payment, shipping etc.

[rickdiculous]

hi all. i have had a bike for sale on craigs list and now someone from out of state wants to buy it. to be honest i haven't thought about this. what is the safest way for both parties to pay? also the shipping part. should i pack it up myself? i called ups and fedex. fedex sounded cheaper. any advice would help. thanks, Rick

[Bikeguy Joe]

Paypal or cash from someone out of state.
Don't ship until the payment is IN HAND.
Pack it up yourself, making sure there are NO GAS FUMES or they wont ship it.
Take the pedals off, and loosen the bars and turn them sideways and pack it well with foam/cardboard/fiberglass packing tape.

Personally, unless I was getting a boatload of profit for it, I wouldn't endure the hassle of packing and shipping a motorized bicycle, and hoping it arrives in one piece.

DHL, Fed Ex, or Greyhound will do a decent job, but UPS will ruin it.

[jasonh]

yep, paypal would be the way to go. Don't mess with money orders/cashiers checks on craigslist...lots of fraud with those.

[Buzz Bomb]

get a bike box from a bike shop, since they just throw them away anyway. FedEx has the best rates, but use a box that is as small as possible. I just shipped a 40 pound bike using Fedex. The price was $30-something. The problem was that I used an Electra Townie box, which is really big. I then got a bill from them saying that it was 10 inches too big(oversized), so I was being billed the "dimentional weight", $111. I crapped my pants. All I had to do was put it in a regular cruiser style box, and it would have been the $30-something price. Just so you know.

[mabman]

Shipping cost is out of control. I went to send a 107 cu in box that had two wheels in it and weighed 13 lbs.. Carried the box to the Pak and Ship up the street on the Bumvee with no problem but they said the cheapest they could ship it was via UPS and it would be $73 please. Well that wasn't going to happen so I headed for the PO and had a nice ride down there to boot. I was unsure of how large a box the PO takes so I had to wait in line for a bit and the guy measured it 3 times mumbling the whole time about "108" and proclaimed it could go but just barely as their limit is 108 cu in. I didn't say that probably whoever designed the box had that in mind......Cost to ship $18. Made it there just fine too.

Because of their extra weight and gas and oil considerations shipping a MAB is problematic for sure and it looks like it won't be getting cheaper anytime soon. But hopefully in the future small dealerships will keep popping up that can negate the cost of shipping somewhat via bulk deals using regular freight line type of transport.

Mabman

[rickdiculous]

thanks for all the great info...i think i'm gonna go for it.