Good--but badly cataracted 21FJP22 on Ebay

[Phil Nelson]

Some shippers really ding you for an oversize box. Last year I shipped a big empty box to NY to have a CRT shipped back in it. (Well, nearly empty; it contained the padding to safely ship a CRT.) I choked a little when I saw the cost to ship the empty box. The counter guy told me, "It's all in the size -- you could put another 75 pounds of stuff in this box and ship it for the same price."

Phil Nelson

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by Phil Nelson

Some shippers really ding you for an oversize box. Last year I shipped a big empty box to NY to have a CRT shipped back in it. (Well, nearly empty; it contained the padding to safely ship a CRT.) I choked a little when I saw the cost to ship the empty box. The counter guy told me, "It's all in the size -- you could put another 75 pounds of stuff in this box and ship it for the same price."

Phil Nelson

Ah, the catchphrase in the shipping business "dimensional weight" - the shipper determines what weight they could possibly ship in a certain dimension. When your large, lightweight box fills up that dimension, you get "dinged" for lost revenue they could have earned with 2 -5 smaller, but heavier parcels. UPS had a nice slideshow explaining that - heck it may even be a YouTube video now, but they explain quite well how they ding you. I used to receive laptop carrying cases via UPS, three or four to a 24x24x24" package, and with very little fill, they still shipped UPS oversize. The company was paying 34 dollars to ship less than 4 pounds from Raleigh, NC to our place in Virginia - and this was in 2002/2003!

[kvflyer]

I guess the shippers want their "Fair Share" for the volume you are taking up in their trucks and aircraft. Oh well ...