can someone tell me who i can use to ship rods thru besides ups or fed ex
fed ex is so high you would think they were trying to sell me the company
thanks for any help yall can give

david williams

USPS, DHL, UPS Fedex.

I prefer to chug as opposed to sipping.

Depending on the length, The Post Office does a good job at a good price

Mike

I've been switching to USPS, too, when possible.

They don't charge me by the sip; they charge for the whole bottle at once :)

Putter
Williston, ND

I have found USPS priority mail , insured, is the way to go. Three days most anyplace in the US. Go to their website, [www.usps.com] and you can calculate cost and shipping times, track and even print shipping labels.

thanks a million guys

david williams

I do a fair ammount of shipping through USPS priority mail. If you choose to avoid the high insurance charges, at least get the signature confirmation. This way the post office realizes that someone is looking over their shoulder. The reciever must sign for it when delivered. If I was shipping one of the beautiful rods produced by many on this site, I would insure without question. Mike

I prefer US Postal Service too for most shipping. In fact I often find that Express mail is cheaper by about a buck or so than Priority mail when mailing 6 or 7 foot tubes. Make sure to look at that when you ship. Also, Express mail includes tracking automatically and the first $100 of insurance.

For long rods with tubes that exceed the 108" length + circumference measurement, it seems to me that fedex has better prices.

The thing that turned me off about UPS is that their quoted shipping prices from their online calculator are often different than the actual price when you visit the shipping location. Every time I bring in the paper to show the difference, there is really nothing that they can (or will) do about that. Theres plenty of fish in the sea...

Erik

Be AWARE guys, they have come up with a "NEW" term and charge.. "THE BALLOON CHARGE".. I ship 100% with USPS... Some of the blanks or rods are a little longer than their triangular shipping container, so I just cut another one and tape it all together, one day they measured it !?!?!? I asked why, then they tell me the "balloon charge" which amounts to this,,,, if your package exceeds (I think 84" length plus around) it automatically goes to the 15# level (even tho it only weighs 2#'s) and she showed me that that same package, had it been a few inches longer would have cost me an additional $21.00 !!!!!!!!! Because of the "new balloon charge" .. since then, I have noticed that they are measuring much more often than they ever did before. BTW, you can get a lot of free packaging from the USPS,,, and they ship it to your door,,, for free !!!!!!!!!!! Go to the USPS site.

Art

Art - that Balloon charge isn't "new", it's been around for a while. When I was shippin gblanks in March - 1 office hit me with it, the other did not. There are posts on other meggase boards which people have mentioned the baloon charge, funny thing is that it was mentione dhere on .Org last year, as you know, lol. The Search feature is scary, lol.

: [www.rodbuilding.org]

Yes, the balloon charge has been around for at least 3 years. But, at least you can still ship parcels with a combined width, length and girth of more than 84 inches. I'm not sure what the uppermost limit is, however. It's probably on the USPS site.

By all means get delivery confirmation. I've never had a parcel lost with this tacked in, but without it I've had a few go missing.

..........

I feel you all make good points about the costs of shipping. We ship via the USPS and UPS. I encounter damages on occasion. I rarely have problems when filing a claim and getting paid by UPS. Filing an insurance claim with the post office can be quiet an investment of your time. First filling out forms and then waiting to be paid.