Freight, Shipping, etc

JUCA Prices and Specs are current as of Jan 2000

General Info

Since most JUCAs have custom features, we have long had a manufacturing schedule where every JUCA is specially built to fill each order. Because of this, JUCA has long had a policy where a deposit (of about half) is sent in when an order is placed, and the unit balance due is sent in when the JUCA is ready to ship. In other words, the unit must be completely paid for BEFORE it gets shipped. This is a common situation for all companies that make custom built products. So, the product is already paid for, to JUCA, when the unit is shipped. Then it is shipped, on a semi truck, FREIGHT COLLECT, from our warehouse. The freight costs are then collected, for the truck line, by the truck driver when the unit is delivered to you.

Therefore: Unit prices are FOB, at the location where they are put on a truck.

But the freight cost will be collected by the truck line when it gets delivered.

By the way, the JUCA units come in a rather large box that resembles a refrigerator box, but heavier!

We generally try to work with several truck lines which apply substantial discounts (around 45% or 50%) for our freignt to customers. Ballpark final freight costs are:

Shipping Suggestions

Freight companies have a bunch of "tariffs" that they could apply which adds to the final freight bill. NOT ALL FREIGHT COMPANIES ALWAYS INVOKE ALL OF THESE. Here are representative costs of the most common ones:

Residential Delivery (to a house):$36.20
Notification (if they have to call you)$22.10
Re-Delivery (if you weren't home)$31.80
Inside Delivery (if they have to help carry)$50.00
Delay (if the driver is there more than 15 min.$72/hr.
Liftgate Truck (to lower it to ground)$77.00
There are many others which generally won't apply to you.

All this stuff is calculated at the end terminal, and there are hundreds of terminals all over the country. Some truck line terminal people are very nice, and choose not to add such charges to the freight bill, but others do. Since there is no way of knowing ahead of time just how nice the person will be who makes out your bill, we have the following thoughts:

Have us ship it to the truckline's nearest terminal (usually within a moderate distance of you unless you're REALLY in the boonies.) Arrange to borrow a pickup truck or have your contractor go pick it up (remember: they will want freight payment then). The terminal will use a forklift to load it into the pickup truck. This gets it down lower and you won't have an itchy trucker moaning while you try to get a big 600 pound box down from a 4 foot high semi truck bed, in front of your house. And it's USUALLY cheaper than having them deliver it directly to your house, because that saves them one truck trip. If you have us ship it to the truck terminal, you will still retain the option of having them deliver it to your house (without extra financial punishment). Various terminals seem to have different attitudes about all this. An occasional terminal will charge you the same if they deliver it to your home or if you go there to pick it up, but this seems rare. By having us send it to the terminal and then you contact them, it seems like you retain your options as long as possible.

A good alternative is to have us ship it to a BUSINESS near you, so the truckline can't charge the residential or re-delivery tariff, They also never feel the need to try to call a business to make sure they're open because they assume they already are, during the day.

Your contractor may want it delivered to the job site. If so, or if you still want us to ship it to your house, we will contact you when it is shipped, so YOU can call their local terminal. (There's no charge or tariff for you calling them.) Then you can confirm the delivery date and truck type they expect to use to bring it out. That way, you could make sure to have some friends handy to help. Some JUCA buyers deviously invite friends to a cookout that day. Others tell us that a six-pack of beer will lure enough strong friends over to help. If you have no friends, a hand truck can move it around and heavy planks can make a ramp down out of the truck to slide or roll it. In this event, the unit CAN be laid on its back, which is the side of the box with the slot for forklift forks.

Most truck terminals have a few trucks that have a LIFT-GATE hydraulic platform on the back of the truck. They generally charge more for sending out this kind of truck (see above), but it DOES solve the problem of getting the JUCA down to ground level from inside the truck.




The JUCA Home Page is at: http://mb-soft.com/juca/index.html

E-mail to: JUCA1@mb-soft.com