Hi,
I’m always perplexed by this dilemma, Where should I have my my booth and literature shipped when attending the trade show convention we have every year at McCormick Place.
Should I ship directly to the show and save a few dollars or to advance warehouse? The show sheets are pretty confusing when it comes to material handling.
Thanks for your response.
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1 response so far ↓
1 Trade Show Help // Mar 9, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Kim, Hi welcome about our little trade show help community.
If at all possible always ship to advance warehouse rather than direct to show. Here’s a few reasons why:
1. On the first day of move in your freight will be waiting for you at your booth space, ship direct to show and the truck is going to be in line at the marshaling yard at 8:00 AM and your I&D team (the guys that build your booth) are going to be twiddling their thumbs waiting for your booth to be delivered at the same time.
2. The safety factor, what if something goes wrong with shipping, a snowstorm for example, if you ship to the warehouse you can buy some extra time to take those little trade show emergencies in stride.
3. Smaller packages can be shipped in UPS or FedEx economy as they don’t need to ship to arrive a certain day. Ship direct to show and you’ll only be left with overnight shipping and that costs about 3 times more.
4. Waiting time, you will be paying by the hour to have your truck wait in line at the marshaling yard. This could get costly, as the average wait time is usually about 3 hours. I have seen it run up to 8 hours for some of the larger trade shows.
Consolidation for shipping is very important too, as every package shipped to the show has a minimum weight charge and it is usually 200 lbs.
That means every package gets charged for material handling like it is a 200 lb skid. Send a dozen individual boxes of literature to the show and you just spent the difference in flying first class or coach.
If you still have any questions on trade show freight please let us know.
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