j. Dump any excess water back into your reef, then cut excess plastic off bag, leaving about 2” extra for the label
k. Wipe off bag if needed, and place coral label
l. Place packed coral inside lined cooler, and repeat last 6 steps (f through k) for each frag in the shipment.
m. Always assess free space, lids are not flat, and there is a portion that inserts inside the box in order to put the lid on. If the box contents are too full/high, you will not be able to create the good cooler seal; or worse crush your corals as you force push the lid on.
I usually fill empty space with freebe frags, but once corals are in, ensure no dead space exists, and that there is a tight fit so bags are not shifting around. Before filling in extra space, consider if you have to put a heat or cold pack (step o), and then consider wadding, bubble wrap, or peanuts to top off empty space. Again always assessing to ensure there is room to close the lid. However know dead space = wasted $ on shipping. Ideally, frags fill up the box, and there is no use for fillers. That’s always my goal.
n. Tie off the large lining bag and rubber band it closed; I cut off the excess here too as it looks neater. I didn't fill a whole box for this post, so I will edit this to include either a picture, or link that describes the tie off method with a rubber band.
o. Place heat/cold pack as needed, taping the pack to the bottom of the lid, covering the small hole. (Ensure to never let heat or cold pack directly touch the lining bag so use wading, or paper to separate).
p. Close lid, and tape shut (if you didn’t remove the cooler from the box, you will find taping the lid on to be more than a challenge)
4) Place cooler inside box, put a list of corals, kind of an invoice on top, close and tape box shut.
5) Weigh the box
6) Finalize shipping label (dimensions & weight) and print
7) Adhere Shipping label and take to FedEx Drop off location
Phase 4: Shipping - corals in route
8) Tender (drop off at location) and get receipt.
9) Return home, look up tracking number, and place buyers email address on tracking status
10) Next day, ask buyer to send text, IM, or email when BOX arrives.
11) Follow up a few hours later if you haven’t heard back.
12) Complete order = no issues to resolve, package is delivered and corals are settling into new home
Phase 1 Notes:
There is a ton of experience here on RC regarding shipping carriers, both good and bad feedback for each, but for right/wrong/indifferent I use FedEx through NexShip. In the end, you can ship UPS, FedEx, DHL or whoever you want. At first I started shipping through a normal FedEx account, with a USAA (veteran) discount. That provided somewhere in the range of 25-35% discount off normal FedEx rates = still really expensive. I later learned about
www.shipnex.com which uses FedEx, but combines people like you and me to get volume discounts that large business get. I did many side by side labels and shipnex is 20+% cheaper than using my own FedEx account. Again, do what you want but I found the cheapest way to ship is through Shipnex which uses FedEx.
Shipping is never free. Price out a 9x8x8 box priority overnight from your Zip to mine 80014; wow is right. Not cheap at all. Estimating shipping cost is tricky, since it’s both determined by size and weight. Lesson’s learned: If you estimate low, you’ll eat the cost increase. If you overestimate, it looks even less attractive to potential buyers. Don’t think for a second you can pull a fast one on the carriers, and tell them it’s 5lbs when it’s 8lbs, just know it catches up to you and you pay a label update penalty + whatever it should have been.