Packaging guitars for transport

TI-Distribution

Hi Guys

We have been shipping guitars Road Freight around the country for a couple of years now and have had very little damages. Within the last 2 months we are getting many issues and this is causing me to rethink how we package guitars in future. We use MDS Collivery mainly.

We normally wrap the guitars in bubble wrap and then also wrap the actual cardboard box in bubble wrap. Collivery tell me that this is not sufficient packaging and suggest we ship via airfreight as this is a "TLC" service. i.e their Insurance wont cover any damages for this reason.

We recently sent 2 guitars from JHB to PE - Road freight was R 400 ex VAT and air freight would have cost R 2000 ex VAT!! This is definitely not a feasible option when as a distributor your margins are quite low.

Only the higher end guitars come with a case and you cannot justify sending a 1k Acoustic with a case.

Any ideas? Are there Courier companies that specialise in Fragile goods?

And just a heads up if you use Collivery at the moment, try and package guitar in a case - especially acoustic!

AlanRatcliffe

Double boxing with good boxes ought to do it. All the packing material in the world is meaningless if your boxes aren't up to snuff. Especially true of the cheaper guitars that come six to a box, but have really inadequate individual boxes.

And if MDS won't take any responsibility, time to move on to someone who will. I would imagine you have enough volume to negotiate a good deal with one of the other, bigger companies.

arjunmenon

TI, Time Freight are pretty good. They probably aren't as cheap as MDS but they do deliveries to a whole lot of little dorpies.

Also, if you don't mind the legwork, you could expedite consignments using Express Air to your reps in Durban & CPT, who'd have to collect it from their respective airports. Doesn't work out expensive at all, but there is the inconvenience of having to go fetch/deliver the guitar to airports.

Hope you come right. With regards to packaging, the last thing a transport company wants is liability.
They usually turn down business on the underwriter's suggestion.

Nitebob

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Double boxing with good boxes ought to do it. All the packing material in the world is meaningless if your boxes aren't up to snuff. Especially true of the cheaper guitars that come six to a box, but have really inadequate individual boxes.

And if MDS won't take any responsibility, time to move on to someone who will. I would imagine you have enough volume to negotiate a good deal with one of the other, bigger companies.

+1 Tell them straight, if they can't do it, you'll find someone who will...