To ship or not to ship?
Was hoping I could get an expert or experienced person to give me some advice on shipping snowboards back home to Australia.
I have a K2 Raygun with Custom Burton bindings and Salomon boots. My girlfriend has a Forum board with Ride bindings and thirtytwo boots. We both bought them at the start of this year. Evelyn’s gear is in good condition and the base of my board has seen a few too many tree runs and has 3 fairly deep scratches that have had some ptex and tlc to keep it working as normal.
As a rough guess all our stuff together would have set us back $1200 brand new and we both love our gear and want to send it home.
So is it worth it to send it home and spend what looks like $400 on shipping or can you think of better options?
Has anyone found any better prices for sending gear from U.S. back home?
Cheers!
They (USPS, UPS, FEDEX) do a long thin box that will fit two boards easy. Will cost about $130 to send it. Boots and bindings will have to go in your luggage.
or
Buy a snowboard bag $60-200 from a shop, chuck all of your gear in it and bring it back with you. That’s what most people do.
Awesome, it seems like people are saying UPS are the way to go.
Only problem is from here I’m travelling around the world for another 9 months and some of it will be backpacking through Mexico and South America. Definitely don’t want to be walking around with a snowboard bag that whole time haha..
Pretty much put myself in this situation haha!
What gear are you going to use when you get to sweden, then?
It would be cheaper and easier to hire and borrow stuff for a week rather then send stuff to Sweden and then back home..
Jumping on a train from Phoenix to Chicago in a fortnight and then working Toronto for 2 months after that so carrying all that gear for all that and then central and south america would just be a killer!
true, true…. are you really only planning on being in sweden for a week of riding? Laaaame!
i dont know the actual size/weight cant really comment on pricing
but….using very rough guidelines
For about 10kg box can send it back for ~ 140-150 bucks (USPS)
for 5kg long box ...thats around 250 (UPS) ..may need like a 7-8kg unsure of board weight in which case ever more expensive
dimensions of the box are really important…as everyone does chargable weight
USPS have size(length limits) so will need courier company for boards
rest of the stuff you can pack into normal standard boxes and send that USPS
$1200 for everything new for two of you is going to be a tough ask…will need to find everything on special
probably best bet is yes to send everything but the boards
try to sell off the boards pretty cheaply so its enough to pay for shipping of the box + extras to cover cost board back in Aust
You don’t need the stuff quickly - so send it via sea not air. Surely that will save some cash?
Another thing to think about is the weights - it may be beneficial to send two packages back than two. ie your combine weight may put the price into the next weight category by only a kilo or two so you pay for weight up to 50 when it really only weighs 30.
Just something to think about!
$1200 for everything new for two of you is going to be a tough ask…will need to find everything on special
I think he means that $1200 roughly is the price they already paid to buy their existing gear.
Postage by sea is a good option. (even though there isn’t much sea anywhere near bozeman?!). We posted a box of shopping home from indo via sea and it took about 3 months but it was cheap!
Also seconding looking into sending them home as 2 packages rather than one, for the same reason mentioned.
If you are in Australia, I suggest BBA Logistics has the finest international shipping system in Melbourne.
He is in the USA wanting to send back to Aus.
My personal opinion would be to find someone you know in a port near you and ask them to garage it for 9 months and pick it up on the way through. Will be cheaper to pay for an extra bag than $400 for shipping. Throw them a case of beers for their troubles and bam you’re sorted.
If you don’t know anyone in the USA, this might be a bit hard. Though there might be a snowboard forum or something similar where you could ask around… Not really here though as most of us are in Aus or Canada but I’m sure there is others or you could find a friendly person on http://reddit.com/r/snowboarding who might help a brother out.
Though you’d know the risks of leaving stuff with a stranger.
Otherwise, as other people have said, shipping by sea could be a cheaper option.