There are many reasons you may need to send wine via a cheap courier service, whether it’s just the one bottle as a gift, or multiple cases from your business. The problem is that as with any glass items, bottles of wine are fragile and with the price of wine varying from £5.00 per bottle right up to tens of thousands of pounds, it can not only be risky for the sender, but some carriers won’t even accept it for transit in the first place.
Before you ship wine safely there are a few things you need to consider:
Where are you sending it?
Before you start looking for a cheap courier service, you need to first review the laws on sending alcohol to your destination. For example, if you are sending to the Middle East there are many countries that do not allow alcohol for religious reasons and personal shipments of wine are not allowed to the USA unless the sender is licensed to do so. It is also worth checking state laws asNew JerseyandVirginiadon’t allow alcohol shipments at all.
Who should you send it with?
Once you are sure that the destination of your wine shipment is ok to send to, you need to look at which carriers you can use to send it there. All carriers and courier services will have a prohibited items list on their website so you need to make sure that alcoholic beverages are not listed there.
It is important to remember that your wine shipment will be very fragile and if it is travelling over a long distance it will have a much higher risk of getting damaged in transit. With this in mind, it’s worth checking for online reviews, or using a carrier that you have confidence in to get your wine shipment to its destination safely and securely.
Can you insure it?
As with all fragile items and particularly glass you will also need to check if insurance is available. In most cases, carriers will not offer compensation on high risk items such as glass or liquids so you may need to seek alternative insurance providers for your shipment. In any case, the best thing you can do to ensure your wine shipment is delivered in one piece, is to make sure you get the packaging right!
How much will it cost?
There are a few things to factor in when working out the costs of shipping wine. You will be able to find a cheap courier service online and get a quote within seconds; however the quote must be based on the wine in its packaging. The volumetric weight of the parcel can affect the price you are given if it is greater than the actual weight of the parcel. Once you have the quote you need to factor in the cost of the packaging which will vary depending on how large the consignment is and which packaging you find is suitable. You also need to add insurance costs and check import and duty taxes that may be applicable to the country you are sending to. For small quantities you may not need to pay taxes and duties if the shipment is a gift.
How should you package it?
Once you have checked the conditions of sending wine to your destination and have a cheap courier service to send it there, you now need to think about how to prepare the parcel for shipment.
Depending on whether you are sending one bottle, an entire case, or boxed wine there are different packaging options available to you.
Single Bottles:
Single bottles should be triple wrapped in bubble wrap and then ideally placed inside a secure wooden box labelled as fragile.
Cases of Wine:
Sometimes the original case that wine comes in may not be suitable for shipping, so as with the single bottles you will need to wrap each individual bottle in a triple layer of bubble wrap and pack tightly into a single-ply cardboard box making sure there is no room for the bottles to knock in to each other. If necessary fill any gaps with news paper or packaging chips. Now put the box inside a double-ply cardboard box and secure tightly. Alternatively use a wooden box, though this will increase your costs significantly.
Boxed Wine:
As the wine is in a bag instead of a glass bottle, boxed wine is much easier to ship and should not require extra packaging. If you are sending lots of boxes, your cheapest option will most likely be to ship on a pallet. In this case you must neatly stack your boxes on the pallet and tightly secure with plastic wrap.
When shipping any kind of wine it is important to remember that it will be travelling on multiple vehicles together with other parcels. You should always consider that:
- Your wine parcel will be moving about inside the vehicle.
- It will come in to contact with other parcels.
- It will most likely have other parcels stacked on top.
With this in mind, you should always package your wine to survive these conditions. If you have any questions about your shipment, don’t take any risks and call your courier service before placing your booking.
