Shipping a gate??? | The Business of Blacksmith | Forum

Hey All:

Been way too long since I've been a part of the forum...  I recently built a garden gate for a client in Colorado...  I got a shipping quote from Greyhound, told them the size and the weight, that I thought it would wind up to be...  Also, a friend of mine who is a fabricator, told me that The Box Maker in Eugene could build me a box for the gate for around 25 bucks... I didn't check with them until the gate was ready to ship... Turned out, they DON'T do that and I had to pay 95 bucks for a custom box... Then, when packed, the package was too big to go UPS, FedEx, OR Greyhound... Was 2 inches too big to go UPS.  Took me a week to figure out how to ship it... And with the box, and $190 to ship LTL, cost me 3 hundred in profit!   Anybody have any ideas on how to ship ironwork?  I was contacted by a lady in New York, the Hamptons, that runs a high end nursery... She was interested in some arbors that I have on my website, however, at 500 bucks to ship one, she was no longer interested.  I see stuff on TV all the time where they offer free shipping on stuff like hot tubs??!!!??  How does that work??? From my experience, it might cost a thousand dollars or more to ship a hot tub...  Any ideas???