Cost of Air Shipping of Sculptures

[Merlion]

This is a new experience for me, air cargo shipping of sculptures to different parts of the world. As this is by air, not by sea, I am talking about small and medium size items.

Could we share some experience here about their costs ?

At first I thought weight is an important factor. This experience below shows me that it is not.

Also I notice distance matters somewhat, but not that much.

I have been quoted it costs me USD120 to send a 7 lb bronze sculpture from Thailand (in S E Asia) to California. But from the same source, it costs me about the same to send a heavier sculpture, perhaps double the weight, from Thailand to Iowa.

The same 7 lb sculpture costs me USD90 from Thailand to Sydney, Australia. Looking at my globe, this is only half the distance to California.

By the way, the above are by a well known international air cargo/courier service, and are door to door.

[Landseer]

This is a new experience for me, air cargo shipping of sculptures to different parts of the world. As this is by air, not by sea, I am talking about small and medium size items.

Could we share some experience here about their costs ?

At first I thought weight is an important factor. This experience below shows me that it is not.
.
I know I shipped 2 sculptures weighing about 12-14# each to Japan and they cost the lady there about $30 each for the cheapest method- Parcel Post (surface) and took about 3-4 weeks.

I know I looked up the cost for that from UPS and it was outrageous;

http://wwwapps.ups.com/calTimeCost?loc=en_US


Here's what UPS charges for a 25 pound pacakage from Iowa to
Ichikawa City Japan, they don't offer surface, just air:

$204.19

The Post office charges this for the SAME box:

Surface $47.95
Air parcel post: $104.85
Global express: $110.35

Quite a difference no?

To Thailand there is a weight limit of 44 pounds, here is 25#
Surface $50.15 (for 44# it's $76.20)
Air Parcel Post $112.50
Global Express: $140.20



To UK:
$60.85
$96.95
$104.10

To Canada:
$26.90
$40.85
$69.05

[sculptor]

Mermaid from Iowa to L.A. california----included door to door via fed-ex next day air and cost a tad over $4,400.00...which included insurance.

The crate and packing material weighed more'n the mermaid. I made it strong enough so you could push it off of a truck or 3 with no damage.
When I called around for quotes on shipping, and described the item as ART most pulled a big fade and said "we don't ship art".
When I rephrased the mermaid as architectural ornament, fed-ex came and picked her up-----

She fit in a crate measuring 60 x 48 x 30 inches----total weight about 185 lbs

rod
sculptor (http://home.mindspring.com/~mandali/index.html)

[Landseer]

Mermaid from Iowa to L.A. california----included door to door via fed-ex next day air and cost a tad over $4,400.00...which included insurance.

Wow, why did it have to go OVERNIGHT? overnight air costs way more than other means.


ART most pulled a big fade and said "we don't ship art".
When I rephrased the mermaid as architectural ornament, fed-ex came and picked her up-----
Have to watch that though, if the contents are not accurately described they could deny a claim for damage. UPS pulled that when I shipped with them in the 80's, piece was broken and they said they don't insure what they called "shock merchandise", in other words if it's breakable they wouldn't cover it but you still pay for insurance and declare it go figure!
The best you can do there would be if they LOST the box.


She fit in a crate measuring 60 x 48 x 30 inches----total weight about 185 lbs
Oversize oversize oversize, get's you every time, that's when UPS etc take your box that is an inch over their 104" total size or whatever it is now, and no matter how little it weighs they charge you for 70#
and if it's oversized into the next range I think they charge for 90#. There's also extra charges if the shipment is "not surrounded by a carboard container" i.e: a wood crate carries $5 additional charge, and additional if it's over a certain weight.

I had an antique plaster sculpture arrive via UPS and the bill was over $100 from the next state over- zone 3 or something, the box didn't weigh but maybe 30#, that's when I discovered most of the charge- about $80 of that was for the "oversize" condition, it was a HUGE box.

FedEx also will not pickup at a residence, you must have a registered business with a verifiable business phone listing to ship from your residence via FedEx.

