Looking to improve canvas wrap packaging and shipping solutions

[dgberg]

This is not exactly a "printer,papers and inks" topic but it does involve the final product.
I have 2 issues I have to solve. First trying to find a better packaging solution and second reducing my ground shipping charges.
For some time I have been using Uline products for packing and shipping of my canvas prints and mounts.
The slide tubes have worked great for rolled prints and at less then $5.00 apiece,no complaints,shipping is also very reasonable.
Since I am a custom print shop I do not have standard sizes. Which means it is fairly expensive to stock 50 boxes of a dozen different sizes.
I use Uline's Jumbo Krafts easy fold boxes for the smaller gallery wraps and their larger slide boxes when I get over 24" X 36"
I recently shipped a gallery wrap in the larger slide box to Texas from Pennsylvania. The boxing and packaging materials were about $15.00 and the shipping and insurance was about $45.00. Thats around $60.00 for 1 mounted canvas print. Just not competitive at all when many of the online retailers are either giving free shipping or a low flat rate of between $20.00 and $30.00.
I have lost more orders due to my packaging and shipping costs then the cost of my prints and mounts.
As a low volumn producer it is just impossible to build these costs into my pricing structure.
So what happens? I try to get all my local business customers to pick up their product so I do not have to ship.
For folks out of my area I am still working on a better solution. Suggestions?

[Alan Goldhammer]

Who do you use for shipping?  I know that it's much easier to get good pricing from FedEx than UPS unless you have significant volume and can get a good deal with UPS.  When I retired from my old job and lost the UPS bulk shipping rate that my firm had, I was amazed at the markup in price to ship (about a five fold difference!).  I don't know whether you can get a good deal with the post office or not (don't have any experience other than shipping tubed prints and then only 17 inch wide at the max) but I use them for everything.

Alan

[ftbt]

Dan, I know the feeling. I just sent two 16 x 24 gallery wrap canvases from California to Texas for an exhibition. The canvases were sent in the same box, wrapped in tissue, then in bubble wrap, and then separated with styrofoam peanuts that filled the remainder of the box. Packing materials cost me about $25.00 and FedEx Ground was nearly $50.00. I wish I knew of a better, cheaper, easier way to ship. Breathing Color has something called the "Print Case" but it only comes in two sizes: 8 x 10 and 16 x 20. See:

http://www.breathingcolor.com/action/bc_shop/201/

[dgberg]

Who do you use for shipping?  I know that it's much easier to get good pricing from FedEx than UPS unless you have significant volume and can get a good deal with UPS.  When I retired from my old job and lost the UPS bulk shipping rate that my firm had, I was amazed at the markup in price to ship (about a five fold difference!).  I don't know whether you can get a good deal with the post office or not (don't have any experience other than shipping tubed prints and then only 17 inch wide at the max) but I use them for everything.

Alan

I use USPS and UPS and both are pretty close to the same cost.
No volumn shipping that qualifies us for a discount.
We are dropping our printing and mounting prices by about 20%,we'll see if that helps.

[bill t.]

The cheap online guys usually ship wraps in skin tight boxes with almost zero internal clearance and precious little protection.  It's a statistics thing...if a few pieces have to be replaced due to crummy packaging, it's still cheaper than actually packaging everything well.  Wouldn't work for us.

When I have local shippers box and ship big pieces, I have often spent $200+.  If the customer will go for it (and some can) then that's fine.  Otherwise I pitch shipping just a print for local framing.  That's not as much profit, but way less hassle and it can sometimes save the sale.

Always watch out for dim-weighting.  There are formulas on the UPS site to calculate when you hit that wonderful dim-weight point.  For instance, A  24x48 can be can be packed & shipped by UPS for something like $90, but a just a couple inches bigger anywhere and suddenly it's more like $150.

There are some short-haul shippers out there that are pretty economical...I'm told.  Don't have many here the high desert, but they are more common east of the old Mississip.  Also might be worth checking out messenger services, for a while I was sending framed pieces back and forth 55 miles between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and the cheapest way was actually NebArk Messengers, bless their defunct little soul.  They would pickup and deliver at my door and usually made the trip within a couple hours.

