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Tips for shipping heavy item with a focus on eBay selling. Mentioned in the article are Craters & Freighters (www.cratersandfreighters.com), FreightQuote.com (www.freightquote.com), and uShip (www.uship.com)

Quote:We all love that excited feeling of satisfaction after completing our first few sales on eBay. But at the same time, we also remember the "uh-oh" moment that comes when you discover a hidden challenge you hadn't fully anticipated: shipping. You soon learn that before you even begin to put an item up for sale you had better figure out exactly how you're going to ship it and how much that's going to cost. In many cases the difficulties you would face at the final stage of selling a particular item make you think twice about getting the process started at all...

full article: http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y206/m04/abu0164/s04
Doing my research before I started selling on ebay, I tried to find a reasonable method for crating and shipping large, framed paintings.  You know.  *Couch size* and bigger.  Went down to Craters and Freighters.  They wanted $150 just to build a crate for a fairly small 24x36 painting, plus freight delivery, which would have been around $150 to one of the states next door.  Big Grin  Nevermind the right coast.... ;D  *cough* They aren't in ABQ any more. 

Still don't have a way to ship my large widgits reasonably, so I still can't put them up for sale....  Sad
Quote:They wanted $150 just to build a crate for a fairly small 24x36 painting, plus freight delivery, which would have been around $150 to one of the states next door.

$150 must be the going rate.  The last time I had a 24x36 painting crated and shipped it was $150 for the crate and $200+ for shipping...but the shipping was UPS Air to Italy (and the buyer who was an art dealer b.itched at me because I insured a $1000 painting for $1000  :Smile instead of saying the value was under $400 so she could avoid customs duties...apparently the customs duty ate up the profit she hoped to make by reselling it).
;D
[quote author=stardust link=topic=3237.msg11782#msg11782 date=1144030364]
;D
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I thought it was funny.  There is no way I'm going to insure a $1000 item (especially a painting) for under $400 and take the risk of something happening.  She actually didn't mention she wanted it insured for under $400 until after she received it and then she sent me a nasty email about the customs duties she'd paid...and yes, her email did mention the part about the duties eating up her profits.  :Smile