Posted on 01/28/2019 10:44:51 PM PST by vannrox
Sometimes, to make a product truly great, a company must think outside the box. But for Dutch bike manufacturer VanMoof, thinking about the box itself solved a major problem when it came to shipping.
According to CNN, the company reported that more than 25 percent of its bikes were damaged before even being delivered last year. The problem was especially bad when shipping to the U.S.
"Your covetable products, your frictionless website, your killer brand — they all count for nothing when your delivery partner drops the ball," Bex Rad, Vanmoof's creative director, wrote in a Medium post last year.
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The solution? Reconsider the packaging. "We asked ourselves, what do Americans really love? What would prompt couriers to be delicate with a parcel?" VanMoof co-founder Taco Carlier told CNN.
A TV was the obvious answer.
A big-screen TV box is roughly the same size and weight as a bike box. So to convince shippers to handle its products with more care, VanMoof began printing photos of TVs on its packaging. The boxes still depicted the bike, too, but at a glance it does look like you would find a massive widescreen TV inside instead of a high-end commuter bike.
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Damages dropped by 80 percent since then, according to the company. Even after a Wall Street Journal reporter spilled the beans by tweeting about the deception last year, the drop in damages has reportedly stayed consistent. (Learn the secrets to bike upkeep in Rodale's Guide to Bicycle Maintenance & Repair.)
genius idea alert: @vanmoof bikes had problem with shipping damage. So it put flat TVs on its boxes. Problem solved. pic.twitter.com/dsomNATUoY
— Jason Gay (@jasongay) September 4, 2016
The "cheeky" bike box was so successful, in fact, that VanMoof began talking it up nearly as much as it did the bikes inside."The pared-back VanMoof TV box comes with a free bike box inside, making it a great addition to your house for children, pets, or grown-ups," its website reads.
Cyclists who have suffered shipping woes in their personal lives may wish to take heed.
...until this post went viral.
LOL
I liked the tidbit on vinegar.
Tv thieves were happy then very sad...
For a basic Van Moof bike, you are talking about $1,100 (before shipping costs). For their better bikes, it’s over $4,000. It’s not a cheap bike.
I guess truly wacky ideas that occasionally work are the one benefit of legal weed. This had to be the idea of someone stoned out of his/her gourd.
I always heard shippers singled out fragile items for especially rough treatment.
UPS (United Parcel Smashers)
USPS (Usually Smash Priority Shipments)
I always heard shippers singled out fragile items for especially rough treatment.
................................................
Someone that was a postal worker for years once told me that packages marked fragile only meant they were tossed underhanded and not overhanded.
A 25% "damaged during shipping" rate sounds about right from all the complaints I heard from my oldest son.
The cool thing is the bike company here thought outside the box and simply changed how the box looked to "fix" the problem. Pretty darn creative solution if I say so myself.
I used to repair/refurbish old tube radio's/tube ham radio transceivers as part of one of my hobbies and I shipped them all over. The UPS clerk at the UPS store told me the very first time I asked to have "Fragile" stickers put on a box I was shipping not to do that. For the exact same reason you cited. Anything marked "fragile" is a target for abuse for UPS/FedEx/USPS, etc..
Did you ship with the tubes in the sockets, or did you pull the tubes before shipping?
My ham radio hobby was funded by the restorations/refurbish/repairs I did. I had quite a bit of fun doing it and it was a great learning experience.
Another thing I’ve been told about UPS...
It’s very hard to collect from them on shipping damage claims unless THEY do the packing.
And USPS:
It’s very hard to collect from them, period. I know someone who shipped an expensive musical instrument with insurance. The tracking died somewhere between two USPS facilities, and it was never delivered. The USPS refused the claim, even with clear evidence that it disappeared while in their custody.
You need to pack as if gorillas are going to be handling your packages.
That is interesting, because I have shipped tube preamps with the tubes in, but double-boxed in the original packaging.
It’s easy to drop $15,000 on a bike...
One day last summer I was behind a small Ford ‘something’ and it had three good looking bikes on the back, in a bike holder sticking up from the cars trailer hitch.
I wrote down the name on the frame (have forgotten it now) and when I got back home the frames were $15,000 each, then you had to add tires/wheels.
The $15,000 included a gruppo - that is gears, brakes shifters.
The three bikes were more valuable than the car.
I spent a lot of money when I was young building up my bike. Found out recently that my brakes are worth $5,000, ten times what I paid for them in the 80’s...
I always put Fragile and Glass labels on less than hardy packages.
Great tips, right?
1/4 cup baking soda to 1 cup vinegar translates easily to a 1 to 4 ratio for larger or smaller amounts :)
Great tips, right?
1/4 cup baking soda to 1 cup vinegar translates easily to a 1 to 4 ratio for larger or smaller amounts :)
What you did there. We saw it.
Shipping damages: way down
Lost in mail: way up
it’s a wash.
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