• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Shipping Method

S

sab49

New member
I've been doing lots of research as to the best way to ship my corns this year and I've found that ShipYourReptiles cost seems to have gone down in the last few months. From my location in the midwest to one of the coasts used to be around $70 but now comes in at around $54.

I was also thinking about getting certified w/Fedex. How do the shipping prices compare between certified vs. SYR? I know both use Fedex but I have no experience shipping with either. Are they equal as far as reliability and the process you must go through to ship? I've heard that being certified doesn't allow residential delivery, does SYR offer that option?

I have done tons of research but as in most things, experience probably trumps book learning...lol Thanks in advance.

Mike
 
These are some good questions! SYR is an excellent organization. They do ship to residential adresses, and even have a printable label telling the Fed Ez attendants that they are Autherized to do so. I don't know how they did it, but they did. They also will refund your shipping cost if there are any major delays or problems with your shipment. That doesn't cover the snakes themselves, but it is nice. Reptile Express is also up again, and I have used them in the past, and highly recomend them also. In the time both of these guys were down, I got Fed Ex certified so now I use my own means. I got tired of the run around, when these guys were shut down, which could happen again, at any time! The legal waiver that you sign to become Fed Ex certified does stipulate that no residential shipments are allowed, yet when you book the shipment it gives you the option to do so for a small additionalt fee of abot 2 bucks. Everyone who is Fed Ex Certified ships to residential locations, so it's one of those dirt little secrets, I guess? The price for me to ship verses SYR is a few dollars cheaper due to a discount I was elligable for, but it's not a huge difference.
 
If you get certified to ship, then you aren't stuck when one or both companies stop shipping snakes, again. Unless someone using those companies ruins FedEx for us, too.

I haven't shipped to a residence, and I stopped getting snakes shipped to my residence after I discovered how much more I liked picking them up! I get them earlier, they are safer, and I can go in for nearly half a day of work rather than using a day of vacation when I am receiving a snake.
 
Nanci said:
If you get certified to ship, then you aren't stuck when one or both companies stop shipping snakes, again. Unless someone using those companies ruins FedEx for us, too.

I haven't shipped to a residence, and I stopped getting snakes shipped to my residence after I discovered how much more I liked picking them up! I get them earlier, they are safer, and I can go in for nearly half a day of work rather than using a day of vacation when I am receiving a snake.
Click to expand...

Good points Nanci! I always pick them up at the Fed Ex station too! I can pick them up at 9:00 AM when the doors open, and I don't have to be waiting for the van to show up, which can be as late as noon in some cases, or even later, if the van breaks down, or has an accident. I also try to convince all my buyers to do the same.
 
Thank you both for taking the time to reply to my questions. I love the insight coming from experienced shippers rather than just relying on luck and my online research. You both bring up interesting points about picking them up at the Fedex location rather than shipping to a residence and hoping somebody is home.

I think I may try out one or both of those services at first since it is the more convenient method, but will probably get certified as well sometime this summer to avoid issues if SYR or Reptile Express run into problems.

It's so nice to have a resource such as this to bounce ideas off of each other and take a lot of the guess work out of the equation.
 
If you only ship Hold at Location, you never have to worry about the snakes getting lost/bounced around/hot/cold in the truck. We had someone here FORGET she had a TESSERA being shipped, and it was left at FedEx overnight! Imagine if that had been dropped on her steps...At least if you ship HAL, you know the snake is somewhere climate controlled and safe, and can be recalled to you if it isn't picked up.
 
Or, something that happened to me. I bought a snake from a large-scale breeder. We didn't ship that week, because it was Thanksgiving. So I thought we would communicate again before the snake was shipped. I got home Tuesday, 4PM, and there was the then most expensive snake EVER sitting in my driveway, 20 feet from a super-busy road. I almost had a heart attack. Weeks later, I found the shipping info from FedEx in my spam folder...Why yes, if you have ever put your signature on file with FedEx, that means that even if a package is shipped Signature Required, they can still leave it.
 
That would have been a costly mistake for the new owner not to mention what the snake would have gone through. These are the exact types of problems I get worked up about when thinking about shipping my helpless little animals.

It's been so much easier selling them locally in the past since I've only had a few hatchlings, but I feel that many of my future sales will have to be online. There seem to be quite a few breeders in this area and buyers I trust might be hard to come by.
 
Nanci said:
If you get certified to ship, then you aren't stuck when one or both companies stop shipping snakes, again. Unless someone using those companies ruins FedEx for us, too.

I haven't shipped to a residence, and I stopped getting snakes shipped to my residence after I discovered how much more I liked picking them up! I get them earlier, they are safer, and I can go in for nearly half a day of work rather than using a day of vacation when I am receiving a snake.
Click to expand...

That's the main thing about SYR, is that they have to ship to a residence, they won't ship HAL.

I've learned the hard way, that even if the reptile is no where *near* the bad weather, more than likely, there will *still* be delayes in delivering to a residence, if the weather is bad, back east (primarily Memphis).
I had a shipment that went from CA to WA....straight up the coast. No bad weather on this side of the states, but because of the weather back east, my snakes were a few hours late. They would have been even later, if I hadn't pestered them, telling them that I had to leave for work.

I much prefer HAL. I get them in my hands sooner, & they don't spend the day on the truck, if the driver is late on deliveries (& many drivers do *not* "handle with care".)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top