Cheapest way to ship an office chair across the US?

May 15, 2007 8:19 PM

What's the cheapest way to ship an office chair cross-country?

I've found a great deal on buying a Steelcase Think office chair, but the company says shipping it from LA to DC is going to be expensive—like $200 expensive, and that's with a carrier like FedEx/UPS.

The matter's a little complicated because I'm out of the country at the moment and can't go down to Greyhound to pick up a bused shipment or go into a shipping service and explore my options in person.

Many furniture stores an Ebay sales offer free or cheap (~$50) shipping on similar office chairs, so there must be a trick I'm overlooking. Does anybody know what it is?

By the way, the company says the boxed chair is 60lbs, 30x30x40 inches.

posted by jacob to Grab Bag (5 answers total)

In my experience the trick is shippers that take longer than they say, arrive late and delivery damaged goods. That said I only have two experiences trying to get big and heavy shipments that far so I may have just had bad luck.
posted by frieze at 8:32 PM on May 15, 2007

Greyhound now does shipping- sorry, no link, but I know several furniture sellers on eBay who use it.
posted by arnicae at 9:07 PM on May 15, 2007

When I needed a heavy office chair shipped from Seattle to California, a friend recommended a local crating company who handled both packing up the chair and getting it shipped (cheaply) where it needed to go. I think the whole thing ran us $50-75.
posted by Good Brain at 10:04 PM on May 15, 2007

I'm in the process of shipping a large armchair and ottoman from CA to NY, and found this shipping service that allows you to set a target price for the job and then allows shippers bid for it. I haven't concluded the transaction yet, the chair hasn't reached NY, but I like the idea and the service, sort of like ebay for moving companies.
posted by gallois at 10:32 PM on May 15, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks, everyone, for your help with this question. It turns out that the box's original measurements were barely too big to qualify for standard (i.e., non-oversized) shipping. Once we got the box down to 30x30x38 inches, DHL could ship it just fine, and for under $100.
posted by jacob at 9:42 PM on May 16, 2007