Greyhound reliability

[Michael Bush]

This...

tracking was meh.

...is the price you pay (in addition to about $70) for this...

the horn arrived in great condition.

[bort]

Here's the problem -- tubas are packed in a way that makes it look like just another box. Nobody cares what's inside, so they aren't particularly gentle with it.

Other large things (TVs, refrigerators, etc.) are packaged in a way that you KNOW what's in the box. And although it cannot physically change how people handle the box, I do think it helps them realize what they have and what the right way to handle it should be. (Yes, there are some a-holes out there who will just throw things around no matter what.)

When I ship tubas, I put colored stickers in English and Spanish on ALL sides of the package saying:
-- Fragile
-- This end up
-- No stacking or "Crush hazard"

I'm not sure that they make any difference, but I'd like to believe that if people know in advance that there's a danger of damaging the package, they will be a little more careful. After all, a giant box could be a wardrobe box of clothes, as easily as it is a box with a $10,000 tuba in it. Without warning, it is just a big, brown box, and should we expect that a box of clothes would always be as delicately handled as a box with a tuba? Probably not.

Take photos of the tuba before you pack it, and take photos of the packaging before (and after) you tape it up and ship it out.

Shipping tubas isn't fun. Maybe I should stop selling them so often!

[bort]

BTW, the last tuba I shipped by UPS cost $300 to ship from NYC to the farthest corner of TX, plus I spend about $80 on supplies. It took 4 business days to arrive, with tracking continuously updated, without incident.

Cheap, tracking, safe... pick 2.

[doublebuzzing]

I have shipped and received tubas in the hard case via Greyhound (not inside a box). No incidents. The outside of the case was taped up tightly so it wouldn't come open. I was pretty nervous about it at first but everything worked great. I have heard some stories of tubas sitting in a warehouse in the opposite side of the country but eventually they get those on a bus heading the right way.

[Donn]

At one point I had an idea I might do that -- in the case, on Greyhound -- but as my baggage, with me riding above as passenger. Likely with two cases actually, one for bell and one for body. Never got serious enough to check into the details. They don't guarantee unlimited baggage, so there's a risk that your case could get left behind to wander the Greyhound freight routes anyway, but I was optimistic about two reasonably sized items. Fly in, look the horn over, make the deal, ride out. A fraction of the cost of driving, since distances from Seattle tend to be 2 or 3 thousand miles.

[doublebuzzing]

Well, Kevin did you figure it out? Hopefully you used your better judgement and listened to those pulling for palletized freight or Fex-Ex/UPS route. Let us know how it turned out.

Are you suggesting that your one bad experience with Greyhound trumps all the good experiences reported here, some by people who ship tubas on Greyhound often?

[Donn]

Are you suggesting that your one bad experience with Greyhound trumps all the good experiences reported here, some by people who ship tubas on Greyhound often?

It's a tricky business, risk assessment by counting anecdotes.

Do you think there aren't a great many of us who've sent properly packaged tubas via UPS with fair success? There certainly are. You can read about some of them in this thread. The statistics don't look great on the face of it, but there are confounding factors:

1. With a few exceptions, people don't report UPS success. Some might be be embarrassed to admit they even used UPS, but at any rate the potential for UPS to successfully deliver tubas isn't a Tubenet cause, as it has become with Greyhound. We of course are happy to report UPS failures.

2. People who make a poor job of packing a tuba for shipment, will naturally use UPS. Whether because they're ignorant, or they're just not going to go out of their way. Their tubas will be hammered, and then UPS looks worse than Greyhound.

That doesn't mean UPS and Greyhound are equal, it just means you can't count up the people who managed to get something through Greyhound, and base any kind of risk assessment on it.

[roughrider]

I have used Greyhound to send and receive tubas and as Bloke has so aptly put, "packing is everything". While I would prefer a tracking system and insurance, the greatest feature is that your or my very expensive horn is not further than 2 1/2 feet off of the ground when it is rumbling across North America. I will always use Greyhound instead of UPS and others due to this feature.

