Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

We deal with a variety of parcels everyday at The UPS Store so we`re used to advising customers on proper packing techniques. This is a photo of one customer who chose not to take my advice and ship here package how she wanted to.

She is a hockey players wife who bought several large boxes to pack some household goods. She was bragging about how much she was able to fit into each box. I cautioned here that the boxes she was using despite being large were not designed to hold 150 lbs and they likely would be damaged. She assured me they were well packed and would be fine. Sure, like I have no idea what I`m talking about. "Ok, you can ship them if you want to but they`re probably going to get damaged."

Predictably, I received a phone call two weeks later and she was crying about how rotten UPS must be to do THAT to her boxes. She even sent photos so I could see the extent of the damage. Sure enough, some of the boxes had been literally destroyed. She was lucky the contents even arrived as some of the boxes were being held together by multiple layers of stretch wrap.

Anyway, the moral of the story is...Never put 150 pounds of stuff into a box that was only made to hold 65 lbs, or as I like to put it "Pack for the worst then pray for the best."

Peter

Good advice! Every time we moved, my mom would take the biggest box and pack it with books.  We kept telling her it was a BAAAD idea because no one could pick it up.  But, her response always was, "They fit perfectly in it!"

Too bad people don`t listen to, oh, THE PROFESSIONALS WHO KNOW WHAT THEY`RE TALKING ABOUT! 

 

~Kim

back in my early days of eBay - shipped a large figurine and it had delicate

parts - long story short - it broke in transit. for what ever reason I asked her if she wanted insurance and she said no(i insured - my cost). well she attack me severaly with a negative on ebay and violent emails, too!  she told square trade(ebay mediation service for negs.) that i sold her an item that i glued the head back on(before ship). some people sell defective merchandise and than hit issurnace company for money. i won`t give details about that. but, this statue was forteen dollars and I didn`t use bubble wrap throuhout. i have another way of packing which is better - but she told them that my box was modified and no bubble wrap to boot! parcel company sided with me because I understood shipping technology(s). how to read a box for its potiential and how to modify a shipping container legally. plus i had a good stretch with the organizaiton of the years of doing biz. The lady somehow produce a picture of a matching statue(to my surprize there was a match) and it was in her collection, i figured that she broke the first one and bought mine to recomplete her set.  she never once appologized to me or accused the shipper of wrong doing. they paid.

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I am no longer posting on this forum. A fellow citizen here suggested that I should Think before I add commitary to my postings. I thought he was wrong, but I am mistaked(not everyone digs Mr.Wicks) E

UPSPeter,

can you start a forum thread on marketing strategies that work for UPS Store owners? there`s been some interest in this topic...

rich


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Rich Sloan , Co-Founder, Chief Startupologist, StartupNation

Be careful when shipping internationally, there are extra charges for Customs Brokerage.

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Daniel Stewart Bilsi 4050A Sladeview Cres. Mississauga,Ontario L5L 5Y5 www.bilsi.com

When do you think people will stop thinking they know everything and take a little advice from the professionals? You know, many of us do a specific task every day. It may not be rocket science, nevertheless, life is technical today. There are some very good reasons why your local waitress would say, "would you like hot chocolate instead of coffee today mister Wilcox?" Maybe you should say," Yes. That would be fine." You may not need, or want to know the whole story about how the coffee just doesn`t taste very good today. At the same time, the business doesn`t want to say... "hey, our coffee sucks today."

If the packing department says, "We should use two boxes for this order." I am inclined to listen. In the end, the product just might get there is one piece...

You know, I tend to believe the general public thinks packages are handled by hand once dropped off at your shipping location. In reality they are bounced along a rather clumsy conveyor belt until they fall into the bin destined for some plane where it is once again thrown onto another conveyor belt.



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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words

I worked for 22 years for one of the tfour overnight companies.  One thing I could never figure out was why some customers insisted on not labeling their freight properly.  They would drop off 2 or 3 pieces and only one piece was labeled with the destination and the origin information along with the airbill. True they would stick the airbill number (not the label) on each piece sometimes.  But sometimes  too it would fall off and then then these pieces would wind up in our UFO Department at our national hub.

Then someone there had the job of going through everything from around the nation that wound up there to see who it belonged to. I would have that job myself at the branch I worked out of before sending it on to the hub. One time I had a stack of legal documents that fell out of the box which was not packaged correctly.  All kinds of financial and personal  information there.

 Also when you send out a "used" box you have to remember to cross out the old label and markings and barcode so it doesnt rescan under the original label because you just may get it back in the morning..... hope that will help a little