I suppose it was inevitable, but as of today, the cost for the lowest priced 1/2″ CDX plywood which I use to build my shipping crates with has soared from an average of $12-$20 a sheet to $96 a sheet at Menards ($85 with a mail-in “rebate”) that now makes shipping any further sculptures that need crates- unviable, I can’t bite the $40 cost for plywood, $8 cost for styrofoam packing materials, and another approximately $75 for FedEx ground shipping for a sculpture priced in a way that includes shipping, not even the $20 shipping flat rate fee I added comes close to covering the actual costs for even small items now.
Regrettably, I am suspending any further sculpture sales at this time, I can’t expect a client to pay $125 to ship a $250 sculpture, this is also in addition to the big increase in casting materials plus now sales tax is added to that no matter where it’s coming from which wasn’t before, and the truck shipping to get the materials to me is also up considerably, even if as I have had to do recently- I buy just what I need to cast one sculpture for a client, the UPS shipping charges to get two 50# bags to me costs more than the whole materials order!
And the shipping costs has gone up dramatically every January, just look at the 2nd photo, FedEx compared to UPS for my “1664” NYC charter seal plaque, the shipping weight was 50 pounds, $175 value and it cost $52.73 thru UPS to ship to a client in California, while UPS quoted $65.85 and shows the break down of all of their little add-on fees added in before the package even leaves my porch! The “additional handling” fee of $16 shown is for any shipment not in a cardboard container, so they are charging now $16 to handle wood crates which by their design eliminates breakage claims but they don’t care. FedEx charges about the same “special handling” fee.
They both charge pickup and delivery fees, with UPS it was $6.90 pickup fee, plus another $4.45, $5.90 and $1.38= $18.63 in charges JUST for picking up a package, and before it even goes anywhere! add in the $16 “special” handling fee and it’s $34.63 and the shipment hasn’t gone anywhere yet.
I remember back in 1978 being able to sell my 294-G keystone for $38.50 with shipping included, and I could ship it from NYC to California back then and make a decent profit.
