jacket report and shipping info

Sunday, I went to Road America at Elkhart Lake for the Super Bike races in order to see what the vendors had for summer riding gear. My own preference is to see the stuff in person, avoid shipping fees, be able to compare brands and try to score a discount.

Anyways, I ended up buying two First Gear high viz mesh jackets for approx $160 a piece. Not a great price, but reasonable. These jackets run small as I typically wear a XL and ended up with a XXL.
Yesterday was one hot mother of a day, mid 90's, humid, of course, so the wife and I donned a new jackets and hit the road. My wife also wore her regular protective pants.

I am happy to report that the jackets were very comfortable and we weren't sweating on our upper torso whatsoever. When my wife took off her protective riding pants, her legs were soaked in sweat so I guess we'll be buying some mesh pants sometime soon.

On an entirely different note, I recently sent back my Russell seat for modifications. On the original invoice, it stated the shipping cost as 50 something dollars so I went to Staples to ship it back since they handle UPS thinking since I'm shipping back the same exact thing, in the same box with the same packing materials that the cost would be the same, not so my friends! They wanted 72 dollars and that was without insurance!

This was all too much so I took the package to local post office and shipped the whole thing WITH insurance for $32 dollars. It took 2 more days to get there, but for that savings, I can live with that.

Being a amateur taxidermist, I peruse the taxidermy websites on occasion and I can tell you that UPS in held in low regards by many, many taxidermists. The chief problem is that they will not honor damage claims regardless of any insurance coverage purchased-no matter what, they will simply claim the product wasn't boxed correctly and therefore reject the claim. I experienced this myself. Apparently if you pay them to package the item, they will honor the claim, but the consensus seems to be, that you are wasting your money buying insurance coverage from UPS unless you're having them do the boxing.

Live and learn.

Chuck

Good intel...thanks...I normally ship via USPS these days cuz there's no UPS shipping outlets in my small town, but it's good to know that my choice of shipper is a good one!

I will try the post office next time. Thanks for the info.

Fyi

i opened my own Fed-Ex account. i haven't really used it yet but the theory is you can print your own labels and have F/E pick the package up at your doorstep...
an account is free to set up and there are a couple different options as to account type for you to choose from.

might give that a look, tho i do agree that USPS is about as easy as anything and everyone has a USPS office in their town.

+1 usps

Tried to ship a seat to Rick Mayer (VA to CA) using UPS - $75.00. NOT! Went to the Post Office - $18.00 including the tape I bought there. Tried to ship a CeeBailey GSA windscreen to Canada via FedEx - $375.00. NOT! Again, went to the Post Office - $35.00.

If you're shipping to a business, Fed-Ex Ground is really inexpensive. I shipped my seat to Russell in California for less than $20.00 and that included $750 in insurance.

It hard telling who is shipping what...

I just returned a product that my wife purchased on HSN. The return information stated that the enclosed address label could be used with either UPS, or the USPS.

I took it to the post office and dropped it off. The post master told me that UPS/USPS have had a reciprocal contract for almost five years now that enables UPS to have USPS deliver for them... and vice-versa.

I have a UPS account myself. Rates are reasonable. No problems (but no claims (knock on wood)) either).

The "problem", if you want to call it that, with shipping by air, is that FedEX, UPS, HDL, etc. use a system by which an item is charged for it's "Dimensional Weight" ... a calculation based on VOLUME. If the calculated dimensional weight is less than the actual weight, it ships at the greater of the two.

Since aircraft can only handle so much weight, big, light, objects (like a motorcycle seat(?)) return less profit than shipping a heavier object of the same physical size ... and since these guys are supposed to make a profit for their share holders this is how they compensate for it.

Another way to think of it ... which fits in a smaller box; a pound of feathers, or a pound of roofing nails?

Shipping

Fedex ground Newport beach to ojai bill Mayer seats 7 days on matter what the price lousy service. First went to Ventura next day San Diego next day Oxnard finally got to destination in 7 days. Return to Newport beach 2days ups