Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm just curious as to why the shipping rates show such HIGH variation from breeder to breeder. I'm not trying to be critical, but I've shipped a LOT of fish in my time, and even with heat packs and styrofoam boxes to the nine's I can't imagine how you justify an $85.00 shipping charge (not that I'm picking on anyone . . . that one just makes a good example).

I realize that there are other factors at play--live arrival guarantee has to eat into profitability in some instances. However, I simply cannot understand why frog shipping charges are routinely double that of what most people charge to ship fish--and the water should make fish packages heavier.

Can someone solve this riddle for me? I'm really not trying to make enemies, and I'm not trying to be offensive, I'm just trying to figure out what I'm missing here. There really has to be something involved in packing and shipping frogs that is substantially different from live fish that I just don't realize. However, I'd like someone to point it out for me, as there are certainly places I would consider ordering from but for the high shipping.
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Homer W. Faucett III, esq.
Purveyor of Trivialities and Fine Nonsense

Is the $85 for delta dash? I ask because the usual flat fee for DD is $70. If so, $15 would still be too steep for packaging charges. I've shipped out around 25 frogs now, and for packaging supplies and fedex next day charges I rarely spent more than $35. Anything more than $35-40 is just a case of the breeder trying to make a buck.
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Randy

I paid $50 shipping charge to someone and the actual FedEx was approx. $28, no heat pad or any kind...... and I didn't even receive what I ordered!

Never used Airborne so I don't know the rate they charge, but $50 via FedEx... way too much.

Shipping prices suck but if place the order you agree to them. DOesnt mean you can nick pick it

I just ordered 2 blue sips from some one (i will leave out the breeders name) and shipping was $45 (or $40 cant remember) becuase winter is here and thats the charge. Well it was sent usps express I think the box said it was $28 and inside was some house insulation and foam cruller thingys. The house insulation is cheap and comes in big sizes so the guy made around $5-$10 profit (or more) on shipping alone. But you agree to it and move on.

What I really dislike is the prices for shipping plants and they send them ground or two day and make like $5-$10 profit on that.

If my blue sips ever breed, depending on my finicial situation (although its not going to make me rich lol) id probibly only charge like $40-$45 each. I personally dont see the since in charging so much for these animals if there are quit a few available in captivity.

my $.02
aj
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Click Here to see my vivarium and steps on how to make a basic vivarium UPDATED 9.10.03 Now complete! Blue Sipaliwini Darts need to get old enough to go the big tank now!

kungfu28181: My god. You are insane. -Mon Jun 30 21:41:05

I got a glimpse of this as well when I sent a few frinds some baby P. hypochondrialis. I was think shipping for airborne would be around $40, but when I went to ship them off, it was $26 to central US (I live there) and about $28 to east coast. I see no reason in charging for boxes, it's the seller's responsibility to make sure the frogs get there alive, not to charge for more than what they are using. Heat packs are cheap, cool packs are cheap, I can't see where nyone would pay an extra$10.
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P. sauvagei
derekb15.tripod.com/tropicaltreasures
4.2 P. sauvagei
3.2.7 P. hypochondrialis
2.0 P. vaillanti
0.0.3 P. aurotaenia
2.2 B. orientalis
0.0.10 S. pustulosa
0.0.3 B. americanus
1.0 T. horsefieldi

also, my packaging was charged "winter shipping" yet i did not see a heat pack in there. although im going to check to be sure.

aj
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Click Here to see my vivarium and steps on how to make a basic vivarium UPDATED 9.10.03 Now complete! Blue Sipaliwini Darts need to get old enough to go the big tank now!

kungfu28181: My god. You are insane. -Mon Jun 30 21:41:05

I hate when people advertise great deals on frogs, with a little disclaimer that shipping will require bank finance! What pisses me off even more is that breeders who have accounts with fedex and ups and ship often are given reduced rates. Its like buying a new car ($15 frog rust inhibitor charge ) Hey, at least you don't have to pay $85 for delta dash, and then have to go to the airport to pick stuff up!

