The USPS Flatrate Option for coral shipping

Thanks! I never knew. I met this dude in my reef club who took pity and sold me 17 frags for $150. I have a plug with 6 purple death on it and didn't know what they were til I fell off and some one saw it laying on my sand bed in another pic.

 

In a word, no. My shipments are clearly marked "live animals", no permit required. Thanks for asking though! And I agree, most sps will break and stuff using USPS on a bad day...lol. That is why I usually use them only to ship chaeto, gsp, zoa's and the like, as they are not sps, or even hard corals. The one stony I will always ship USPS with little worry, is the Pavona. Very hardy.
All in all, good advise on the shipping of sps and clarification of no needed permits. Thanks for bringing up these two points. BTW, do you have a preferred overnight carrier?
Thanks,
Greg.:thumb_up:

 

I ship 15-20 boxes of coral through USPS Express each week. Please keep in mind that USPS does NOT have there own airlines for express shipping. Therefore USPS actually flies all of there Express packages through either UPS or Fed Ex. Therefore, many times when there are delays and issues it is actually UPS or Fed Ex that cause the issues.
Anyhow, I have been using USPS for several years and I feel that there service is just as good as any other. The only thing is that you MUST check to make sure that USPS offers overnight shipping from your location to the receivers location.

As for flat rate shipping. If the weather is good and you are shipping zoas/softies then its no problem at all. I do this all of the time in the Spring and Fall and rarely have an issue.
Gary

 

re: Permits for live animals.

Most states regulate the sale of live animals on a commercial basis. Many (rightly) consider corals to be live animals. Most states don't care what private hobbyists do, but to have a store front or sell locally tax exempt you'd need some kind of permit.

The only states I know of that have rules (beyond declaration) on shipping live animals are California, Florida, and Hawaii, and it's to avoid invasive species.


And I'm down to trade frags any time, and will always pay shipping on some freebies.

-Doug

 

No, but you do have to alert the Postmaster of that particular location that the package is live. They then have to approve it with a regional manager. In practice, once they do it and you establish that you will be bringing in packages regularly they give you a general green light without calling the region person every day. Certain items, and shipments around certain holidays and the weekends need specific approval, they check to make sure all the planes are on time and they have the right commitments. Fedex handles all the USPS Express Mail service until your mail carrier gets it locally, or it makes it to a regional USPS dispatch. The calling back and forth takes time for each package, and after awhile they just give you general "it should ship out on time", because they have no known delays, rather than just checking with them.

 

We used to like DHL but now prefer UPS or FedEx.

 

Great info. Thanks John!