Given that shipping a kitchen’s worth of cabinets any distance is a costly affair, it’s important to know something about SHIPPING. Also, you might get better cabinets at a low4er cost from distant suppliers, but pay more for shipping. Is it worth it?
Here are some possible scenarios:
1) Local supplier delivers
2) Supplier adds the cost of shipping your cabinets into the overall price of the cabinets they sell so it seems “free” or very low cost.
3) Some suppliers put a line item on their quote. A few hundred dollars if you are local, and considerably more if the supplier is far away.
Unless you purchase cabinets locally (pretty rare these days since online sources usually have lower prices and there are so many choices!) and the cabinet store is within 100 miles or so, you are going to deal with FREIGHT SHIPPING. This is because a load of cabinets for a typical kitchen can weight 2-3 tons or more on 2-5 pallets, or more. A big kitchen might require TEN pallets. This is way more than a local delivery truck can handle which is why FREIGHT SHIPPING comes into play.
Freight is utterly different than, say, an Amazon van delivery. Frieght shipping is a huge national/international industry, is highly regulated, and while quite dependable, still needs to be understood in order to spend the least and get your cabinets safely delivered on time and for a cost you can accept.
Even if your supplier arranges the whole thing, you shoud ask some quesstions since, for example, liability alone needs to be stated and clear. Trucks don’t crash much but it can happen. If it did, how will your poallets be replaced? Look at your purchase contract. Make sure the answer is in writing.
Another way to get your cabinets (pallets of cabinets) from a distant factory or manufacturer, is to pick them up yourself. For some buyers this is practical and the least expensive method. For many it is impossible, though worth mentioning.
Our company has handled shipping in various ways but we ultimately discovered the best way. That is, we provide our clients with the size and weight of their pallets and the pickup location. A loading dock almost always.
Once you have this data, you can buy shipping in dozens if not hundreds of ways. You can shop around.
There are brokerages online, Freightpros and Freightquote among the better known. All you need is those pallet specs and pickup location to arrange shipping with one of the major shipping companies. Often this is the easiest and usually they provide a list of shipping options with the cost and transit time of each. You can choose.
Occasionally a buyer will gave a friend or other connection in the shipping business.
Smaller shipping companies are also a possibility so look around online. Shipping can be as mcuh as 20% of your cabinet cost so shopping for shipping is a smart part of any cabinet purchsse.
We started considering whether or not buying cabinets online and shipping them is better than finding a supplier near you. Local suppliers are, again, almost always more expensive or sell lower quality products than can be found online, in our expericne. Maybe we’re biased but maybe not. Rmmember, you are paying for their brick and mortar store, their employees, their “free” designs (another article on what ‘free designs’ really cost you). Those costs are hidden in the cost of the cabinets. We’d rather spend more on shipping and get better quality.
Finally, our cabinets are built to order and ship directly from the factory. It’s a very basic, sort of grassroots, approach. We feel it is by far the best way to get affordable quality. Just do your homework and this becomes obvious.
Always, the more you learn and know about kitchen remodeling, which includes cabinet choices and shipping, the better y0u’ll do, cost-wise, quality-wise and overall satisfaction-wise.
Susan
Brilliant design. Elegant cabinets.
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