Calculating Truck Shipping Prices

Calculating prices for truck ship products like this accurately and efficiently is a real tough problem in our industry and I imagine many others. When UPS or FedEx won't ship your item, it means you've got an unusual item and not necessarily a heavy one. UPS, for example, won't ship volleyball standards because of their height even though they are relatively light weight. A lacrosse goal comes in two sections, one square 6FT tall by 6FT wide and another triangle 6FT wide by 7FT tall. Then you've got a soccer goal with narrow posts up to 24ft long or a 10 inch wide bleacher planks or a pair of goose neck football goal posts. All these items are truck ship and all have very different dimensions and weight densities. To make matters worse, shipping these items is very expensive so if we don't do it correctly it can create negative financial experiences which go both ways.

A common solution is having you call in every time you'd like to order any item that ships truck. This might be the most accurate but it creates a lot of costs to our company and can be an inconvenience for you. A complicated order process decreases order volumes and requires additional work. Ultimately, these costs get added into the price of the product so this solution doesn't necessarily save the most money. Also, we believe a website should be full-service 100% of the time. While we don't mind taking the extra step to talk to you and calculate shipping for you, we don't like relying completely on this solution. This is why we calculate our truck shipping automatically and adjust our algorithms overtime in order to offer the most accurate and competitive shipping quotes. We believe that the efficiency produced by this method will ultimately equal a lower overall product price and a better overall customer service experience. If any of our shipping prices don't look correct to you, please let us know and we'll make changes.

As always - growing our business is about building great trust with our customers. This is why we continue to highlight the problems we face together and our solutions because all our decisions effect mutually effect us. If you've got any other ideas for us or a different solution, please let us know!

Labels: shipping