DHL's rate chart came today, their base ground rates for a 150# package to zone 8 (the farthest US zone) is $77.52 while 50# is $32.52
I use DHL exclusively for domestic

[sculptor]

....."why did it have to go OVERNIGHT? overnight air costs way more than other means...."

customer/client wanted it "yesterday" and he offered to pay the freight
shipped on tuesday he got it wednesday, installed thursday and had a party friday.

If I'd have known the cost the week before, I'd have offered to deliver and install for the same $.

as/re ...architectural ornament...
... she was engineered for and got bolted to the end of his house facing the pacific ocean, and he commissioned her for that purpose---so she wasn't cheap, but the phrase was dead on accurate.
what's the difference between art and ornament?

landseer----where wuz you in Iowa?

rod

[Merlion]

Here's what UPS charges for a 25 pound pacakage from Iowa to
Ichikawa City Japan, they don't offer surface, just air:

$204.19

The Post office charges this for the SAME box:

Surface $47.95
Air parcel post: $104.85
Global express: $110.35

Quite a difference no?

To Thailand there is a weight limit of 44 pounds, here is 25#
Surface $50.15 (for 44# it's $76.20)
Air Parcel Post $112.50
Global Express: [font=Arial][size=-1][b]$140.20


How heavy is the 19" bronze horse? Say 15#? We got a special air freight price of US$110 from Thailand to Iowa.

This is similar, isn't it, to what you mention above of the Post Office price of $112 or $140 for air delivery of 25# from Iowa to Thailand?

It looks like your UPS price of $204 is their openly quoted price for 'walk in' customers, not for regular customers using their standard air cargo cardboard boxes. The Thai foundry should belong to the latter category.

[Landseer]

How heavy is the 19" bronze horse? Say 15#? We got a special air freight price of US$110 from Thailand to Iowa.

This is similar, isn't it, to what you mention above of the Post Office price of $112 or $140 for air delivery of 25# from Iowa to Thailand?

It looks like your UPS price of $204 is their openly quoted price for 'walk in' customers, not for regular customers using their standard air cargo cardboard boxes. The Thai foundry should belong to the latter category.
The UK seller from whom I bought the old horse from said it "weighs over 12 kg", so that would be about 25# and I think I looked up 25# in the rate chart for Thailand to here- $112 or something like that, so the cost seems close UK to here or Thailand to here

From the UK to here the lady charged £50- about $89 US.
Keep in mind both horses have a marble base, and the old one has a base the lady said is 14" and a little bit more long:

"THIS BRONZE SHIRE HORSE STANDS SOME 19" TALL AND SOME 21.5" LONG FROM NOSE TO END OF TAIL. HE IS MOUNTED ON A MARBLE BASE WHICH MEASURES SOME 14.7"LONG. THIS IS A VERY HEAVY BRONZE WEIGHING OVER 12KG. BASE IS IMPRESSED "MENE". THERE IS ALSO AN IMPRESSED FOUNDRY MARK. "

As the marble is about 3/4" thick, 14" long it probably weighs around 4-5# alone, so I would estimate 25# is closer on the horse than 15

The UPS charge $204 that I looked up was for customer DROP OFF at a UPS location, and to "pay with your UPS billing account", for pickup there is a fee- about $3 per box. There is a weekly fee for having daily pickup at your business which depends on how much dollar amount you ship per week. The more you ship the lower it costs for the weekly fees, but not less than I think $12 a week for daily pickup.

Some carriers and some locations- the cheaper surface service is NOT available- they force you to pay the much higher AIR shipping.
That's why I use the Post office parcel post- surface- for ALL shipping I have done to Canada, Japan, France and UK.

One customer asked about shipping to a town in Africa or Brazil, I forget, but I did the lookup and the 60# or so box would have cost $600!! because the only service thru UPS available was Air.
The Post office I think showed something like $100 parcel post.

