Door to Door Stingray Delivery

[Rosewood022]

Yesterday we completed our first round of door to door stingray deliveries.

We normally ship airport to airport, for $85.00 per box of rays.
Airport shipping is the best commerically available method of shipping rays/fish. There are many factors that need to be considered, including weather, flight schedules (many destinations are not reachable with a non stop flight, lengthening travel time),etc.

For customers that are close enough, we are now delivering our rays by our truck directly to them. The Ohio deliveries yesterday went very well. It's nice meeting customers in person and hand delivering the rays. The plan is to continue offering this option. I still need to work out the specifics, but so far the costs will be determined in this fashion (subject to change, as I figure this all out!)

**** Door to door delivery (within 300 miles of Detroit): $85.00
(no limit on boxes or number of rays)

**** Delivery charge can be split if more than one person want to meet at a single delivery location. For example, if two people order rays and meet at one person's home, I'll deliver the rays to that home and they each only pay $42.50 for delivery. (I can bag the rays seperately, no extra charge, just let me know).

**** To cover costs on a delivery run, I must have deliveries to two or more locations ($85.00 per location) in roughly the same direction. For instance, a delivery to Indiana and Illinois would work, but one to Illinois and one to Pennsylvania would have to be handled on seperate runs.

As we continue to expand and produce more pups and gain new customers, I hope to continue to expand the door to door delivery zone past the 300 miles. I have the equipment to safely transport rays by truck over long distances, and am comfortable transporting up to a 12 hour drive from Detroit, I just need to have enough deliveries along the route to cover costs.

What does everyone think? Is this an option you would prefer if you were ordering a ray and were originally planning on doing airport shipping? Any thoughts, ideas, concerns would be appreciated.

Pat
Amazon Stingrays
248-840-2135
contactus@amazonstingrays.com

 

[spotfin]

Would you deliver to Maine??? j/k

What a great service though!

 

[Kevaldo]

sound's like a good offer to me, as long as you get a cup of tea at each drop off point.

 

[Big Daves Rays]

I like the idea!

 

[Rosewood022]

Thanks everyone.

 

[Nic]

sounds like a good idea to me... only thing i question about it is are the rays may be boxed longer than they would be for most airport shipments

 

[swackattack]

If anyone lives near the WV, Pittsburgh, youngstown etc area would like to get in on this PM me. I'm extremely interested and would be willing to meet at a nuetral spot.

 

[vamptrev]

sounds like a good idea to me... only thing i question about it is are the rays may be boxed longer than they would be for most airport shipments

as long as the drive was no longer then about 12 hrs from detroit, it would be less then they would be on a plane. (a drive out to the west side would be tough)

plus im sure pat pat could find someone to go with him to split the drive time, so the rays wouldnt have to stop at a hotel overnight.

 

[Rosewood022]

sounds like a good idea to me... only thing i question about it is are the rays may be boxed longer than they would be for most airport shipments

Airport time is one of the reasons I've started driving them. If you are shipping from a major hub (Chicago, New York) it's not hard to find direct flights. In this instance the total bag time works out like this:

drive time to airport + time required prior to flight leaving + flight time + unload time + drive time from airport to customer's home.


In Detroit, very few direct flights are available which results in the following:

drive time to airport + time required prior to flight leaving + flight time + required lay over time (4 hrs for continental) + 2nd flight time + unload time + drive time from airport to customer's home.

Detroit requires shipments to be booked 90 mins prior to flight depature. I'm approx 1 hr from the airport.

For direct flights this means bag time is about 3.5 hrs (assuming 1 hr to unload plane) plus the flight time plus the time for the customer to drive it home.

For non direct flights Continental requires at least 4 hrs of time between the first flight landing and the 2nd flight taking off. This means bag time is now at least 7.5 hrs plus both flight times and the time for the person to drive it home. Most of these situations result in bag time of 12 - 16 hrs. I've had no trouble this way, but 5 hrs in a heated truck bagged the same as if it were flying is much better than most airline shipments, not to mention the fact that I will handle them much more careful than the average baggage handler.

I've talked to a few other shippers and learned there are other options that reduce the 4 hr connecting flight time down to an hour or so, but with weather, cancelled flights, busy baggage handlers, etc, for drives of 12 hrs or less, If I were buying, I'd prefer hand delivery. For drives over 6 hrs I'd be using aerators (truck has a power converter) as opposed to bagging with oxygen.

If I were in New York or Chicago, direct flights would be better (and shorter) in many cases. I'm just stuck in Detroit where there aren't as many direct flights. Apparently no one wants to vacation here (go figure!).

Pat

 

[Rosewood022]

sounds like a good idea to me... only thing i question about it is are the rays may be boxed longer than they would be for most airport shipments

as long as the drive was no longer then about 12 hrs from detroit, it would be less then they would be on a plane. (a drive out to the west side would be tough)

plus im sure pat pat could find someone to go with him to split the drive time, so the rays wouldnt have to stop at a hotel overnight.

I wouldn't ever take rays on an overnight drive, even if it can be done.....it's just not cost effective.

I wonder how much a hotel would charge for stingrays?!? Would they be like kids?