Selling & Shipping Corals online tips

civics14

civics14

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Hi All,

Atlanta market is pretty saturated in corals, so getting tougher and tougher to sell here. Good thing for buyers though. So, I'm venturing to R2R sales and shipping. Of course, my first for sale post has been purchased by someone in Oregon (on the other side of the US).

I know we have a few online shippers on here and looking to see if I'm missing something before I ship out on Wednesday.
  1. Double Bag
    1. No air - in case box is flipped over to prevent exposure to air
  2. Insulated Box w/ Heat Pack since Oregon is COLD
    1. Pack tightly inside to prevent shifts
  3. 2 oz cup to hold frag plug
    1. Saw this tip on R2R, cut like an X on the bottom and push the frag plug into it so it won't move around
  4. Ship on last pickup for overnight delivery
Any other tips for my first time shipment? I'm hoping this is successful and leads to more more opportunities for me.
 
i ship to my guppies all over the place also.... for this weather make sure that you wrap everything in newspaper individually and then all around the inside of walls of the insulated box... this will help keep the heat from the heating pack stay inside and around the bags and you wont get any hot spots...
 
tonytran509 said:
i ship to my guppies all over the place also.... for this weather make sure that you wrap everything in newspaper individually and then all around the inside of walls of the insulated box... this will help keep the heat from the heating pack stay inside and around the bags and you wont get any hot spots...
Click to expand...

oh, good idea. Thanks man.
 
I’ve made a few shipments and the biggest learning curve for me was the cost of shipping overnight. When I found is that you need a business account with UPS or FedEx to get a decent rate otherwise they want over 100 bucks to send a 2-3lb box overnight.
 
Be careful in your choice of heating pack, we have received things in the cold where the heating pack has failed. We have found FedEx to be more successful with live animals than UPS- just our personal observations. And if the box is marked clearly live animals, the delivery guys usually are more careful when tossing the packages to the ground on delivery- some even ring the doorbell :).
Congrats on the sale!
 
dball711 said:
I’ve made a few shipments and the biggest learning curve for me was the cost of shipping overnight. When I found is that you need a business account with UPS or FedEx to get a decent rate otherwise they want over 100 bucks to send a 2-3lb box overnight.
Click to expand...
Lucky for me... I have access to a corporate account :) But yeah, not sure how those that are shipping it free is recouping the cost without a corp discount. Even the insulated boxes are pricey!
 
dball711 said:
I’ve made a few shipments and the biggest learning curve for me was the cost of shipping overnight. When I found is that you need a business account with UPS or FedEx to get a decent rate otherwise they want over 100 bucks to send a 2-3lb box overnight.
Click to expand...

Shipping is a HUGE expense overnight. I worked for fedex for six years and got employee shipping prices so it was nice to get that discount for next day shipping.
 
Heat packs do have a shelve life. But we're getting close to the time to buy them from places like BassPro/Cabela's and the like. The winter season is ending soon and they will dump inventory. Those will be good for another year or two.
Most of the places I've gotten stuff from this time of year tape the pack to the top of the box and, like Tony said, have insulation of some sort between it and the livestock.

Uline has some good pricing on plain boxes. Insulated or specialty get expensive though. They do have several sales per year and some good deals can be had. They also have Live Animal stickers.
 
I think uline boxes are great, but you have to buy them in a pack. I'd love to split the cost of a pack of 6x6x6 insulated boxes.
 
sharis100 said:
Be careful in your choice of heating pack, we have received things in the cold where the heating pack has failed. We have found FedEx to be more successful with live animals than UPS- just our personal observations. And if the box is marked clearly live animals, the delivery guys usually are more careful when tossing the packages to the ground on delivery- some even ring the doorbell :).
Congrats on the sale!
Click to expand...
It's funny you say that about heat packs because when I went online to order the 40 hour ones, there are a lot of complaints how some work and some don't out of the same box. Hopefully this first shipment don't go south on me. Really hoping to make this work to reach a wider audience. Everyone selling high end corals, why not sell some of the old school stuff to be different :)
 
civics14 said:
It's funny you say that about heat packs because when I went online to order the 40 hour ones, there are a lot of complaints how some work and some don't out of the same box. Hopefully this first shipment don't go south on me. Really hoping to make this work to reach a wider audience. Everyone selling high end corals, why not sell some of the old school stuff to be different :)
Click to expand...
Yea, make sure it gets warm first. my shipments arrived with 72° water. I used the uniheat 40hr packs.
 
Hey I can come and help, you don't even need to box I'll ship them to my house for you!!!:clapa:
 
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