I think that it really depends on where you are shiping from/too. I have only shiped a few live animals, but not frogs. I am in a sm. town in southeast kansas. The only shipping place in town is ups or usps. With USPS it is illegel to send live frogs. With my UPS they will not accept any live animals. So I have to ship with airborne. They are based in Springfeild Mo, a two hour drive. Long story short, if I drive to springfeild it is like $30 overnight shipping but I just spent at least $20 in gas! If airborne comes and picks them up, it is $50-$60 just for shipping. I also do not think it is fair to have the breeder pay for all of the shipping supplies, in reality it costs between $5 and $10 for a box, cold/heat pack, etc. So what if you only order one frog? Between the breeder raiseing it up for at least 3 months, the cost of food and space they are really not making a whole lot any way so could not afford the extra $10 on shipping.

If you are still with me here, I do think it is wrong to charge $80 shipping if the box only says $28. I would be ok with a $5-$10 box fee, but not any more than that. Just my .02. Jake.

I charge thirty five for airborne,and it is pretty much of a break even situation.....I figure on 5 dollars to cover my boxes, which I have to buy in pretty large quantities and store..I use small but thick walled boxes, so my "dimensional" weight charge is not too high. But to ship a standard "fish box" from the east coast the west coast through UPS might easily be 65 dollars.
By the way, shipping turtles and snakes is against the rules with the USPS, but not frogs, which are allowed.

Patrick

Do you have airborne pick up the box or do you take it to one of their centers? If you have them come and pick it up (which I have to considering the drive) it costs $50 to ship from here to Cali. Also, is the $35 considering the how much it costs you for the boxes and shipping supplies?

I have shipped through usps and airborne and usps was a standard fishbox, the outside dimensions were 18x18x18 and it was $35 from florida to colorado, it weighed 11 pounds. with airborne the box was the same size and it was either 12 or 11 pounds, and the estimate was 70 with a pickup, the box was the same size and a styro fishbox, both times i shipped 10 green and bronze auratus tads. usps delivered on time and with everything in great shape, and so did airborne, but I was equally impressed with both so if you need to ship tads ship through usps because it is alot cheaper.By the time you buy the fish boxes that i use the styro peanuts and cool packs and boxes you end up with about 10 bucks in packing material, and about a 1/2 an hour of packing time. By the way i shipped through airborne because the person I was shipping to had a few things arrive late with usps.
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1.2 Leucomelas
1.1 Green and Bronze Auratus
0.0.2 Imitators
0.0.1 Vents (more soon)
0.0.4 Nicaraguan Green and Black Auratus
0.0.3 Powder Blue Tincs (soon)

why overcharge on shipping? because shipping is not refundable. if anything goes wrong and you decide to return animals, you won't get refund on shipping and the seller still makes money from this "returned" sale.

many of you were talking about picking up, driving a long distance to ship... they are all good and I think buyers can accept $50 or even higher on shipping, because they are reasonable, but shipping a 1.2 LB box from Cleveland, OH to Oklahoma charged $50, box was used and no heat pad or any kind of special packing.... no excuse on that.

here is my story... the seller listed frogs at low price then charged high shipping, when I wanted to return frogs (frogs were not old/big as promised, I received tiny froglets), I would lose money on the shipping charge. the seller is still active, you are welcome to contact me if you want to know who he is.

my point is, if the seller charges unreasonable high shipping and can't provide a good reason, you may want to reconsider the deal no matter how cheap the frogs are.

I have airborne pick up, for which they charge me three dollars per package, if I dont have at least five boxes. I only ship two days a week, so this is not a problem most of the time. My goal is to keep the price low, so people wont be scared off by it. My actual shipping charge ranges from $20 to $45, and averages about $30, and my actual cost of boxes and such is at least five dollars.
USPS is great for shipping frogs, they dont charge the "dimensional" weight that other shippers do, but I have to go to the post office, and sometimes that can take quite a while, so when the post office stopped taking live animals a couple of years ago, (they take them again now of course) I went to airborne, and have been very happy with them ever since! I only had to raise my price from 30 to 35 to make up the difference between the two services. Sorry to hear about your tiny froglets....mine are more money I guess, but they aint tiny!! Patrick

Nice to see ya posting man! Your help and knowledge here is extremely appreciated by all. Keep up the fine quality!!

