Questions about shipping snakes

[Cmwells90]

So I'm looking to buy a new boa, this will be the first I have purchased online because I'm looking for something specific. I also hope to breed in the future so shipping is going to be something I'll need to be familiar with. I'm curious about shipping times. I know shipping sites will suggest priority overnight, but what is a real viable shipping option? If I need to pay 50+ for overnight (which seems to be the average) then I will. But if I could safely ship the snake with, let's say, two day shipping or a cheaper method like at home delivery which for Fedex is like $15 and is next business day, then I'd like that option as well.

Also if you guys have any other pieces of advice to offer with receiving and shipping reptiles I'd appreciate them!

[kwhitlock]

Over night is the only way safe way to ship. I wouldn't risk our want to put an animal through 2 days of uncontrolled tossing around, noises, vibrations, and no temperature control.

[RAD House]

not only would I only recommend overnight shipping, being in the dessert you have some drastic temperature changes that should be considered. Not only do you have hot hot day time temps but also surprisingly cold nights. I do not ship myself but this is something you should consider and hopefully someone with more knowledge will chime in.

[Jim Smith]

Pay the extra few buck and ship it overnight. There are enough potential problems with overnight shipping, I would never take the chance with live animals to ship two day. By the way, I spent my career with a major airline, part of it in Air Cargo and we always gave our guaranteed overnight shipments top priority even over US Mail and in some cases baggage. If you try to use two day shipping and something goes wrong, and your new snake is left out in the sun for a good part of the second day (you'll be in the 90s in Vegas), it would not bode well for your new critter and you would second guess yourself for a long time.

[Albert Clark]

Only safe way to ship is priority overnight. There are a couple of different companies where the priority overnight rate may vary but that is the only way the animal could be guaranteed to arrive alive. Also, I think it's also a shipping law that is part of the lacey act.

[Cmwells90]

Yea, I think I'll stick with overnight haha! The cost isn't that high, and I'd rather get a living animal, then waste the money altogether!

[sirtalis]

Why risk losing a snake to save 35 bucks, i mean your gonna spend a lot more $ on the snake throughout its life...

[Cmwells90]

Why risk losing a snake to save 35 bucks, i mean your gonna spend a lot more $ on the snake throughout its life...

correct, but when running reptile breeding to supply as much profit as possible, you look for ways to save money. If it's not possible, then I'll just overnight. No biggie, was just curious.

[Charis]

Depends a bit on how you want to ship. (yourself) There is becoming FedEx Certified yourself, it's a bit longer process and can be either relatively painless or a major PITA, depending on what representative you get. Or you can use Ship Your Reptiles or Reptile Express without becoming certified. If you are only shipping a few packages a year, it is probably going to cost less to use either SYR or RE. I like and use SYR, I like that they offer insurance for live animals, FedEx does not and I don't think RE does either. But I've for the most part also heard great reviews on RE.

SYR has a very good FAQ on their site about pretty much everything you might need to know about how to ship.

If you start to ship a decent volume, with either FedEx direct or with the other two, you can start to negotiate a lower price on your shipments, the more you ship, the more willing and the lower the price they will be willing to go. I only have experience with SYR and so could be wrong but I think it is a bit easier to negotiate with SYR or RE when you are still fairly low volume, I don't think FedEx wants to mess with you unless you are either shipping out a pretty set, decent number of boxes every month or very large numbers of boxes at least most of the year or both.
Anyway, after using SYR for about 2 years, with an account in good standing and just starting to really get our breeding business off the ground and using them much more frequently, they very easily agreed to give me a few more percentage points off the normal 20% less than direct FedEx prices they give everyone. I'm still doing less than 40 packages a year, so I imagine if we get a bit bigger, they would be easy to work with on increasing our discount again.
That's why the big, massive volume breeders can offer so much better shipping prices than the smaller, more hobby lever breeders.

[Aaron_S]

correct, but when running reptile breeding to supply as much profit as possible, you look for ways to save money. If it's not possible, then I'll just overnight. No biggie, was just curious.

Buyer pays shipping so shouldn't affect your bottom line.

[Cmwells90]

Depends a bit on how you want to ship. (yourself) There is becoming FedEx Certified yourself, it's a bit longer process and can be either relatively painless or a major PITA, depending on what representative you get. Or you can use Ship Your Reptiles or Reptile Express without becoming certified. If you are only shipping a few packages a year, it is probably going to cost less to use either SYR or RE. I like and use SYR, I like that they offer insurance for live animals, FedEx does not and I don't think RE does either. But I've for the most part also heard great reviews on RE.

SYR has a very good FAQ on their site about pretty much everything you might need to know about how to ship.

If you start to ship a decent volume, with either FedEx direct or with the other two, you can start to negotiate a lower price on your shipments, the more you ship, the more willing and the lower the price they will be willing to go. I only have experience with SYR and so could be wrong but I think it is a bit easier to negotiate with SYR or RE when you are still fairly low volume, I don't think FedEx wants to mess with you unless you are either shipping out a pretty set, decent number of boxes every month or very large numbers of boxes at least most of the year or both.
Anyway, after using SYR for about 2 years, with an account in good standing and just starting to really get our breeding business off the ground and using them much more frequently, they very easily agreed to give me a few more percentage points off the normal 20% less than direct FedEx prices they give everyone. I'm still doing less than 40 packages a year, so I imagine if we get a bit bigger, they would be easy to work with on increasing our discount again.
That's why the big, massive volume breeders can offer so much better shipping prices than the smaller, more hobby lever breeders.

Thanks for that wealth of info! Good to know how it works in the beginning! I probably will only be doing a litter or two a year, so I don't think I'll need to get certified right away, but I will look into it!

[Cmwells90]

Buyer pays shipping so shouldn't affect your bottom line.

That's what I've seen, I was just curious so at least I can provide a better shipping price when selling. When I looked up prices myself it was like $56, but when the guy I'm buying from did it, it was $32. I was just wondering why that was haha!