[Landseer]

customer/client wanted it "yesterday" and he offered to pay the freight
shipped on tuesday he got it wednesday, installed thursday and had a party friday.
Wow, 4 grand for shipping, yeah had you known... that would have been worth a personal delivery service at that rate!


as/re ...architectural ornament...
... she was engineered for and got bolted to the end of his house facing the pacific ocean, and he commissioned her for that purpose---so she wasn't cheap, but the phrase was dead on accurate.
Yes I see.


what's the difference between art and ornament?
Insurance I guess, "fine art" implies great value like Rembrandt I guess, and the insurance companies dont want to lose money, and ANY damage to "art" is going to be an automatic claim.

"Architectural" implies something for the garden or outside where it will get dumped off the back of a truck, get dirty, scratched, damaged anyway, so a concrete planter gets a tiny chip off the bottom- who cares, it sits in the dirt in the garden and a lot of that type of stuff is shipped on a pallet anyway. A scratch on a $50,000 painting is a $50,000 claim


landseer----where wuz you in Iowa?
rod ARE, not wuz, I'm still here 40 minutes West of Ft Dodge in Lake city

[kathleenfen]

Years ago I used to work for a well known carrier for some years (no names).....remembering correctly hopefully, here goes:

Size is as important as weight when shipping air. Oversize will jump your cost up big time. Air service only to all these countries/areas is because the cost of shipping regular service for the carrier costs them more than they could ever make and therefore isn't worth it to them. Also, they have to offer services to countries they wouldn't normally choose to just to maintain competitiveness with other companies in the same industry, so they offer 'Air Only' so they can advertise that they offer service to these areas. The cost is high also for some areas to discourage customers from shipping there through that particular carrier. Some items will cost more to ship due to their insurance value, or value for customs. It is best not to say 'art' because that confuses carrier companies...they think it's a one-of-a-kind item that can never be replaced by any monetary value. Major carriers I am familiar with often will refuse to carry those kind of shipments; so therein lie the problems..it's a matter of words sometimes. If anyone has any specific questions, I'd be more than happy to answer.

Kathleen

[Landseer]

One good word of advice is, never put "FRAGILE" stickers etc on the box, I've known someone who said when he worked - at FedEx I think, during the summer while going to college. He worked loading the freight on the trucks, and the guys would have a contest any time a box marked "fragile" came in- to see who could make it "rattle" first, nice huh?

He also said he was instructed to deliver twice to an address if a next day box AND a ground box came in the same time, to never deliver both at once so that the customer felt they got their air shipment cost worth.
So as stupid as it seems, they would waste the gas sending the truck out TWICE to the same address on the same day if that happened.

Turns out most of the freight depending on where it's going goes by air ANYWAY, and that the ground shipments are held back to make the air shipments seem faster.
During Xmas they didnt have the warehouse space to hold the ground stuff back, so oddly enough it all gets thru amazingly fast at that time.

Always a corporate scam...

[Merlion]

I am learning, about international air shipping. Got these below from the Fedex and the UPS websites.

------------------------------------
FedEx® 10kg Box and FedEx® 25kg Box
An easy way to ship internationally via FedEx International Priority. Choose the box size your need and pay a simple flat fee. [snip]
FedEx 10 kg Box maximum is 22 lbs (15-3/16" x 12-15/16" x 10-3/16")
FedEx 25kg Box maximum is 55 lbs. (21-9/16" x 16-9/16" x 13-3/16")

------------------------------------
The UPS 10 KG Box® and the UPS 25 KG Box® offer a simple, convenient, door-to-door, fixed-rate shipping solution for express shipments up to 10 kg (22 lbs) and 25 kg (55 lbs).
Available to all UPS Worldwide ExpressSM and UPS Worldwide Express PlusSM service destinations. [snip]
To qualify for a flat rate, UPS-supplied boxes must be used
-----------------------------------------

The UPS box sizes are for 10 KG (22 lb) box 16.5" x 13.25" x 10.75", 410mm x 335mm x 265mm, and for 25 kg (55 lb) box 19.375" x 17.375" x 14", 484mm x 433mm x 350mm. They are more or less the same as the Fedex ones, perhaps one measures external, and the other internal, as they may be industry standards.

What the above may mean is that if the items fit into these boxes and within the respective weight limits, the rates are flat for a specific international destination, irrespective of the actual weight. And apparently all listed destinations in very broad global zones are charged the same. These are useful to know.