Unshippable A0 picture frames? Why, what does that mean?

"Unshippable A0 picture frames? Why, what does that mean?". That was the question we were asked in disbelief and incredulity while fielding a telephone inquiry from a young mum in Northcote. She said she was confused as to why our website said that we could not  "post" a huge A0 black glass frame which she wanted.  She just had had a baby, she explained, and couldn't possibly come down  and pick up the frame, so she just wanted it shipped to her address.  We  did tell her that large glass frames cannot be shipped because most of the times these break or get damaged in transit, but she seemed to find it difficult to accept the explanation  and kept suggesting and insisting on various shipping methods that would fulfil her needs regardless of parcel transit safety. This incident highlighted the current, nationwide, or indeed, worldwide Customer ordering trend towards shipping anything, anytime, anywhere in no time at all!  Alas, and as we endeavoured to explain to our Customer, this isn't always possible.

Why is it so?  Because some Customer goods, like large glass picture frames, are impossible to ship safely, unless a supplier, or seller, gets a carpenter to build a special wood crate or case for each frame being shipped, which is clearly impractical, owing to the cost and expense.

Generally speaking , we have stopped shipping frames larger than 40x50cms in size because of the damages and breakages rates sustained. We even stopped shipping our very popular A2 Natural Poster Frames, as well as the white ones and black ones. The transit damage and ensuing Customer claim rate climbed to nearly 30% of all shipments, no matter how well we packed and packaged the parcels or who the Courier or freight provider was tasked with the deliveries.It is not really widely known that photo frames, picture frames and poster frames are low-profit homewares where sometimes, 1 or 2 dollars per item, is all a merchant, or retailer, makes. It may also not be not that well known that most picture frames online sales to retail Customers are small, 2 frames orders, where the profit for order may literally be a couple, or a very few dollars.

Small order parcels take a disproportionate and inordinate amount of labour and materials to process, pick, pack, ship well and safely, we estimate, about $10 to $13 per order. When of these parcel arrives damaged, broken or lost even, the Customer has to be refunded. However no-one refunds the supplier, seller, or merchant, who then suffers a loss far above any possible or envisaged profit.

Some readers are likely to suggest, why not take out shipping insurance?  However this is not commercially feasible or practical for parcels containing inexpensive homewares, and, besides, most of our parcels contain picture frames with glass, which, by its very nature, is uninsurable, unless a specific, individual, specialized, transit insurance policy is taken for each small order which is simply both unfeasible and impractical.

Others might just say, why not package parcels properly, or better, to avoid parcel damage?  Well, we can assure anyone and everyone reading this post that we have studied, researched, tried and implemented at least a dozen or more different materials and methods to minimize ( since this cannot be obviated entirely ) parcel transit damage. The method we arrived at and which works best for us is described an detailed with photographs in our post "How should I pack and send photo frames or picture frames?"

The causes of safe and secure delivery failures are several but chief amongst these is the overloading of delivery vans as exemplified by the image below.  The photographed  vehicle,  a Mercedes Benz Sprinter, favoured by many Couriers because of its cavernous volumetric  capacity, reaches almost 3 metres in height.

Because we have actually witnessed such incident happening,  we can categorically say that any parcel containing  glass photo frames or glass picture frames dropped from a 3 metres height, will suffer either some partial damage or total breakage, both of which allow Customers to claim transit damage refunds.

Another issue is that of drivers being inattentive of, or overlooking, the 'Top Loading' warning stickers or tape on parcels. With the overloaded van photograph above in mind, it stands to reason that if 100 or 150 kgs worth packages  are loaded on top of a small, fragile goods parcel, this weight is almost certain  to crush said parcel, with predictable and, lamentable, results.

A related problem is that a top-loaded parcel coming loose and falling down from 3 metres height is just as just as likely to get damaged, most of the times with cracked glass or broken corners. Again, this is often caused by poor attention to the loading arrangement or general inattentiveness.

Yet other important factors in the occurrence of damaged parcels are both the size and thickness of the glass in picture frames.  Many Customers are surprised to know that picture framing clear float glass at around 1.2mm in thickness is  considerably thinner than window pane glass, about 3 mm thick.

This standard of thickness has evolved from the convenience and necessity of making picture frames small, portable and light enough to manufacture, ship, carry and hang on walls. Thus the thinner, 1 or 1.2mm thickness glass is the most common in our industry.

The corollary to the evidential problem of transit damage to small parcels is that bigger picture frames with larger glass panes suffer proportionally  more and greater damage while in transit.

Many are the Customers who have asked why can we not ship all our picture frames, not just up to 50x 50 cms size, for instance, but also, the larger ones such as the 70x100cms black ready made frames and even our most popular, A0 Raw Oak poster frames shown below:

Unfortunately, safe shipping for the large frame is simply not possible, either the glass cracks or the frame corners twist and break in transit, we know we tried so often in the past, and just as often we had to refund Customers.  This is why our online store warns that these large size picture frames as unshippable A0 picture frames which cannot be shipped.

Some Customers are so keen to buy these large frames that they even suggest to us to "to take a chance" anyway on shipping these frames them.  Problem is though, we know from bitter experience that all we end up doing is having to refund Customers when the frames we " took a chance " on, arrive damaged or broken. Yet another reason for the label " unshippable A0 picture frames".

A few Customers even said to us that they would agree not to claim if that happened, but as we understand, this is against Consumer Law.  Merchants and Customers cannot  put their heads together to defeat the provisions of Australian Consumer Law.  These unambiguously require merchants to refund Customers should their parcels be lost, broken or damaged.

Yet others proffer and volunteer what they believe is usual packing help, tips and information. They suggest packing picture frames with single, double, triple, quadruple, bubble wrapping, with layers and layers of industrial strength and thickness cardboard.  On one occasions an inquirer suggested making a plywood box for the frame that he wanted shipped.

Unfortunately none of these suggestions are really useful or practical.  Layers or any wrapping do not help glass or moulding corner breakages when torsional stress and twists are applied, nor do lots of cardboard help when a glass frame is dropped from roof van height.  As for building a wood or plywood container box, its cost would be greater than the value of the goods being shipped and therefore, not commercially viable.

All that being said, the final say of this post is that, no large picture frames, and especially  AO size poster frames are shippable, or can be shipped, it's just not possible to do so safely.   The only way these can be bought is by Customers collecting these themselves.

On this second last point, we want to emphasize that when Customers come to collect these large frames, we are more than willing to load these big frames into the Customers vehicles, provided we can do so safely and without risk to the occupants, or anyone for that matter.  More details about A0 picture frames in general, and specifically on collecting these, can be found in our post  " A0 Picture frames: Who, What, When, Where ".

And as a very last point, while we can't tell Customers what to do, we strongly discourage anyone from ordering Uber rides to collect our A0 poster frames.  This has happened a few times with undesirable results. In a first instance, a Uber driver came, took one look at the frame, blurted out: " I'm not taking that humongous thing in my car " and drove off.

In a second instance, the glass in the frame broke during the ride and both the driver and Customer starting blaming one another with nobody willing to pay for the damage.  And in a third instance, a driver refused to take the frame unless we provided blankets, bubble wrap, cardboard, foamboard, etc., which ( and as we warn Customers beforehand ) are never supplied or sold with these picture frames.

 

Thank you for reading this post " Unshippable A0 picture frames? Why, what does that mean? ".