SHIPPING INFORMATION
Our standard method of
shipping within the USA is UPS Ground.
UPS typically offers prompt delivery, at
an affordable price, for our customers.
For information on
>
The Latest UPS Shipping Costs
< for DIM Weight, which is also known as
Dimensional Weight, please follow the link.
We can give you exact shipping
costs once we have your ship to address and we put all of the information
into the UPS Shipping Software. The UPS Shipping software calculates the price
of the freight based on several factors. These include distance, if your address
is a residence address or a business address, if your address is on a city route
or a rural route, as well as the type of items being shipped. As you would
expect, there is a charge for UPS to transport Chemicals. There is an additional
charge for COD Packages as well.
Lacking your exact ship to
address, we can give you a fair idea of the cost by using an estimate. However,
since UPS has raised their rates shortly after the first of each year, we may be off by a bit
until we learn of the increases.
All of our prices include the
"special packaging necessary" to properly ship chemicals.
The special
packaging is required as a prerequisite for properly shipping the chemicals
required in gold plating.
This packaging
requirement is mandatory in all of the carriers.
The US Post
Office specifically prohibits the
mailing of any chemicals that are used in
Gold Plating. It is logical to expect that the Postal Service in other countries
would have the same rules.
Based on information within the
real gold plating industry, NO ONE can legally ship the chemicals involved,
LEGALLY, without the proper packaging, proper labeling and proper declaration of
contents.
All of the companies who supply
the raw gold stock ship properly with the proper packaging, proper labeling and
proper declaration of contents.
Any vendor, distributor, or such,
that offers to sell you gold plating equipment and supplies knows what they are
legally required to do. The boxes they get their chemicals in have all of the
proper packaging requirements on them.
Some may choose to misrepresent
themselves and not spend the extra money to meet the requirements for proper
shipping of chemicals.
We do it the right way. We
package in the proper and required legal packaging, we use the proper labeling and provide proper
declaration of contents. This packaging and additional handling increases our cost approximately $25 for each
chemical we ship to you.
As a side note, if a vendor is
willing to misrepresent the contents to save a few dollars in expense to their
company, I have to wonder what else they will do to misrepresent themselves to
YOU.
This added cost of $25 is included in the price of our
chemicals. We consider it a cost of doing business.
All of our prices are F.O.B.
Reading, Michigan.
That means, the cost of shipping
the materials to you is your expense.
We DO NOT ADD ANY HANDLING
FEES. As mentioned above, we pay for the cost of legal packaging and
labeling.
We have customers all over the
USA.
We have a number of local
customers who have come to pick up systems and supplies too. If you are close to us,
we can do that for you as well.
Because of our Local Customers
who can make a pick up, and other customers who must have the chemicals shipped
to them by AIR, we can not include the $20.00 UPS Ground Chemical Shipping Fees into the
prices of our Chemicals. It would not be fair to everyone.
As an example, AIR Shipping of
chemicals by UPS within the USA comes with a $30.00 Chemical Shipping Fee.
As a result, we are not able to
figure out a "delivered price" on our chemicals to put on the web site that would be
fair to everyone. The fairest way is to keep the shipping expenses as a
separate item.
New UPS shipping rates go into
force early in the year. All we know about it now is that the rates are going to
go up indirectly to the extent that UPS has started to use DIM WEIGHT, which
simply means dimensional measurements of the packages can mean that the size of
the box demands a higher weight rate although the actual weight of the box is
lighter. It works out as an indirect increase in UPS fees.
All shipments will automatically ship at the new
UPS rates.
The last increase was an increase in the UPS Chemical Shipping
Fee as well as an increase in the UPS COD FEE.
We expect that other package delivery services will have a similar increase
in their rates.
As of this date, we do not have
exact details on all rates.
SHIPPING TIME
We package standard items IN ADVANCE so we are able to respond quickly to our customers needs. This
means the
standard gold plating systems, as well as the standard replacement chemicals, and
related supplies, are usually ready to ship with very short notice. Typically,
if you order in the morning, the items will ship that day. If you order in the
afternoon, the items may ship that day or will ship the following day.
