Who to use for sending bass guitars?

[ubit 2,538]

Right, apologies if this has been broached before and if it's in the wrong place mods. please forgive me.

I recently sold one of my bass guitars on this site and tried to arrange a carrier. I first tried Menzies. I sent a message to them and never got a reply for about 36 hours. Meanwhile I tried Euro Sender. Everything checked out ok until I noticed the surcharge was 650 Euro I quickly cancelled that. I then went to DX and got all the way through until the end and was told they won't send guitars. Then I got results with Parcelforce. They allowed me to enter all my details and it came to £17.60 plus £39 for insurance and then vat. All in £67. Fine I thought. 24 for delivery, all is good. Then I checked and they were not picking up for another day, so the 24 hours is out. Next day I waited all day and tried phoning loads of times ( try finding a human with ParcelForce) but they didn't appear. We got a postal delivery and I asked the girl if she was here to pick up? She said no but I will check.Then I managed to get a human in the Glasgow office. She said they don't do 24 hour from here. Why wasn't I told this when they took my money? Then I got a mail saying guitars are not covered in their insurance. Finally I cancelled the delivery as Dov65 kindly offered to train it up to pick up the bass. Then today I got a knock on the door and our local postie asked if we had anything for pick up? She explained that the 24 hour from here is from when the parcel reached Glasgow, so you pay for 24 hour delivery here and it can take three days before that  starts!

In short, who does everyone else use? I can buy guitars online and they arrive no problem.

[BigRedX 2,853]

Are you sending within the UK?

[ped 6,910]

Eurosender are the only courier I’m aware of who inside bass guitars. Something must have gone wrong if they quoted €630!!

[Dov65 484]

Eurosender don't have any logistic support in the UK now, all they offer is the Express service which is expensive. I did a dummy run & got this

[TheGreek 6,559]

Not facking Tufnells or MyHermes - facking liars both of them..

[ped 6,910]

55 minutes ago, Dov65 said:

Eurosender don't have any logistic support in the UK now, all they offer is the Express service which is expensive. I did a dummy run & got this

Yeah something has gone wrong there - I seem to remember it happening to someone before and they sorted it. Try getting in touch if you can. 

[Dov65 484]

I did yesterday bud

[ubit 2,538]

4 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Are you sending within the UK?

Yup, Im in Oban in the west coast of Scotland, so that charge was WAY out of the budget!

[ped 6,910]

Ah ok! I knew they’d suspended DPD for a bit, didn't realise it was everyone. I’ll get some clarification about that next week! 

[chris_b 4,348]

I've used Interparcel and Fedex several times and, so far (crosses fingers), never had a problem.

[Geek99 1,885]

Parcelforce will charge you for insurance but don’t actually cover instruments except under very strict conditions - like it’s shipped in a purple flight case, on a Tuesday and has a sign saying (exactly) “beware of the leopard”

I’ve had no trouble with UPS 

@chris_b inter parcel are not a courier, but rather a broker- you could end up with Hermes... I’ve also had a very negative experience with Menzies recently where I now won’t touch them with anyone’s barge pole

Edited January 23 by Geek99

[BigRedX 2,853]

I nearly always use UPS booked through Interparcel. In almost 20 years of sending musical instruments this way I have only had three problems and Interparcel's insurance paid up promptly, in full and without complaint on every occasion.

[ubit 2,538]

8 hours ago, Geek99 said:

I’ve also had a very negative experience with Menzies recently where I now won’t touch them with anyone’s barge pole

Trouble is, round here if you get a parcel sent from anywhere in Britain through any carrier, it gets to Glasgow and then Menzies, who used to be Oban Express, will take it the rest of the way. I think I am going to have to use Menzies anyway as they are the only major carrier that works out of this area apart from the post office. Im just annoyed that they knew it was a guitar, they knew I had paid for 24 hour delivery and yet they took my money then failed to live up to any part of the deal.

[Ricky Rioli 468]

18 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I nearly always use UPS booked through Interparcel. In almost 20 years of sending musical instruments this way I have only had three problems and Interparcel's insurance paid up promptly, in full and without complaint on every occasion.

I got a delivery from UPS yesterday. The shop hadn't bothered to add anything to the manufacturers packaging, just stuck the label on it, and it arrived absolutely pristine.

Related to this, I was wondering what cheap hard cases like this £50 one sold by gear4music are like - are they actually any better than lots of bubble wrap and cardboard? And would it make the parcel insurable?

