You get what you pay for. You want to pay for cheap ground service? Well, cheap service is what you paid for, and that is exactly what you will get. Do you also go to McDonalds and ponder why your $2.99 meal didn't quite get your 5 star rating? Cheap is cheap. ==================================================================== Fed Ex is more expensive than UPS? Absolutely NOT true. Are you trying to compare UPS ground to Fed Ex air? Will you also compare a new Chevy 'Vette to a Ford Festiva? "Hey, Chevy's cost too much, my econo box Ford only costs....." Compare the SAME type of service between UPS and Fed Ex and you will find the prices to be virtually the same (and often Fed Ex is LESS). ====================================================================OEM (factory) boxes? Most are a joke, and VERY few meet UPS (or our ground) ship requirements. "Yeah, but that's the (recycled tissue) box it came in". Save that sad story for someone else. Ground shipments (except for cables) need to be double boxed and quadruple packed (which is on the back of every UPS AWB/invoice). Why don't all mfr's do this? Labor, materials, space, and added ship cost (greater DIMS and more weight). In the long run it is cheaper to deal with a few claims (even if they are denied), than it is to pay extra (labor, materials, space, and added ship cost/greater DIMS and more weight), on hundreds, or even thousands of packages. When we shipped UPS ground, we spent approximately 20 minute to TWO HOURS per package (and this is with a dedicated ship area, which is more than roll of tape!, and $ thousands in ship tools and supplies and 17 years of shipping experience to make it faster than the average audiophile could ever do it in: http://www.hellohifi.com/packaging.html ). Are you willing to do something to achieve these results? No? THEN SEND YOUR PACKAGES BY AIR, and leave the guess work to the penny pinchers who have the time to deal with claims and faulty tracking systems. ====================================================================We send almost all items by DHL air. Average ship time?16 hours verses up to 7 business days by (+ a weekend sometimes) on ground shipments. Yes, DHL is more expensive than Fed Ex or UPS air, but they are so careful it's almost funny. Our customers like this service because we usually charge about HALF the regular rate, which in most cases means you're getting next day air for less than UPS or Fed Ex 3 day. We eat a lot of freight costs, but we don't have do extra packaging (in most cases) and we don't waste days of time on freight claims and dealing with pissed off customers. No one orders and insurance claim, they order working hifi! This is a worthwhile investment that no other dealer seems to have caught onto (yet). ====================================================================Mark the box with: "FRAGILE". LOL!!! We have over 20 rolls various types of fragile stickers (that's about $600 in damn stickers). Except for: "do not open with blade", which is for the customers benefit, these fragile stickers are for the insurance adjusters. If you do this, and have a claim, they will often tell you: "It doesn't matter that you marked it fragile". Don't mark it fragile and have a claim? Well, now they will ask you: "why didn't you mark it as fragile?" It's all a game to discourage you from pursuing your current claim and future claims. Ever have a claim with Fed Ex or DHL? We've had one with Fed Ex (very small) and one with DHL ($4400). Both were VERY easy (Fed Ex about 4 days and DHL about 10 days). UPS? We sued them in 1993 or 1994 after a claim dragged on for SEVEN MONTHS. They paid before the court date. We did have one claim paid "quickly" by UPS: they damaged a unit that was insured for $700. After two weeks they collected the unit for "inspection". After 5+ weeks I asked them the status on this claim. They asked me when they could collect the unit (which they had already picked up 5+ weeks ago!). Come to find out, they LOST IT after they picked it up for inspection (it's a good thing their heads are screwed on.....). They paid that claim quickly (UPS quick was about 8 weeks). We NO longer use UPS. Shipped ZERO UPS packages in 2000. Zero UPS problems! ONE UPS in 1999, ONE problem. 3 UPS in 1998, two problems. Before that? Don't ask, we used them daily, but we package ground shipments better than any dealer you will ever come across. You get what you pay for................ (geez, you actually read this entire post?!). "The Tightest Ship in the Shipping Business". Hmm. What ship are they (UPS) referring to? The Titanic? ====================================================================http://www.hellohifi.com/packaging.html
