hand truck.

Anyone else like this out there?  I may not be able to use Eric for a pick-up and the seller will not wrap or palletize.

Thanks,
Bob

I recall a listing a while back on e-bay where the seller (who appeared to be a collector) strongly recommended using North American Van Lines "Door to Door" service.  Apparently, what they do is pick up the unit and combine it with a residential or other move to another destination.  I'd priced them for a machine on E-bay I was considering taking a run at, and cost was comparable to, but slightly higher than Eric's estimate.  I called a few other van lines thinking this was an obvious idea for others to mimic, but didn't have that much luck finding others with a similar program.

Another thought... I wonder if mailing services, like the UPS store, will do custom crating / palletizing of machines?

Good luck in your search.  If you find out something else on your own, let us all know.  Shipping is a real issue with these machines; it seems that there's strong regional biases for specific makes / models, so if you're lusting after a certain type, there's a shipment in your future.

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Quote (MikeM @ May 20 2005,11:46)

Another thought... I wonder if mailing services, like the UPS store, will do custom crating / palletizing of machines?

A nice thought, but those UPS stores would charge you a fortune even if you just asked to borrow a Kleenex from them.
They are so outrageously overpiced. I bet if they did it, it would cost as much as the machine itself.

[Kilroy]

I've seen several sellers on Ebay using Craters and Freighters. It sounds likethey take care of the packing and shipping for you.
I haven't used them, nor have I heard any thing -  good or bad about them, but it may be worth checking out.

C & F home page

[BryanH]

AAAArrrgggghhh - just lost the text a very long post!  I Hate IE!  

Ok, for awhile now, I've been trying to figure out if there is an easy an economical way to ship these machines.  Creighton was good enough to setup the list of people willing to help, but we still haven't cracked the nut on who to use and how to make it easy.  Some of the folks on the boards have been at this game long enough that they have an account or two with a shipper but the newbies like me are still staying local or (if you're Kito) are getting a chance to view the great expanse of the country on 12 hour roadtrips. Up until recently, I didn't have any ideas.  Now with the SMC storefront working (and most importantly the billing system behind it) I have a couple ideas.

Jim I'm making several assumptions on your business, this sites capabilities and probably your time.  I'm not trying to be pushy or presumptious. If this won't work for any reason (incl lack of interest) just say the word.

So here are my ideas:

#1 - Solicit two or three companies (like C&F, FreightQuote.com, NA Van, machinemover.com, etc, etc) to offer their services through the SMC storefront.  Make it competitive so we SMC users can compare the quotes and services.  Jim you should bundle a transaction fee to cover your costs and profits, you might also be able drive finder fees from the shippers (not sure on this as I don't know enough about their margins).  The shippers should like the offer as most of them already offer web based quotes and SMC would provide them with a well qualified and target customer set.  All they need to do is provide some incentive (pricing) and they could do pretty well.  We could probably work a volume discount also...

#2 - If the storefront idea isn't workable, then just targeting a couple of these companies as sponsors might be interesting to them.  If they can simplify how we all need to ship it could still be a great source of business for them?

#3 - Finally, last option is to contact the shipping companies and describe the SMC community and see if we could somehow get a group id/account.  Something that SMC members can access at the front-end of the deal (quotes) and provides an SMC discount.  Once the shipping services are ordered, then the SMC member would need to charge the services to their own name and CC.  

So - what do you think?  I'd be happy to help make calls and see how these companies work and whether or not they have interest.

I've also assumed that this is a common problem for other SMC members.  To test this I've started a shipping poll.

[MoonDawg]

I set up an account with Forward Air about 4 years ago.  Josh was saying it's much tougher to get started now.
        I sold a Vendo 56 last week by phone. I built a crate, because it was fully restored, and delivered it to Los Angeles Forward Air depot.   My customer picked it up from Fwd Air in Atlanta 4 days later.
        Just got my shipping invoice in the mail   $71.34.  
        
        Another nice thing. When I buy a machine, and if I can get the seller to wrap cardboard around it and drop it at their Fwd Air location. the terminal provides the pallet.
         The seller fills out the bill of lading, shipping instructions to me, but he does not have my account #.  I fax my account number to the Fwd Air office for them to complete the form.
          Maybe we could set up a master account, and SMC could bill members by their usage?

I used forwardair (at the suggestion of SMC members) and they were very cheap.  However, the probelm I had was getting my machine from the seller, who would not wrap, etc. to the fowardair depot in the seller's home state/area.  I think it would be a good idea to have SMC offer some type of shipping service, either by having advertisers or a SMC prefered provider, etc.