Cost Effective Shipping Ideas


Hello

One of my hobbies other than audio is building and chasing parts for old BMX bikes. I do a lot of buying and selling of frames/forks, wheels, and all other components. Audio and bikes are very similar in a lot of respects like chasing parts, building up something that you might have had in the past, etc.

In the bike hobby community there is a company called bikeflights.com that you can use to print off UPS labels for discounted shipping. I am really not sure how it works other than it does work and that it is use quite a bit in that community. You essentially go to their website, fill in your address and where you want to send the part. You also must enter shipping dimensions and weight. I have done this many times without issue.

It greatly reduces shipping cost over the sticker price at the UPS store. For example I shipped some wheels from the midwest to CA for $23 when the UPS store was telling me that it would cost $35 paying at their store.

Bikeflights.com explicitly states that their service is only for bike related parts. Not sure how they enforce it, but I will abide by their rules.

Does anyone know of something similar to this for audio or electronic equipment?   Or maybe a way to get discounted shipping from UPS or Fedex other than having a business commercial account? I am tired of paying their sticker price. 
zerofox
The more you ship the more bargaining power YOU have. I worked for a guy, that his rates were so good (as a middle man ONLY) he could, did and DOES mark up shipping 100%, sometimes. NOT handling!!!

The business made good money just on increased shipping cost..

Shipping and brokering are BIG business.. Middle man America my friend... Everyone want's a cut, just for speaking a name.

Almost as bad as "Non profit organizations" There is NO SUCH thing.. Total BS... Liars and Thieves, plane and simple.. PAY your taxes. so I don't have to pay them for you...PUT all of them in the joint for a while..
50 million dollar church. Tax exempt.. Hells HOT...BROTHER...
Having a FedEx account will get you a discount. Not much, but better than UPS.
I recently signed up for a FedEx (non-business) account. The claim was eight percent off. In fact, they “upgraded” my account as soon as I shipped one amp and a pair of speakers, giving me fifteen percent off. That discount was applied to both shipments that I had already made. Be careful with their system, however, and don’t get duped by the Ship Manager Lite software, since it will give you much higher rates than the ordinary Ship Manager software, which they claim is for shipments of two or more parcels. 
15% off is pretty good. I wonder if that's what I'm getting.
I've never seen Ship Manager Lite on my Mac.