[cjk]

Packing is everything regardless of what shipper you choose to use.
If you haven't packed it like you expect a gorilla to handle it, you haven't packed it well enough.
FedEx and UPS are more likely to damage something than Greyhound simply based on how much and how they handle it.
with Greyhound, your item gets lifted two feet off the ground and put on the ground several times (depends on how many busses it has to take). It never goes to a distribution center or sorting center to get touched, moved around, and reloaded.
Greyhound doesn't deliver. They only remove your package off the bus where it waits at the station for you to come get it. There's no risk of damage from the delivery person tossing it off of or on the delivery truck.

I've had good experiences with greyhound, UPS, and FedEx. Greyhound has never damaged an instrument for me. The same is not true for the others.

I'd have to say that bloke and Tubatinker have probably shipped more stuff on greyhound in the past couple months than I have every shipped or received in my whole life, so their experiences count more than everyone elses.

[Michael Bush]

Point is, as long as it's packed well enough (let them do the packing at UPS or FED-EX) and everything will be fine.

Amazing.

(Even if you decide to risk your tuba to UPS, for crying out loud don't let them pack it. Find Norm Pearson's thread and pack it yourself according to his directions.)

EDIT: Here - viewtopic.php?f=2&t=31654

[cjk]

I have to say that I AM interested in the specifics of awful experiences that folks have had with greyhound so I can understand how to avoid those for myself.

[pgym]

Do you think there aren't a great many of us who've sent properly packaged tubas via UPS with fair success? There certainly are. You can read about some of them in this thread. The statistics don't look great on the face of it, but there are confounding factors:

How many is a "great many"? Twenty? Twenty thousand? Twenty million?

I don't want "fair success" when I ship something of non-trival value, I want, at minimum, "success." or, preferably, "great success."

Google gives "about 3,880,000" results for "UPS sucks" vs. "about 232,000" results—of which a random sampling were exclusively passenger service issues—for "Greyhound sucks." Anecdotal evidence may not be the strongest evidence, but it is valid evidence nonetheless.

2. People who make a poor job of packing a tuba for shipment, will naturally use UPS.

Bullcrap.

People won't use a company to ship an item if they're not aware that the company offers that service, regardless of how well or how poorly the item is packed. The vast majority of people ship with UPS or FedEx because UPS and FedEx spend millions of dollars annually advertising their package delivery service while Greyhound spends next to nothing.

[CA Transplant]

I've used Greyhound only once. I bought an Eb sousaphone on eBay, from a guy who lived about 200 miles from me. There was a direct Greyhound route from his city to mine that made only one stop. It was shipped in its original case, which was falling apart, but that was secured with a few miles of duct tape.

He watched it being loaded under the bus, then called me. I arrived at the Greyhound depot in my city half an hour before that bus arrived and watched as it was unloaded from under the bus. Zero damage, low cost, and a great experience for a tuba I paid only $150 for.

Seriously, that's the only way I'd ship a tuba via Greyhound. One bus direct from depot to depot and someone standing there while it was loaded and unloaded. Anything more complex and I'd pass on Greyhound.

[Michael Bush]

I wonder how the guys who have now given up on this thread or never posted in it to begin with who send and receive dozens or scores of tubas a year all over the country on Greyhound manage to stay in business with all the lost and damaged tubas they inevitably have, if some of you are right? Remember that one of them indicated he sent four tubas thousands of miles in different directions on Greyhound on the day this thread was started. Why would he, whose livelihood depends in significant part on shipping tubas, do such a thing?

[Billy M.]

I have had 2 instruments shipped to me via Greyhound and I have shipped one via Greyhound.

I have to say that when it came down to it, it's one of the best ways to transport it. There's no guarantee on the timing of it, nor of the location of it while en route to its destination, but I can't deny it's safer and less expensive than most other methods.

Bloke is right though, if you're uncomfortable with that and must know where it is and in the safest means possible, you take it or get it yourself.

[Donn]

Google gives "about 3,880,000" results for "UPS sucks" vs. "about 232,000" results—of which a random sampling were exclusively passenger service issues—for "Greyhound sucks." Anecdotal evidence may not be the strongest evidence, but it is valid evidence nonetheless.