[dgberg]

The cheap online guys usually ship wraps in skin tight boxes with almost zero internal clearance and precious little protection.  It's a statistics thing...if a few pieces have to be replaced due to crummy packaging, it's still cheaper than actually packaging everything well.  Wouldn't work for us.

When I have local shippers box and ship big pieces, I have often spent $200+.  If the customer will go for it (and some can) then that's fine.  Otherwise I pitch shipping just a print for local framing.  That's not as much profit, but way less hassle and it can sometimes save the sale.

Always watch out for dim-weighting.  There are formulas on the UPS site to calculate when you hit that wonderful dim-weight point.  For instance, A  24x48 can be can be packed & shipped by UPS for something like $90, but a just a couple inches bigger anywhere and suddenly it's more like $150.

There are some short-haul shippers out there that are pretty economical...I'm told.  Don't have many here the high desert, but they are more common east of the old Mississip.  Also might be worth checking out messenger services, for a while I was sending framed pieces back and forth 55 miles between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and the cheapest way was actually NebArk Messengers, bless their defunct little soul.  They would pickup and deliver at my door and usually made the trip within a couple hours.


Bill,
Thank you for your thoughts.
I can also say I have more then once pushed the "print only" to salvage the sale.

[bill t.]

Just to add to the messenger thing, the best thing about those guys is I didn't have to package the art in any way, except to sometimes wrap and tape a length of 12" wide roll foam around each end.  No packaging costs, no time invested.  So in that sense they were much cheaper than UPS within the territory they served.

[dgberg]

Yes,the time invested is the killer.
An hour to wrap the bigger ones and another hour to take it to the post office. Not a dime charged for those 2 hours.
Way less then profitable.

Just wonder how the heck some of these companies are doing the volumn they say they are doing.
If its through Groupon then they better sell that many!
LuLu's new sponsor 44 Wide says they are doing 80 to 130 wraps a day.
Man thats alot of canvas for their pricing structure. Must be Groupon stuff.

[bill t.]

Unless there's a guy outside turning off the gas, cash flow without profit is futile in the extreme.  Attracts a clientele looking for a low-ball thrill, never to be heard from again.  Groupon tends to be that way.  Don't know what 44 Wide is actually doing.  Hey, become a LuLa Sponsor!  Somebody's gotta pay for my prattle. 

[KenBabcock]

44 Wide is probably 99% Groupon sales (and other sites similar to Groupon).  This I know for a fact.  I live less than an hour from them.  They market the Toronto and GTA area hard with Groupon offers all the time.

[mstevensphoto]

I typically build my own boxes and Ship USPS. untill recently I had pretty good luck with USPS. lately they've been throwing them into a meat grinder somewhere along the route.
I've found that reducing the size of the packaging and adding foamcore or gator board helps reduce the shipping cost (even after the material costs) BUT like you mentioned time is an absolute killer. I live right by the post office and it's still a huge chore to pack and ship.
Even at low volume FedEx will give you a good discount, check through the PPA if you're a member. The problem with them is that you get something like 27% off overnight service but only 5ish percent off ground. All of the shippers offer massive discounts for volume - I have always wondered how Millers Lab could ever stay open shipping me a $40 print overnight. the major plus they have is enough volume to merrit a few $8/hr shipping people who do nothing else.
Currently my girlfriend who owns a little online botique and I are under a joint shipping account. we save about 17% on the services we actually use and just change the "from" name with each batch since we share an address.

[iCanvas]

I personally get double thick cardboard from my local Sear's outlet store for free and make my own boxes. The largest boxes they have are refrigerator boxes or mattress boxes. I've become pretty expert at making boxes in all sizes over the years. Box Making 101. I cover the frame inside the box with two pieces of double thick cardboard and then shrink wrap the edges. I then cover the corners with 1" bubble wrap and set that inside my box. You can also get cardboard from furniture stores. Once a year I will have to make a claim for damage, but that is covered by FedEx. Fortunately, I have a FedEx major location about a half mile from me. So I just drop off the art and that saves money there. I include the shipping costs on our website for anywhere in the contiguous United States.

[bill t.]

The second two pictures on this ebay page shows one way Peter Lik does it.

