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Arm yourself with some knowledge

cybrfire

cybrfire

1 ton status
GMOTM Winner
Joined
Dec 15, 2002
Posts
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Location
Iowa
When we ship a box to you, there will never ever be a need for additional postage on your end.

If a Postal work asks this of you, stop and call me before you do anything. The package has already been accepted by the postal service on this end as it is packaged and shipped. It's a done deal.

This has only happened twice now, hopefully it never does again. If arming you guys with some knowledge helps than its worth a few posts here and there for sure.
 
Sounds like a couple postal workers are looking for "a little extra".
 
contact dan over at ruffstuff specialtys .

i know he is your competition but he has had this problem lots of times.

i got somthing from him you didnt offer when i needed it and it came postage due also. i called him he said this happens to him.

as the ad says " if it fits it shipps 1 low price " and under 70 lbs :thumb:
 
I spent a good bit of time on the phone today with a couple post office people sorting it out. I was just a little bit pissed.

I damn sure don't like seeing my customers get the run around and will go to bat at the post office for you guys every time. Quite frankly, if it weren't for DIY4X, the post office in our town would have been closed long ago. The woman behind the counter has told me that herself many times. So, when something like this happens, I can just as easily take all my shipping to UPS and be done with it.

Just whatever you do, don't pay them. I undestand you want your parts to.

You're right though, "If it fits, it ships." That's the whole campaign right there. This time the issue had something to do with tape. I don't know exactly what but as I said to both post offices involved, "The package was accepted, period."
 
The saga continued today.

Got a call back from the post office that charged my customer the extra postage.

Apparently the tape wasn't the issue, she now agreed with me that there is no regulation on how much tape can be used. Now they informed me there was a hole in the box and a part was sticking out. This disqualifies it from "if it fits it ships" criteria.

So I said to the woman, "You mean to tell me that the postal service damaged the box causing parts to stick out of the box and then you charge my customer extra for it? So now the appropriate course of action would be to submit a claim for damaged products during shipping. Does this make sense at all?"

She replied it didn't make any sense. To which i promptly replied, "You need to give my customer his money back." She can't do that. So I asked to speak to who was in charge.

I explained the entire situation again and this woman informed me obviously the parts were to heavy for the box and that is what created the hole. To which I replied, "The box was not over weight which means the items inside were not to heavy. The box left here in perfect condition." She then claims again that we had to tape the box extra and reinforce it to keep the part contained in the box.

By now I'm pulling my hair out. I told her, your subordinate just told me there is no regulation on how much tape can be used and obviously we should have used more since the postal service employees seem to be very hard on boxes. Boxes that are not overweight or overpacked or undertaped.

She said the stuff in the box shifted putting a hole in the box..... So I guess she wanted to go back to the beginning of the discussion and start all over. She did not want to hear the logic or understand how ridiculous her argument was. I told her at this point, I wouldn't drop this and I will persue this until it is resolved to my satisfaction no matter how long it takes. It's a matter of principle now.

I took it up again with the post office here and informed her that the post office in Georgia was accusing her of accepting a box that must have already had a hole in it.:doah:

Now they are asking for a picture of the box with the products in it the way it was packed. I'm not for an instant going to bother my customer for that picture. I will however pack another box just as this one was and bring them the photos of the box.

I can be a very stubborn SOB if I want to be. After all right is right and wrong is wrong.
 
You go Kert. Sometimes it's like kicking a dead horse though but on principle alone I would go the long haul as well.

Fock the postal people who are giving you grief. :flipoff1:
 
voice of bevis & butthead ("I understand your frustration") haa haa :D sorry couldnt resist.

when i pack n ship stuff i over protect the top/bottom/sides so far as to cut up 1 extra box and then insert it in as if it was 2 layers thick. i do this if i know there might be a possible pop out point like thay say you had .

then i tap the box shut top/bottom. then i do the ends on top/bottom then i also do a full wrap on the box like it was wraped with a bow minus the box. and if its still in question on the item i am shipping i wrap the side seam and then full 360 wrap the box on its sides.

yes its a little more cost in tape / time but i have yet to have a problem with blow out or damaged product.

and yes i get lots of flat rate boxes and thay do take a major beating at times. most seem to be from under stuffed / packed boxes were people toss in the part and 2-3 crumpled up papers and call it good.

i use to think ups was a bunch of monkeys tossin stuff around from major damage claims years ago when my dad was running a buissness and got trashed boxes a lot. but now i think thay all went to the usps and beat up the flat rate boxes :doah:
 
Kert, luv ya, your biz and your products.... but honestly, your packaging leaves much to be desired.... they may leave the shop looking good... but just about every package I've gotten has had holes and parts sticking out.. you can't put a bunch of steel in a box with some shredded stuff and expect it to survive transit...

