SHIPPING speakers?

@pdreher re "I'd be careful shipping large heavy speakers without a pallet.  It's not a problem, until it is"

I know. You pays yer money and takes yer chances, right?  I'll let the prospective buyer decide. I have requested a quote from TMR too. 

My older ($17K used) Raidho D2s were shipped LTL on a pallet from Chicago and arrived in Colorado Springs in immaculate condition. I shipped out three pair of mint condition loudspeakers all together in their original cartons on a pallet and they arrived in Chicago in perfect shape. This was back in 2016 so who know what has changed.

All these suggestions of UPS or FEDX are wrong. If you have a small package, that might be a good idea, but only IF you have factory packaging that is in like new condition. If you have old packaging or beat up packaging, don’t do it. The cardboard loses strength after a few shipments.  Anything over 40 lbs is likely to be dropped and have corner damage.

Pallet Freight is the only way to do larger/heavier speaker, especially anything that is floor standing. I highly recommend to have anything large or heavy crated. Crating is not that expensive, usually $200 or less each. A crating company, that understands how to pack stuff, can usually do this and you can usually find them around airports (especially larger market cities with major airports). This package nd ship stuff is 100% terrible. We get so many speakers sent to us by pack and ship with ridiculously poor packaging that invites damage. The owners almost always face major damage they must repair, even if it’s sold to someone else. It’s a mess that can take a year to get paid back by Fedx or UPS and you ache to present the damaged item to them so thy can inspect it themselves. It’s a nightmare. (We recently received a 60lb speaker in nonfactory packaging from UPS store and it had one layer of the smallest bubble wrap you buy on the bottom and none on the top, some on the sides that had fallen down to the bottom of the box. The speakers were a complete loss and the shipper, who sent them in due to blown drivers now has to file a claim with UPS/FEDX and wait wait wait wait. We get some benefit because we are big shipper if our shipments get damaged, but as a solo shipper or one time customer, good luck getting them to pay attention to you). These pack and ship UPS stores/FEDX stores are NOT qualified to pack and ship anything valuable or heavy. Real corporate UPS or FEDX offices do not want to pack anything because then they are responsible for the shipment and they want to avoid that at all costs.

Don’t ship UPS/FEDX for anything that is tall or set up vertically. If it can fall over IT WILL. And then the damage is usually concealed; which creates a long term mess for both buyer and seller. Strapping a tall item down to a pallet is the way to do it UNLESS the product is so tall it will "hang over" a standard pallet because its dimensions exceed the pallet dimensions. Then that will surely be damaged by a forklift as they push the palleted freight together in a truck.

The post about raising prices due to ship damage is absolutely true. Once covid hit, they starting hiring untrained laborers and the freight damage went up dramatically and has not stopped.

Brad

@lonemountain re "Pallet Freight is the only way to do larger/heavier speaker, especially anything that is floor standing. I highly recommend to have anything large or heavy crated."

Vandersteen ships their speakers in factory boxes, vertically on a single pallet, and that's what they recommend. Using a freight company or FedEx Ground. A crate would be idea, but more expensive. In my case, shipping $2000 speakers on a pallet and spending $800 to do it didn't make sense. I got lucky and a local buyer wanted them, so I gladly delivered them to him 2 hours away, and set them up. If they were $20,000 speakers I would have crated them for sure. I note that some really high-end $$$$$$ speakers are shipped by the manufacturer in custom reusable shipping cases, like rock bands use to move their concert gear. 

FedX ground does not take pallets, nor does UPS ground.  As an importer for ATC, I deal with this stuff daily. 

Crates are preferred as they are cheap and you don't have to get them back. cardboard still needs a pallet so big boxes still mean truck freight.  Crates don't need an additional pallet as the crates have a pallet built in. With road cases, which cost at least $750 each and up, you just doubled the freight bill when you have to get them back (empty case is the same cost to ship as a full one) Plus the investment in road case inventory (that you never sell) is a lot of extra $.  So built on-site crates is the way to go with 90% of big or tall speakers shipped new.

BTW "Ground" does not mean truck freight, it means "small package" freight.