Please Help: International Shipping for Online Business

thechange

Hello Everyone,

A friend recommened boards.ie to me to help find a solution to a problem I have encountered. I would be so delighted if someone could help me here with this.

Basically, I lost my bread and butter job a few months ago. Since then, I have gone back to doing what I love ( making Glass Art, Sculputure etc) and started selling the work online. Its going well except for one problem- Shipping.

What I am looking for is a shipping company who can ship my items cost efectively. I currently use An Post for the smaller items but they are expensive and have size restrictions on items. Courier services like Fedex are fantastic but very, very expensive. This is having a very bad effect on my business as shipping an item is nearly as expensive as the items themselves.

What I am looking for is a company who could consolidate my shipments and deliver to door at an affordable price.

About 90% of my items are shipped too the USA so a United States specialist is really what i am looking for.

Is there anyone out there who owns an online business that works in a similiar fashion that could offer me some advice???

I would be forever in your debt as finding a company like this is proving much harder than I thought.

Many thanks

Coleman

rainbowdash

A rare PM sent to you!

Gekko

off topic admittedly but would you have a link to your website or wherever you sell online?

I may be a customer!

StupidLikeAFox

rainbowdash wrote: »

A rare PM sent to you!

Hey rainbowdash, would you mind posting on the thread about this, or perhaps PM myself also? I may be looking at doing something like this shortly myself!

1ceman

+1 for info in thread or PM about cheaper shipping options!

BarryM3

I'm working on a new business at the moment that I hope will be of service. I am already operating it for some people I already know.

While I don't offer a USA service, yet, I can offer decent rates for Europe. If anyone wants more info please feel free to PM me or drop me a mail

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

@thechange

Sounds like what you need to do is to ship via pallets to the US then have a company open the pallet and reship the small packages to their destination. Unfortunately these savings have trade offs, the slower the shipping time the more you can batch together. However when buying online people want products as soon as possible.

I love that you've managed to get 90% sales to the US, no easy feat. How big are the sculptures?

rainbowdash

TheCostumeShop.ie (Ronan) wrote: »

@thechange

Sounds like what you need to do is to ship via pallets to the US then have a company open the pallet and reship the small packages to their destination. Unfortunately these savings have trade offs, the slower the shipping time the more you can batch together. However when buying online people want products as soon as possible.

I love that you've managed to get 90% sales to the US, no easy feat. How big are the sculptures?

My original PM was similar to this. Ship in bulk to warehouses in your country of destination. Ideally ship from manufacturer premises (wherever in the world it is) to distribution warehouse in the country of sale. Google fulfilment house, this is the type of operation you are looking for. I think BarryM above does the same concept in Ireland.

Colm_purchase

Ive used this company [URL="mhtml:{041FEEB2-3D39-4143-9EE0-632529770273}mid://00000206/!x-usc:www.Wiseloads.com"]www.Wiseloads.com[/URL] a few times and find them quite good on price.

DannyD

If anyone could post some alternatives to AN Post for posting packages from Ireland to Ireland. Main consideration is that they are cheaper than An post, online tracking would be a bonus. Pickup of the package would be great too.


Thanks.