Deleted expletive UPS they are damaging 20% of shipments I send
I used 2-3 inch solid foam to insulate heavier (20-40lbs) items, I get consistent feedback thanking me for how I pack stuff, yet they STILL manage to damage them. I'm sick of it and will likely switch to Canada Post for the lighter items or/and Fedex.
5 comments
femmefan1946
·4 months agoNot only should the parcel be ready for a long drop, but prepared to have a 50lb parcel land on top of it.
flipistics
·4 months agoI'd suggest reading the forums about Fedex before you go that route.
I've personally had really good results with UPS. I'm very happy with their service. I don't ship a lot of the heavy vintage electronics like you are, but I do ship some heavy boxes of books.
If you're shipping within Canada, you could also try Purolator or Canpar. You can buy Canpar labels through Click Ship or EasyShip at a very nice discount, and you can buy Purolator through EasyShip, Click Ship or Shipping Chimp (any of the three can be cheaper in general depending on the destination). Both Purolator and Canpar become very good for heavier items and both allow multi-box shipments with little to no penalty (ie, the dimensions and weight are added up as if it was a single parcel. Click Ship has this option for free, EasyShip has it on one of their higher paid tiers). EasyShip also has cheap additional insurance you can purchase which covers a lot more than other companies do (you'd have to check to see if your items would be covered or not).
lotzofuniquegoodies
·4 months ago@shallow_karl
My personal experience with UPS (maybe just my luck) is not very good with heavier items. Blame it on their reliance on conveyor belt and roller systems. Same goes for multi piece shipments. All pcs for 1 shipment rarely get delivered at the same time. Are you marking heavier parcels with the correct labels...heavy/arrow orientation? UPS can often provide if you use regularly. Tri-wall cardboard boxes vs double wall? Are you using strengthening corner pcs for reinforcement? Last suggestion for anything super heavy would be to use either duct tape or fibre tape vs standard tape. Both can be purchased relatively cheaply from dollar stores.
Yes, UPS still relies heavily on conveyor belts for sorting packages, using over 17,000 of them in its main Worldport facility alone. While the company is aggressively automating its network, conveyor belts remain the core mechanism for transporting, scanning, and routing packages in their facilities. [1, 2, 3, 4]
recped
·4 months agoWhat carrier does NOT use automated conveyor/roller systems to sort packages?
lotzofuniquegoodies
·4 months agoJust suggested that has to built into your packaging especially with anything very heavy or fragile. They state should be able to handle a 6 foot drop. In the past it used to be rollers. Now most of it is belt driven conveyors. With any manual loading some "smooching" may occur.