We get a lot of questions from visitors and customers about shipping. As more and more retail sales are made over the internet, consumers who never had to think about shipping and delivery before are being faced with new terms and charges. Many websites avoid this problem by offering free shipping on purchases over a minimum purchase threshold, such as $100.00. We do this for smaller items, also, but much of our product is too heavy or bulky to ship by UPS or FedEx and must go by truck.
Truck shipping for us is referred to as LTL or “less than truckload” This describes product weighing over 50 lbs and up to 1000 lbs or more and shipped on wood pallets. This is generally more costly than parcel shipping but may have the benefit of reducing damage to breakable Christmas or garden statues. The price of shipping an item by truck changes very nearly every day with the cost of diesel fuel and we obtain this from various truckers websites. We prefer to use trucking companies that provide safe handling of our statues and figures by ensuring that nothing can be loaded on top of our pallets. If heavy product is loaded on top of our pallets, we can get what we call the “tall poppy” effect, where the heads of several of the figures have been lopped off when they arrive.
Our objective is for our product to arrive at our customer’s location in perfect condition with no crushed, ripped or pierced boxes and with the statues in perfect condition and ready to be displayed. I will talk more about shipping in my next post.