The "are you willing to ship it?" thread...let's educate ourselves on shipping costs.

Just throwing this against the wall to see if it sticks. If I am way off base feel free to educate me as well, but I am going off of 20+ years of personal knowledge of helping oversee and control the costs for a shipping and receiving department for my previous employer.

Not sure if I have seen a thread on here about shipping costs. More specifically diving in to actual shipping costs for PITA items to ship like wheels, steps/sliders, roof racks, and anything else that's oversized and/or heavy...yet there's always the knucklehead asking someone if they are willing to ship something in the PITA category without any regard for actual shipping costs, extra fees, and most importantly how much of a PITA it is for the seller to actually ship.

For example: Wheels;

I had to return some wheels from Kansas City to the San Diego area last year. Luckily I had a call tag from the seller as they were picking up the bill. Before I knew I was getting a call tag I looked up the costs.

For four wheels in two oversized boxes that fit two boxes of wheels. Over 100 lbs, each oversized box was over 50 lbs.

• Using my employer's commercial UPS account, even with discounts, it was going to cost every bit of $185 for regular ground.
• Without discounts it was well over $200.
  
• Extra fees for the weight, the box size, insurance, and the delivery area (certain commercial addresses, rural areas, and residential addresses all have special fees).
  
• Not to mention how much of a PITA it was to box the wheels back up and get them ready for shipping.

For the average person without access to a shipping dock or daily UPS pickups at their place of employment shipping these items sucks.

I guess I just want to see if this thread can help educate the "one in every crowd" person who asks if someone is willing to ship something when they obviously have no idea how much of a PITA or expensive it actually is. Especially common stock items that should be readily available damn near anywhere Toyotas are sold.

Then again...the "one in every crowd" person probably won't take the time to read this anyway. So we can just educate each other.

Fyi...I'm handsome and usually smell good.

 

Same. Super sexy.

In all seriousness, I am totally on board. I tried giving away some stuff earlier this year and now it's going in a dumpster. If anyone in the S/E Wisconsin area wants an OEM spare, roof rack side rails, or inner bumper structure, speak now or don't bitch when they're in a landfill

 

I sold front and rear bumper valances awhile back for 100. Cost me 80 to ship Chicago to one of the Carolina's
Bought and sold my share of oem roof rails( don't ask) and Chicago to west coast ...one guy had to of used his corporate account because it was 47 bucks. Another set was over 100. Big stuff is not worth it!