One of my clients showed me his New-In-Box Peter Lik, which used a much slicker system (no pics, sorry).  Visualize two 12" x 12" x 2" pieces of very dense foam.  Now between those two sandwich breads put another "L" shaped piece with the outside edges of the L aligned with two of the edges of the 12 x 12's.  Glue.  Make 3 more for the other corners.  Put the picture in a clear baggy.  Shove the picture corners snugly into the space left by the "L" cutout areass.  Shove everything into a not so terribly thick-walled box.  Verify that the credit card went through OK.  Buy ample insurance.  Ship.

It was a picture of a pier thrusting out into a pink and blue sunset.  He coulda bought 8 of mine for the price.  What am I missing?

I have had shipping damage claims on about 10% of the pieces I have shipped.  That's one reason I prefer to let the UPS store do the packaging, leaves me guiltless as the new fallen snow.

[Johnny_Boy]

Dan, how much of the shipping quote was for shipping vs. insurance? I've noticed that many large online retailers do not use insurance when they ship to save money. I think this is how they can ship it cheaper. They must have statistics that shows that money they payout by broken shipment is less than the money they pay out for insurance. Thoughts?

However, it might only work for guys with large samples size (i.e. big box stores) to make it statistically valid. For example, it is interesting to hear that Bill has 10% damage claims on the pieces he has shipped. Maybe he is just a crappy packer?

[bill t.]

Maybe he is just a crappy packer?

I'm innocent I tell you...INNOCENT!  The UPS store packs it, it's not my fault.  It's a beautiful thing.  I dodge responsibility whenever I can.  It's the world we live in.

[Jeff Magidson]

A few thoughts:

If you foresee yourself doing a fare amount of shipping,you might want to call UPS and FedEx and ask to talk with a sales rep. If you tell them you are trying to grow your business and are shopping around, maybe they with give you a good discount and set up an account for you? The bigger eCommerce sellers are obviously getting SERIOUS discounts. WHCC.COM for example, sends out all their orders with free 2nd day UPS, their minimum order is only $12.

Personally.... I stay the heck away from my local UPS store. They charge A LOT more than a quote you will get for the same package and service on the UPS website. When I questioned this pricing discrepancy at the UPS store I was told " We have nothing to do with UPS". I said: " But you are called the UPS store and you even have the same logo as UPS". I could not get a good answer. My understanding is that they do not even use UPS as the carrier some time. I find their whole setup very misleading. The 2 times I used my local UPS store it ran 40%-70% more than the UPS website quote.

~ Jeff

[Johnny_Boy]

It is true that UPS Store (formerly known as "Mailbox etc.") will charge more than if you went straight to a UPS drop off location. I am assuming similar thing is happening at the FedEx store (f.k.a. "Kinkos")?

[mstevensphoto]

UPS Stores are franchises and they have to make money for their services. it is far cheaper to print your labels at home and then just drop off at their store. That said I almost always find fedex to be cheaper these days. If you have a storefront location they'll pick up for free as part of your regular delivery service.

[dgberg]

Dan, how much of the shipping quote was for shipping vs. insurance? I've noticed that many large online retailers do not use insurance when they ship to save money. I think this is how they can ship it cheaper. They must have statistics that shows that money they payout by broken shipment is less than the money they pay out for insurance. Thoughts?

However, it might only work for guys with large samples size (i.e. big box stores) to make it statistically valid. For example, it is interesting to hear that Bill has 10% damage claims on the pieces he has shipped. Maybe he is just a crappy packer?

I think on that $40.00 shipment the insurance was about $4.00. Not that bad for about $300.00 worth of coverage.
The real problem is not with the smaller boxes. The larger ones are just so bulky that as soon as they take  the measurements and add them up it's just a big number. My packing and shipping costs average about 10 percent of sales on the bigger pieces. On the smaller ones it can be as high as 20 percent. Sometimes more sometimes less.

[bill t.]

The problem with the big boxes is that it can easily take 1/2 day to put those monsters together and then get them shipped.  My UPS store charges about $80 for the packaging portion of a typical big piece, plus whatever the shipping charge is.  For $20 an hour, I am very happy to buy my own time by farming out work like that.  I can make 2 or 3 ready-to-sell pieces in the same time.  If the client doesn't want to pay for that, they can buy a print.  If they don't want a print, then I still have my 1/2 day and additional sellable stock.