"What's Going On In The World"

Have you ever traded a bicycle in an online auction? You'll probably be acquainted with the high you get after having a 3 way bidding battle, for your cycle pushes the value 30% higher than your targets. But in the case you live in Wellington and then you sell your cycle to somebody in Auckland, you will possibly discover they don't like to travel to Wellington and then ride the bicycle home to Auckland. Weird but true! Your high falls a little lower.

Now you are eventually left with a choice among the courier firms. Bikes are difficult things for couriers to transport, so they're particularly vulnerable to damage. Many people don't know how tough it is to package a bike until they try it. The courier company will want you to take off the pedals, take off the handle bars, remove the front wheel, get a special box that's suitable for cycles, bubble wrap the whole thing and pack all the parts nicely inside. While you do not quite have to get a PhD in how to package a bicycle, you do have to invest lots of time and effort to prepare your cycle for shipping. So your high falls a little lower.

Be informed that whenever your cycle is damaged in transit, and the courier company believes that the packaging was not good, then any damage is your obligation. So while it looks like lots of effort to package your cycle perfectly, it is also worth the effort. At this point, your high is basically eliminated.

When your cycle is properly wrapped, you will have to contact the courier company to schedule the pick up. If you are planning to send a bicycle to Auckland every week for the following 5 months, you can buy a book of twenty tickets. In case you only need a one-off door to door delivery, you can open an account with them. That's if you don't mind completing all of the papers and waiting for weeks while the courier company conducts a credit assessment. Or you can drive the packaged cycle to the courier company and wrangle it to their reception counter. So much for the high of the bidding battle - at this time you're truly down!

Keep in mind, the right NZ couriers will ship your cycle door to door without making you experience all that. You can also make a one off delivery, and you don't even have to pack your cycle. Just ask for their unpackaged bike delivery service. It is a little more costly than the unpackaged bicycle delivery service but you save a lot of effort and time, not to mention the cost of packaging materials, this is an option worth taking into consideration.

Now, what is the lesson of this story? You should always ask your favourite online NZ couriers for guidance before you try to ship a bicycle any where else. Unless you're truly great at constructing things!