-Bill J
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Updated list as of: 10/20/03
2.2.3 D. azureus
1.2 D. ventrimaculatus 'yellow' (22 tads in the water)
3.3 D. tinctorius 'cobalt'
0.0.3 D. tinctorius 'patricia'
0.0.1 D. tinctorius 'giant orange'
0.0.1 D. tinctorius 'citronella'
0.0.2 D auratus 'zwartgroene(black)'
0.0.5 D. auratus 'green/black' (tads)
0.0.3 D. imitator 'Alex Sens line' (very soon)
0.0.2 D. reticulatus (soon)

Okay my frogs (blue sips) were $50 each thats about $5 less then avg. (but i have seen them cheaper then that with less shipping cost too). And shipping was $45 for "winter box charge".

My actual shipping cost was $27.30 from NY to WV via USPS. Lets say at the very most it cost $6 in supplies to pack my box (it had house insulation and those little foam cruller thingys). There was no heat pack for the "winter box charge". So lets just say theres any were from $5(being modest)-$10 if not more profit.

I know thats already been established but i just wanted to break it down with exact costs. I think that is a little pricey. I forgot who mentioned they charge a bit more for shipping cause they raised the frogs for x many months, and FFs, etc. That should be on the charge for the frog, not shipping.

Since i have gotten every thing i need for my FFs (i reuse my deli cups) i havent had to pay a thing. The only thing I would need to buy is stuff to make media (maybe once every 150 cultures) and mesh to put on the top of the media.

just my $.02 again

aj
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Click Here to see my vivarium and steps on how to make a basic vivarium UPDATED 9.10.03 Now complete! Blue Sipaliwini Darts need to get old enough to go the big tank now!

kungfu28181: My god. You are insane. -Mon Jun 30 21:41:05

Your right the extra price on the frog is the way it should be but they just want to get more with out letting the buyer know they are making extra money.
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1.2 Leucomelas
1.1 Green and Bronze Auratus
0.0.2 Imitators
0.0.1 Vents (more soon)
0.0.4 Nicaraguan Green and Black Auratus
0.0.3 Powder Blue Tincs (soon)

See, what I did was, I saved all the boxes I had ever recieved frogs in so when I sent some hpyos to Mark Wilson, then it was cheaper and it was a nice thing to do. Some of my boxes were from the good old days of $20 overnight shipping, so I lost nothing.
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P. sauvagei
derekb15.tripod.com/tropicaltreasures
4.2 P. sauvagei
3.2.7 P. hypochondrialis
2.0 P. vaillanti
0.0.3 P. aurotaenia
2.2 B. orientalis
0.0.10 S. pustulosa
0.0.3 B. americanus
1.0 T. horsefieldi

I appreciate all of the responses. Thank you, Patrick, for providing some of the hard numbers that reflect the reality of the costs associated. Your numbers reasonably comport with what I would expect to pay for shipping. I don't even think I would complain about a $40 shipping charge if I felt that extra care was taken in the shipping (packaged EXTREMELY well with attention to using the best supplies, etc.), but I do feel that $50 is too much to ask if the actual shipping rate was 28.

While I do respect the fact that certain breeders may not have economical access to other means of shipping, the USPS is nearly ubiquitous. Maybe there are reasons for not using them, and I can respect that. However, others have to respect the fact that $85 is just a ridiculous price to pay for shipping unless you are buying extremely large quantities to either resell (which increases your overhead), or share with a friend living nearby (and there aren't that many centralized froggers to defray that kind of cost).

I really appreciate all the input, and some of the actual costs that have been freely shared.
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Homer W. Faucett III, esq.
Purveyor of Trivialities and Fine Nonsense