I've been shipping stuff for 30 years.
Prices in the past year have almost nearly doubled. That started in January for FedEx and UPS. Not sure why but they have easily gone up close to 40% for the same shipments it seems.
Here is definitely the way to save money.
Always ship ground. It's the cheapest no matter what service you're going to use.
If you're going to use FedEx, try and use their FedEx 1 rate boxes. The weight doesn't really matter and they ship for about 30% less than using other methods.
UPS try to use their bulk rate for packages.
FedEx or UPS always sign up for an account, it's fairly easy. That's the best way to get a discount on shipping. You can save considerable amount of money.
The insurance really kills and you have to be careful, especially when shipping really expensive audio equipment. A lot of the insurance taps out at $1,000 or $2,000. Even if you insure it for more, the coverage will only cover so much. This is a huge rip-off. You have to be very careful.
If you're going to have stuff picked up by the carriers, it's usually about a $20 fee.
Don't waste your money on signature confirmation on any cheaper stuff and anything that you put additional insurance on is going to come with a signature anyways so there's no need to add it to the bill.
If you want to be super careful, always ask for a direct adult signature that requires people to show their identification and this can save you a lot of headaches, especially with porch pirates or people claiming they never receive the products
Avoid using waypoints or drop off locations and take your stuff to the stores itself and always make sure they scan the stuff before you leave. This avoids headaches and once it's scanned into the system they cannot say they did not receive the product. I've dropped off products at waypoints + they don't even scan them in and they've lost very expensive packages in the past.
Definitely shop for rates but a lot of times I find USPS and UPS are the cheapest. FedEx is always the most expensive in my personal experience. However, I have very good experience with shipping FedEx over the other two.
