Shipping A Hot Tub

About 11 years ago, when the Internet was very young, I set up this web site. I didn't know much about HTML , and how this all worked, but I knew it was something great. I had no idea that The Spa Specialist , was going to become THE "Internet Spa Company" for the highest end spa products sold at low discount prices. It is the net that has allowed us to do this.

When I first put up the site, I used Word Perfect for the Mac on my old Performa, using a 14.4-K modem and it took "forever" for the pictures to load. The pages were crude by today's standards, but they had a lot of content for people to learn from as they do now. Only now the articles are many and my research has gotten deeper into the thermodynamics of spas.

I thought that the web site would help to educate the folks in the Denver metro area. It did that; but I was totally surprised at the numbers of people I talked to from all across the US and from Europe, even South Africa. Many called just to thank me for the "only real hot tub and spa information".

One day about two months after the site was up and running, a fellow from Vermont called and I chatted with him for about an hour about the spas in his area. I had no intention of selling him a spa. He called again a few weeks later after shopping the local Vermont spa stores and we discussed spas at length again. It was on the third call, about three weeks later, that he asked me: "Have you thought about shipping a spa out of state?"

I told him that I had thought about it, because of all the phone calls from out of state, but I had no idea how to go about shipping them and delivering them. To make this story shorter, he and I both worked together and figured out how to get a spa shipped and delivered. It takes a bit of extra work to pull that off. Since I have never been afraid of hard work, we started selling more and more spas, one by one, to customers all over the country (and shipping to other countries), and we learned what it takes and what it costs to do that. It was averaging over $1,000 per spa for shipping and about 450 to have them delivered, even when we doubled the spas on the truck. When you consider the quality of products we have to offer, and the low prices for them. The customers have always been more than willing to wait and to pay for the cost of shipping and delivery. Now we use our own truck and crew as much as possible to deliver the spas. We do it because it is more economical and the service is first class.

How we figure shipping costs:

We decided to make the shipping cost fair by offering a variable shipping rate. We put in a basic cost for warehousing, loading and unloading and a basic 250 miles of shipping in the prices.

So, we equalize the shipping by discretion and using a pencil and a calculator. A standard shipping cargo company charges about $1500 to ship one spa from the Factory to the mid eastern states and they arrive with broken panels, normally (we have to put the in a crate for $300 extra). If you calculate the total cost for shipping and delivery that we charge, you will see that we are not making any money on that part of the deal. It is a losing proposition with the cost of the truck, insurance, and maintenance as well as the delivery drivers we send to deliver the spas. The price of diesel fuel is not cheap these days (ouch!). We avoid some of the lodging costs by having a camper on our truck and it has to be maintained. It is also a very hard job that wears down most people. Our delivery guys come back pretty well worn out.

Why do we do this? Because that is how our business has evolved. I didn't want to be shipping and delivering spas all over the place, but that is what we do. There are only so many really smart shoppers in this world, and the Internet brings the customers to us. In the beginning year, I'd say that more than 80% of our spa owners were engineers, either mechanical, electrical , hydraulic, or computer engineers. Many were medical doctors and scientists and they still keep finding us.

So, how do we pay for the shipping, we calculate the difference from the 250 miles included and multiply by 55 cents for medium to large spas or 50 cents for small spas. If you live 1800 miles away and you want a Fallsburg model, you subtract 250 from 1800 and get 1550 miles. 1550 times 55 cents = $852.50 for shipping. If it is a small spa, like the Freeport, then it would be 50 cents times 1550 = $775.00

Considering how well the spas arrive and the expert delivery guys we use, you cannot do it any less expensive. Call a trucking company and ask them how much it is to ship one spa 1800 miles.

I just wanted to educate folks on the nature of hauling spas and why our prices are so reasonable for shipping. We also have no objection if you tip the drivers for their really hard work.

The delivery/set up charges are now $479 to put the spa in place and get it going. It takes on average 4 to 5 hours and we need two people that you supply.

We do not ship across the border to Canada. You will have to arrange to have the spa shipped to you and for the customs agent to take care of the border crossing.

How we calculate Shipping costs on Haven Spas.