I understand your dealing with a ton of orders where no 2 are the same, odd configurations, etc, etc, I sympathize... I'm not sure what a better way to pack would be than your doing, but just as someone who appreciates your products, just a bit of real world feedback..

I know you bag up smaller parts and such.. and the shredded cardboard stuff probably helps with alot of stuff, but it's seems to me with such heavy parts, sliding around in the box, the shredded stuff barely slows it down.. almost like it would help tremendously if the slop in the boxes was filled with something more solid, like actual scraps of cardboard in various sizes and shapes.... if the parts where kept from moving, the packages would survive much better..


once again, just trying to throw out some constructive criticism in an effort to help your awesome company...
 
Interesting feedback. Unexpected though.

We use styro foam peanuts for 99% of the boxes these days. We do a full 360 degree wrap from end to end on two directions of each box.

We've also gotten alot of compliments on how well things were packaged.

Over 7 years of shipping and the percentage of lost/damaged stuff is far less than 1 percent. Of course the goal is zero and I'm not at all afraid of looking at our packaging procedures and re-evaluating things.
 
well, I am going back a few yrs here.. I guess you've changed up some stuff.. pretty certain it was shredded cardboard at that time... and to be honest, I'm guessing peanuts would act the same way.. 5 to 10 lb hunk of steel in the middle of a package is gonna blow right thru peanuts from end to end...

guess I need to make a current purchase to re-evaluate the packaging.. ;) any excuse to buy some DIY4X goodness....
 
I did hve a problem with blow outs on my shackle flip box. It was packed with same peanuts as my other orders and it's not been a proble
On any others. But that's a heavy mama jamma
 
Gotta agree to a point with Paul on this Kert. It has been a while since I've gotten parts from ya, and I think they may have been shipped with the shredded cardboard that I remember seeing coming out, not the peanuts. It was obvious on that box that had a bunch of parts in it (I can zero in on that order if you'd like) that someone taped it up after it left your place...one corner was blown out and retaped but the entire order was in there. Do you know when you went to peanuts?
I only had that one box that had a blow out though, and I know I opened others and thought how the hell did you get all that in there!
YOur stuff is so stout that I don't think it could get hurt in shipping anyway, but it does put those flat rates to their limit by the time the PO gets done with them.
Oh and the one box that did come retaped, my carrier delivered it by hand, as I was in the shop the day he pulled in with it. He commented on the broken down box and asked me to check to make sure it was all there, but said nothing about any extra handling fee.
 
Last stuff I got was packed good. But it was just some brackets and stuff.

It is really stupid how they rate those boxes IMO because they should be able to handle however many lbs they advertise it for. I have seen more than one flat rate box with steel in it tore up by the time it got to its destination.

Really hard to pack steel good too, about the only way you are going to do it is with expanding foam. Thats gonna add some cost to shipping
 
F that kert keep on with them pricks. I get tons of stuff for work shipped ups fedex and usps. I have yet to recieve a package in a perfect box. Id take the same items in the same box that you shipped it before and throw that **** down hard on the floor and i bet it takes a few attempts to get a big enough hole to matter. Seriously what the hell are the doing with the packages we pay good money to ship. And Ive only made one purchase from you but i still remember chuckling as i cut off all the tape but you know what i didnt have to call you cryn about missing stuff.
 
When I bought my sliders from you Kert they were packaged with the peanuts and the box was shredded when it got to me and a bunch of fasteners were missing but this was shipped UPS IIRC but at any rate I guess we're saying that your packaging method could quite possibly be an issue but regardless the post office should not try to bill the purchaser but rather the supplier who packaged it.

I have nothing bad to say about any of your products and this isn't/wasn't intended to be any kind of bashing towards you personally or your business but rather fact about your packaging.
 
I got some ideas on how to make things better.

Make sure all you guys place an order to test the new packagaing OK!:D
 
The USPS Flat Rate boxes are awesome for shipping heavy brackets and tabs but Kert may single handedly change the "if it fits it ships" campaign. I'm not gonna lie though, the worst thing about one of Kerts bigger boxes is the peanuts. Damn I hate those things. I've also had the shreaded newspaper a couple times.

Have you thought about filament tape?

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/...ECFTDQGLE0000000_nid=P4ZGG9QDVWbeTRGGC52N4Mgl
 
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