Typically, we ship the same day as we get your order.
Standard items are items such as the 30 amp gold plating system, or
the replacement chemicals. We always have these in stock and ready to ship.
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We have accepted orders as late as 4:30 and still got them
off the same day. However, we
strongly suggest you keep a reasonable inventory ON HAND so you do not run
out.
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If your order arrives late
in the day and does not go the day we get your order, the order logically goes
the next shipping day.
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On orders for non-standard
items placed after 12:00 NOON Michigan time, the order may not ship until the
following shipping day.
This is typically due to "special orders"
for unique situations of specific customers.
We can confirm the shipping
information to you if you call the day after you place your order. By that time
we will have the tracking numbers from the shipping report. We can give you the
tracking numbers so you can go to the UPS Web Site and check the progress of the
shipment for yourself. By the day after we ship the packages, UPS will have some
tracking information in their computer used by the ups.com web site to check on
the shipping progress.
PLEASE NOTE. When we ship a
complete 30 amp gold plating system, it must ship in three boxes. Because two
of the boxes contain chemicals. As soon as the UPS pick up driver gets to
the local terminal, the driver must drop off the chemical boxes for the
examiner to go over each box to insure compliance with the packaging and
labeling. This means that your shipment can, and probably will, arrive over
more than one day.
One word of caution, if you
are in a time sensitive position, meaning the shipment absolutely must arrive on
or before a certain date, we can work to help you with that before we actually ship
your order. UPS does not guarantee a delivery date by UPS Ground.
There are AIR Shipping options available through
UPS to locations within the USA.
Even shipments by
AIR may not be guaranteed to arrive on a specific date of time depending on
conditions beyond the control of UPS. Snowstorms and other factors beyond
their control can prevent prompt delivery.
PLEASE NOTE: When conditions are
beyond the control of UPS, UPS will not refund the added shipping costs.
If you are reordering
chemicals, we always suggest that you not wait until you are low since it always
seems that there is a job that comes up as a "surprise" to you and then you are in
a rush, and it costs you more.
You do not make
money on UPS NEXT DAY AIR shipments and neither do we.
Once we put the boxes into the
UPS Shipping System, we all have to wait and work with the delivery schedule of
UPS.
NOTE: As a part of the shipping
process, your package may go through the large UPS Facility outside of Chicago
called CACH by UPS.
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This particular UPS facility is claimed to be the size of 37 football fields
under one roof.
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Once a package enters the
UPS system at CACH, it is scanned and
then processed PROMPTLY.
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UPS claims that a package typically remains within
the CACH facility for only a few minutes.
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UPS claims that they have the ability to sort
500,000 packages an hour through the CACH facility.
-
Typically, the package comes
in, gets scanned and sorted and is redirected to the trailer that will
take it from the UPS facility called CACH outside of Chicago, to another UPS hub facility in your delivery
area.
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Although the UPS system is fully automated, errors can come up and a
misdirected package can result.
The last time I recall hearing
the story, UPS does not consider a package actually lost for 7 or 8 days. In 7
or 8 days,
they figure it will eventually turn up. It usually does, by then, although
it is quite late.
UPS provides customers a way they can track their shipments by using the
"www.ups.com" Web Site. This makes the "lost in transit"
statement harder to hide behind, like they did in the years before the Internet
package search by shippers and customers.
We have a FAQ on how to read and
decipher some of the statements and information used on the UPS Web Site package
tracking information page. If you are unfamiliar with using "www.ups.com" to
track a package, you can check out
How to Trace a UPS Package by following the link.
The assorted Holiday Seasons have traditionally added to the time in transit on all
companies that ship packages, including UPS. The Holiday period that would
obviously cause the most delays is the Christmas Holiday period.
Despite the delays created by
the Holiday Seasons, we have a prompt turnaround on orders so we are still able to
ship virtually all orders the same day as we get them. This means minimal delays
in delivery to our customers, any time of the year.
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