Ask thy neighbor: the power of the minimum!
August 24th, 2009We field repeated requests to ship one artwork from here to there, sometimes along well traveled routes such as Los Angeles to New York and/or return. Often this is a gallery anticipating or having just made a sale, with a single buyer wanting the piece, as they all do, yesterday.
So we send off an estimate and very often the result is: nothing. We understand: it is expensive to ship a single artwork as many art shuttles, including ourselves, have a minimum charge.
If you understand the power of the minimum, however, you can use it to your advantage. On our Los Angeles to San Francisco shuttle, for example, you can ship two or even three modest sizes works for the same price as shipping one. Up to ten cubic feet, all passengers ride for one price, rather like a NYC taxi. (And we don’t stop for women with strollers, either…)
For many of the high value and trade show divisions of van lines, a 500 pound minimum applies. In that instance you could ship as many as ten artworks of moderate size in one crate and still stay within the minimum weight by volume.
Hence our advice to artists and galleries: ask thy neighbor! Tweet, email, phone or stroll at lunchtime to the gallery down the street and ask if they might have anything going where you need to go. A big element here, however, is flexibility in timing. The more leeway you have in whatever schedule you have promised your buyer the more time there is to “partner” with another sender.
Pooling resources can save serious money and is win/win for us shippers, too. We get to make two customers happy who hopefully will return next time around.
Betsy Dorfman
Tags: art shuttles, artists, cubic feet, gallery, minimum, San Francisco shuttle, single buyer, weight by volume