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Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Hey guys!

I believe I'm starting to take steps in the right direction in obtaining quality merchandise at a good price to resell on ebay/amazon. I'm ready to start buying by the pallet!

I'm buying pallets domestically. I'm currently weighing the pros and cons of having the pallets shipped vs taking a road trip to the warehouse and picking up the pallets myself. Of course, I'll have to rent a Uhaul of some sort in order to do this.

For those of you that buy by the pallet, what is your arrangement for obtaining your product? Do you have it shipped or do you pick it up yourself? What are the pros/cons from your experiences?

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Ship out from the warehouse.

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Picking it up yourself may seem like a plan the first couple of times but do you really want to do it every time. You need to automate/outsource as many of the non-profit generating processes in your business as make sense. Time lost picking up the product is time that could be used for you toward profit-generating activities. As a general rule if shipping the product to you is not a negligible expense towards your bottom line, the item does not generate enough profit to be worth your time.

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Depends on the cost and time involved.

If possible I would collect simply to inspect the items before loading them.

I would have though shipping them may well be cheaper though

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Very valid points.

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Professional move.

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

I just purchases this so I can pick mine up easily.

I have several close to me and does not cost me much to pick items up.

It call comes down to cost and your time.

http://i1063.photobucket.com/albums/...1/trailer1.jpg

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

How much is the trailer Sandy?

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

That's a badass trailer. How much you pay?

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

This is not the exact trailer I got but is the same size, same everything.

It is going back this weekend to add more vents and a nice fan. Along with a few more lights. Lighting is important when you get one of these stacked and moving towards the end totes, boxes etc will cover up forward lights so I need more lighting.

These can be had for from 5k up to 8k.

Dont buy the first one you look at. Shop around.

Check the quality of the tires if you are going to load this up like I will.

We swapped out the tires before making the deal as the tires were not good enough for the DH taste.

If you want a smaller one then this you can buy used for under 3k easily.

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Unless you are close to the warehouse, shipping will probably be cheaper. But if you do that, and it is being delivered to your house or to an office without a loading dock, be sure to tell them you need a lift gate. That is the thingy on the back of the truck that will mechanically move the pallet down to ground level. Drivers don't really like standing by while you manually unload the truck.

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Agree. Depending on the item sometimes I can drive down to Miami and get a load cheaper then shipping it because of the weight.

It all comes down to cost of shipping/time/profits etc.

If it is a very fragile item I would rather pick it up if I can get to it without going overboard on cost and time.

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Very true Sandy about the tire quality - was just speaking to a buddy of mine looking to move a trailer hitch

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

You will find with many of these they put a non name brand tire with low quality on them so you need to look carefully.

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

There seem to be a lot of cheapo tires on the market these days. My friend bought what he thought was a bargain for 4 new tires for his truck (SUV type) and he had a blowout. If not for good driving skills and a little help from God, him and his daughter could have been killed. His daughter had nightmares for weeks. The tire (what was left of it) looked like it had been put into a shredder. The other 3 LOOKED great, but the mechanic said they were very low quality and likely illegally brought into the country since they did not meet safety standards.

Tires, brakes, etc. are really no place to look for savings. It is one thing if a reputable dealer has a 10% off sale, but forget about those bargain tires!

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Another tip if you are thinking of buying one of these.

Go with white color. Especially if you live in a warm weather state or use it a lot during the summer months.

I went with white for that reason and it also matches the new white Suburban I recently bought to pull it with.

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

You don't have the snow, slush, salt and crap to deal with like we got up here with the winters :) I love white too but it looks bad quickly in the winter

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Since I am out on the west coast and I get lots of my items from the East Coast. It is amazing how much cheaper it can be to get a pallet than have each box shipped UPS or FedEx ground. For example a 30lb box from NY/NJ to CA is like $50 UPS Ground. If you can get 30 of those and stick them on a Pallet can get rates as low as $300-400. Save like $1200 in shipping costs alone.

I will say it is nice to work with someone who ships freight allot. Rates on the same shipments can be $400 at one company then one down the street wants $2k.

Also if you do lots of freight and have stuff delivered to your residence. Never allow the drivers to pull that we gotta charge you $80 or whatever for the lift-gate. I mean unless you ordered items that are hundreds of pounds. As long as you can break the pallet down that is such a sham.

Ever time I get a freight shipment seems like the drivers wants to try to stick me with a charge for the lift-gate. But then when I say na we can just break down the pallet and you can unload stuff to me. The driver is always in a hurry and don't want to work that hard so they almost always just say I won't say anything about this.

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

When I owned and operated my own manufacturing business I actually had drivers push the pallets to the edge and tell us we have 10 minutes to unload it. Then went into the cab and sit on their butts waiting for us to unload it.

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

LOL

I spent more then 3/4 of my life in a snow filled north state and always had white vehicles. Who cares what others think. You are using a trailer to make money and not to impressed people you do not even know.

Re: Buying by the pallet -- pick up or ship?
 

Just had my first shipment of 13 pallets delivered last week. Driver drove a 54'. Couldn't pull in gate, so we had to unload by hand. Took 2 good hours. Driver did charge us by the minute we went overtime.