Hi, just had the first of hopefully many framed print orders from the US. Can anybody advise on best practice of packaging and shipping?. Have been sending lots of unframed prints to the UK by Royal Mail and the handful of framed prints to the UK have been sent by creating my own packaging very carefully from rugged bannana boxes. They look awful once the brown paper comes off but work a treat without any breakages to date. With the first big order to the US though and increasing sales I need a quick packaging solution designed for the job and the best priced and reliable courier for long distance. Would love to hear from lots of you that I am sure have gone before me with online framed sales? Thanks.
Hi @LucyGell What do you mean by a ‘big order from the US’? What’s the value? Is it more than 1 picture?
If it is just 1 picture, I’d send it via RM international (I personally prefer to send mine tracked and signed for my piece of mind. It’s insured as standard for £50 but for an extra £1.50 you can insure it for more)
Re packaging there are many companies you can buy cardboard boxes in bulk such as Davpack, Rajapack etc. You can also get cardboard boxes made to your own specific size from ASC boxes (it might be ACS boxes, I can’t remember off the top of my head but Google will tell you)
Hi Ali. Thanks that is a great start. I will look up the carrier and box manufacturers you have listed and hopefully find something that works for me. Framed pictures are £200 each and the customer in the US has bought 2 of them from me so insurance will lead to piece of mind when some UK carriers I have used so far have refused insurance as the parcels contain glass. They are also quite large at just over 65cm x 69cm. Will let you know how I go on. Thanks again.
Try Kite Packaging .co.uk and look for picture frame boxes. They are telescopic and designed to carry picture frames and mirrors; and come in three sizes; up to 1000mm x 800mm x 90mm. You need to make them up yourself, but they aren’t difficult. I used to use them some years ago when painting canvasses.
Thanks Chris. Went with DavPak ultimately. The telescopic boxes are great. Problem was I bought 2 sizes for the pictures I was sending and others that I make that are slightly smaller and as they only sell in packs of 10 I cannot move in my studio now - even in flatpack form! Similar situation with the 300m length of edgeprotectors I bought which are great but I need to send a lot of pictures before I can get them down to a manageable size to store! Think I need to set up a cooperative of local artists so we can pool resources like this that you buy in bulk! Took a bit of a hit on the delivery too. I used interparcel that checks prices for all the other couriers. It came up with UPS being the cheapest although the price through them was considerably cheaper than going to UPS directly. Cost me £96 to send to the US. hadn’t really expected to send framed work that far so this wasnt reflected in my delivery prices. I think I need to somehow seperate my framed and unframed work so that I can really push up the framed delivery to a) discourage it because of the hassle involved but b) ensure that I completely cover my costs if people insist on framed work over long distances. Thanks for the feedback I will have a look at Kite Packaging when I exhaust the current stock.