£50 hard case

[BigRedX 2,853]

44 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

I got a delivery from UPS yesterday. The shop hadn't bothered to add anything to the manufacturers packaging, just stuck the label on it, and it arrived absolutely pristine.

Related to this, I was wondering what cheap hard cases like this £50 one sold by gear4music are like - are they actually any better than lots of bubble wrap and cardboard? And would it make the parcel insurable?

£50 hard case

IME you still need to put the case in cardboard box. Ideally the case should come with one when you buy it.

[Dov65 484]

@ubit sent you a message

[three 508]

54 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

I got a delivery from UPS yesterday. The shop hadn't bothered to add anything to the manufacturers packaging, just stuck the label on it, and it arrived absolutely pristine.

Related to this, I was wondering what cheap hard cases like this £50 one sold by gear4music are like - are they actually any better than lots of bubble wrap and cardboard? And would it make the parcel insurable?

£50 hard case

I've bought two of these cases specifically for shipping nice basses (though I think I ordered the tweed version).  The cases are very decent for the price - perhaps surprisingly so - reasonably protective and delivered in a cardboard outer that is suitable for onward shipping with the bass/case inside.  I always insert additional packing (bubble-wrap/corrugated card or similar) into the case and around it in the carton - this to prevent movement and provide an additional layer of protection.  For £50 plus shipping it's a decent deal - good for buyer-seller reassurance and the buyer receives the bass in a very useable hard case

[Geek99 1,885]

1 hour ago, ubit said:

Trouble is, round here if you get a parcel sent from anywhere in Britain through any carrier, it gets to Glasgow and then Menzies, who used to be Oban Express, will take it the rest of the way. I think I am going to have to use Menzies anyway as they are the only major carrier that works out of this area apart from the post office. Im just annoyed that they knew it was a guitar, they knew I had paid for 24 hour delivery and yet they took my money then failed to live up to any part of the deal.

Yep - had just the same experience except they also smashed mine up. It had to go back to prosebass to get repaired at my expense 

[chris_b 4,348]

14 hours ago, Geek99 said:

 inter parcel are not a courier, but rather a broker- you could end up with Hermes...

You select the carrier through their web site, so, as far as I know you only "end up" with the company you selected. 

[TheGreek 6,559]

Only partially true...After MyHermes failed to collect my recently acquired bass, Interparcel allocated the collection to Tuffnells who I knew nothing about (even though they have a depot about 1 mile from where I live). Apparently they're no/ not much better than MyHermes.

[BigRedX 2,853]

1 minute ago, chris_b said:

You select the carrier through their web site, so, as far as I know you only "end up" with the company you selected. 

Actually that's not always true.

One of the three problems I have had with Interparcel was when I used their cheaper FedEX option to send two parcels of books to Japan. It turns out that while FedEx did the intercontinental shipping the collection and delivery end either end of the chain was done by local "representatives". Unfortunately in the UK this was handled by Hermes who managed to loose one of the parcels somewhere between picking it up from me and delivering it to the FedEx Hub. I had no idea that Hermes were going to be doing the collection until the booking had done through, by which time it was too late to do anything about it.

Interparcel to their credit paid out the insurance in full and without any quibbles. I also notice that this particular option doesn't appear to be available anymore.

[Geek99 1,885]

Yes, random Intermediary couriers are a common hazard 

[ead 1,253]

I generally use UPS and often book directly through their site.

https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/Rectangular-Foam-Bass-Guitar-Case-by-Gear4music/2E5N

These are pretty good too.  Lighter and cheaper than the cases and appear to work really well for shipping purposes.

[Ricky Rioli 468]

On 23/01/2021 at 09:34, three said:

I've bought two of these cases specifically for shipping nice basses (though I think I ordered the tweed version).  The cases are very decent for the price - perhaps surprisingly so - reasonably protective and delivered in a cardboard outer that is suitable for onward shipping with the bass/case inside.  I always insert additional packing (bubble-wrap/corrugated card or similar) into the case and around it in the carton - this to prevent movement and provide an additional layer of protection.  For £50 plus shipping it's a decent deal - good for buyer-seller reassurance and the buyer receives the bass in a very useable hard case

Thank you for all that 😊

The tweed version is currently £55, and delivery is £4.50

I also found PMT selling something similar to the standard one, again for £50

Tourtech bass guitar hard case