I'm looking to 'ship flexibly' - every now and then for a set price. Any ideas?

Question

I have a company where items are raffled off and they need to be shipped off the ticket holders, possibly in many different states. For example, someone may purchase a ticket for a raffle in LA, but will live in NY. And there can be unlimited number of cross-referencing different states with customer to raffle organizers.

My position here is the web site that bring such people together to one central database, so I figured it would be easier to contract with one shipping company a set price per year, rather than make every customer pay a shippping fee, before knowing who is the winner!

The second part is as follows. Some prizes can be really small, say a set of watches, and some can be quite large like a bedroom set. From the shipping company's perspective, not knowing how often or even what kind of size they might need to ship at any given time.

What would be a good way to convince such a company to contract me and let me ship on a customers winning basis (unlimited to anywhere)?

Answer 1

Include S&H in the total cost of the item, and use THAT price to set the raffle ticket prices.  Or release more raffle tickets for sale for those prices, etc--somehow, budget shipping into the cost of the prize so it's a non-issue.

You simply can't beat UPS Ground and DHL Ground for shipping items smaller than 50 pounds in a one-off fashion--that's the reason they're there.  So for the watches, etc. don't even THINK about intermodal freight...you could just mail the item.  Budget the $5 shipping charge into the raffle (or $3, do parcel post!  It doesn't have to be first-class next-day shipping, it's just something they won, they weren't expecting it anyway so they can wait a week.)

As far as freight goes...Freight companies make money by the number of truckloads they make.  They make more money by taking on more truckloads.  For that reason, you're NEVER going to be able to "contract" a few pieces a great number of times onto a carrier.  Say you're shipping a bedroom set.  It won't fill a semi trailer, so you've got to ship it LTL (less-than-truckload); that's more processing, less pay, so fewer places are willing to do it.  You're sending these things to residences, so not only do you have to ship it LTL, you ALSO have to ship it expedited AND with home delivery...VERY few places want to do that kind of work.  And yes, it's expensive...it's going to be.  It's expensive because you're hauling a little bit of stuff a long way out of the way on an infrequent basis, and asking a truck driver to unload.  Think about that.  Every time you do that, it costs a freight company money.  No freight company's going to agree to a contract under those circumstances, unless you're Wal-Mart or some company they can devote a small fleet to.

There are two kinds of services you can use.  Use FedEx Freight, or use independent expedited service drivers.  Either way, you're going to pay.

I don't know why you put this under Rail because intermodal freight just doesn't make any sense in your situation.

Better off sticking to watches and bicycles, and not bedroom sets.