Shipping guide

[MIA-bot]

CREDIT goes to thedeisel for creating the original thread: http://miairsoft.proboards.com/thread/39480/shipping-guide


Recently I have gotten PM's on both MIA and AO on how to ship things.
Some people don't ship because they don't know how, or are afraid to deal with shipping.
Depending on what you ship, you may save time and money compared to driving to a city.


Lets get of to the basics; shipping services.

USPS: a very cheap and easy method to ship small to large items. It tends to be a pain to ship large items with no box(like a rifle). They offer tracking that is delayed for a couple dollars, and insurance. I always go priority for a few dollars more so the buyer gets it in a few days.

DHL: don't even use them, they are a waste of time. They are dirt cheap, but takes them over a week to ship something that normally takes a couple days. They tend to half-ass things by handing it over to USPS without any tracking or notification.

UPS: very good shippers, and fast too! They offer packing for a few extra dollars, so it's very convenient for rifle shippers. but it costs twice as much as USPS to ship something. But all packages come with "Free" tracking that is very up to date, and $100 insurance that can be increased for some extra pennies.

Fedex: They are good shippers. They are like UPS, but some differences. Their shipping is a little slower than UPS, and their tracking is a little slower than UPS, but way faster than USPS.


Before you post your ad, check all the shipping services to find which you think would be best for that item. Their websites offer shipping calculators to figure out what the costs would be. Then add that to your asking price. but don't go too high, or people think your prices are insane. Keep your shipping/item price balanced.

USPS' calculator: http://www.usps.com/tools/calculatepostage/welcome.htm?from=home_header&page=calculatepostage

DHL's calculator: http://dct.dhl.com/input.jsp?langId=en

UPS' calculator: https://wwwapps.ups.com/ctc/request?loc=en_US&WT.svl=PNRO_L1

Fedex's calculator: https://www.fedex.com/ratefinder/home?cc=US&language=en&locId=express

*NOTE* DO NOT SHOW YOUR GUN IN PUBLIC! ENCLOSE IT IN A BOX OR CASE. ASK THE SHIPPER IF THEY SHIP AIRSOFT GUNS FIRST.
They will say yes, but pulling out a gun without asking is a big NO.

When you ship it, do not just use the gun's box. The manufacture's box is not designed to be shipped by itself. get a bigger box for that one, and fill it with packaging peanuts. DO NOT EAT THE PEANUTS.   
Make sure you have everything in the box before you tape it with packaging tape.
And fill out the address on a piece of paper like this, and take it to the shipping service. some will just type it in the computer, and some just have you tape it on the package. I like to have it just in case.


I have sent/received hundreds of packages, and after a while you'll get the hang of it.

If you ship a pair of goggles, batteries, or even a pistol, I would use a USPS Priority Flat Rate Box for a couple of dollars, and add tracking.
For rifles I would use UPS for the convenience, and fast services. Remember the buyer can give you bad feedback for shipping badly. He's not paying $200+ to get a gun that takes a week to get to his door.

And any gun I ship either a pistol or rifle, I add insurance.

If you still need help, you can PM me, or ask your local shipper for assistance. They would be happy to help you.


I hope you try shipping, and enjoy this guide.

And I hope more people will expand their ads by offering more options that will attract more buyers, Which will sell your item faster.


Thank you,

THEDEISEL

[X]

I just wanted to note here my personal experience with USPS. I recently had my barrel sent out to Airsoft Advances in Ohio. He used USPS for return shipping. What would have taken 1-2 days to arrive via UPS took almost 3 weeks with USPS First Class (their equivalent to UPS Ground). The package was stuck in Cincinnati, at first I thought the package was lost and they told me they won't look for lost packages until 21 days after its been missing !!! I filed a report and eventually my package made it to me about 2.5 weeks late. With First Class they wait for a truck to be full before they send it out. If that truck takes 2 weeks to fill up with other packages, sucks to be you. Moral of the story is ALWAYS use 2-3 day priority shipping with USPS or use UPS. Personally I'll always request UPS in the future. Within most of MI and parts of the Midwest UPS ground is actually overnight delivery. You can see a map of UPS Ground delivery times here...

http://www.ups.com/maps/.

Example:


TL;DR: Never use USPS First class.

[Cats]

Something to keep in mind if your buyer paid you using PayPal; printing your USPS shipping label through PayPal's "Print Shipping Label" option will cost you less than if you go to the post office and pay to have it shipped. It will also automatically update the tracking information so you don't have to manually type that huge number for your buyer. See the "Guide to PayPal Sticky" for more details.

USPS has also recently lowered their pricing and redefined their shipping scheme. What this means is only "small items" (less than 16 ounces) can still be mailed with their slower First Class. Medium items like pouches and barrels can be shipped using their Flat Rate Priority for between $4 to $12 and usually arrive in about 3 to 5 days in my experience. Large items like guns will have to be mailed Parcel which will set you back $18 to $25 on average, and takes about one to two weeks to arrive. For large items you should definitely consider shipping them UPS or Fedex instead of USPS in my experience.

[Flink36]

Thanks a lot for sharing this shipping guide here. Keep posting the details here. I am also having hard time in finding the same day courier service in Dallas. I know a lot of companies that provide the service but I haven’t used any service ever. I wonder if you could help regarding it.