Dealing with the suppliers. ( A chance to vent )

[Understudy]

I need to vent. I have been dealing with the beekeeping supply places. I understand that they are extremely busy at this time of year. However their brains are off and their bodies move in reverse.

I needed to order 10 cardboard nuc boxes. Not a tough order you would think.

Supply House #1
We don't have those in stock ( I can actually understand this )
However we have the EZ nucs in stock. ( Offering the customer an alternative, very nice)
Well the boxes cost a little bit more and we can't collapse them for shipping. So you will have to pay an over sized shipping fee. ( This in addition to the higher price on the boxes ). At this point it simply got too expensive.

Supply House #2
We have them in stock. We can't ship them out of our location for at least two weeks.

Supply House #3
We have them in stock. However I don't know how to ship them flat ( this means I assemble them, this I understand and want ). So you will have to pay an over sized shipping fee. Oh yeah we are a week and half out on shipping.

Supply House #4
We have them in stock. We ship them flat ( Remember this is a good thing ). Unfortunately we can't ship them out today. However they should go out on Monday. Tuesday at the latest. ( Unfortunately they are about as far away as it can be) I went with them.

I swear it is like brains have been turned off. I had a couple of other supply houses that were simple enough to tell me they don't stock them. I can deal with that. However many of these places simply do not know how to box & ship properly. When you tell them you are placing an order to be shipped you can here the defeated sigh in some of their voices.

I realize that I am not placing an order for 400 pieces of equipment. However I remember who I refer others to and where I continue to purchase from.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[roger33]

It also seems to me that beekeeping supply houses are 3X higher on freight than any non beekeeping vendor. What makes beekeeping supplies so expensive to ship? 1 lb is 1 lb.  :?

[kbfarms]

I'd also like to know about shipping cost. I'm lucky that two suppliers are within two hrs of me.  99% of my stuff come from them after a drive.  It's the 1% that kills me that I have to ship which makes up a 1/3 of the cost. I feel sorry for folks that are not within driving distance. 

[deknow]

i've recently had both cardboard and eznucs shipped to me (both shipped along with a lot of other stuff).  these are not easy to ship!  the eznucs are 1 piece (including the cover), and can't really be folded in half...so the splayed out nuc is huge.   the cardboard ones aren't much better in this regard.  i'm not a shipping expert by any means, but i think they are too big to ship flat, so they get somewhat folded in a big box....a lot of wasted space (unless there are appropriate items to fill the space with).  i'd be curious if anyone could figure out a cheap way to ship these in small and/or larger quantitites.

somehow, i've always known that these particular items were expensive to ship (i don't know if i read it on one of the forums, or if it was in a catalog).

in the end, however, there is only one way to get cheap shipping...truck shipments (on pallets rather than in boxes).  you will need a loading dock or a forklift (and a big enough order....pool together with your friends or bee club).  we find that our shipping costs (on pallets) are often as low as 10% of the ups/usps shipping in boxes.

i know a number of people who have built CNC routers....i bet with a little trial/error one could copy an unassembled cardboard nuc and use cheap/free local scrap cardboard instead of buying/shipping them.

deknow

[podius]

I feel fortunate that I live close to mann lake. We have a courier up here(MN/WI) called speedee delivery and I can make an order and have it on my doorstep the next morning for 1/2 the cost of any other courier. If you MN/WI beeks did not know about this, just leave a note in your order or ask them about it.