It's perfectly useless. Suppose you could sift out the package complaints and find that there were only 7, vs 3,880,000. But of course, 7 out of how many? and not just how many parcels shipped via Greyhound, but we'd need some way to account for the fact that only a fraction of customers leave "Greyhound sucks" notices where you can find them, and very likely it's a significantly different fraction between the two services. The data is good for nothing, I'm sorry you wasted even a few minutes on it.

2. People who make a poor job of packing a tuba for shipment, will naturally use UPS.

Bullcrap.

People won't use a company to ship an item if they're not aware that the company offers that service, regardless of how well or how poorly the item is packed. The vast majority of people ship with UPS or FedEx because UPS and FedEx spend millions of dollars annually advertising their package delivery service while Greyhound spends next to nothing.

That's right, 95% of it is, as I said, ignorance. And the same guy who doesn't even know he could send a parcel via Greyhound, will be the guy who doesn't have a clue how to package a tuba. The statistics are significantly skewed by this fact.

Again, I'm not saying this means Greyhound is no better than UPS, I'm only saying that the anecdotal evidence to that is of very limited value. For that matter, I'm not too sure about the other supporting arguments. Handled less? I think that may vary, as the parcel likely will not stay on the same bus throughout its random journey across the country. Never more than a couple feet off the ground? Maybe ... I've never been inside a terminal where I could see what they do, but a horn I shipped was reported to have been violently battered, so I have reason to believe something can happen.

[Michael Bush]

If you're trying to make a living shipping and selling tubas (and your last name isn't Miraphone,King, or Conn etc..) i'd venture to guess you might be living in a cardboard shack.

Log "cabin," actually.

[Michael Bush]

reputable shipping network.

Reputation with whom? This is better weighed than counted. The bottom line is that the people who know what they're doing ship Greyhound. Others don't.

[The Big Ben]

Greyhound has plusses and minuses. Anecdotally, the tuba gets there safely and in a reasonable or expected amount of time. People have had some problems but properly packed tubas don't arrive damaged and eventually get there. Greyhound doesn't offer insurance. The cost of Greyhound is usually lower than other methods.

UPS/FedEx has plusses and minuses. Anecdotally, the tuba gets there in a reasonable, accurate and trackable time but frequently has some sort of damage either due to poor packing or poor handling by the carrier. UPS/FedEx offers insurance but it can be difficult to collect on a claim. The cost of UPS/FedEX is usually higher than other methods.

The tuba could be put into a car or truck and driven to the buyer by the seller or vice versa. This is probably the most expensive method but probably has the greatest chance of arriving at the expected time in the expected condition. However, transporting it yourself is not fool-proof either. The vehicle could be stolen at a rest stop or a traffic collision could damage the tuba.

Listen to the inputs, make your decisions, take your chances.

[PMeuph]

Greyhound Shipping doesn't cross the border even though their buses do. So, When I purchased a horn that came from the US, the parcel stopped at the station south of the border and I had to go get it (I took a bus) and then pay taxes on it at the border.

Here's my best guess of the shipping services I've used for Low brass instruments (Trombone, 3 Euphs, 3 Tubas, One ophicleide) that I've shipped. I've only had one horn ever arrived damaged, and that was because the shipper used another shipper and didn't package properly.

Trombones were all shipped via Canada Post - (Which turns them over to USPS at the border) Service has always been fine.

I've shipped a tuba in it's case, within Canada, using greyhound without a problem. (Horn was padded to fit snug, a ball was in the bell and the case was table shut with gorilla tape. I put the name and address with phone number as well as mine on the front, side and on the bell)

I've shipped a tuba with UPS Ground, from Canada to TN. I put it in an Inflatable sled that was just the right size.

I've used FEDEX, UPS and Canada post for Euphs and all have been fine . The ophicleide was in with USPS/Can post and again it had no issues.

I'm willing to bet that packing properly is more important than carrier used, but that ultimately, if you're impatient and need the tuba yesterday, you should use one of the overpriced shippers, other that that, the bus is fine.