Getting Barrel Shipping Quotes is Easy on Shiply

How To Ship A Barrel

If you need to send lots of items, or need one item to be especially well packed and protected, then using a barrel for shipping can be a great time and money saver. It stops you from needing to send multiple items, and can often fit easily into a delivery vehicle. Alternatively, if you are sending your items abroad, a barrel provides the perfect solution as it is easily able to be shipped and transported. Sending items home in a barrel was a popular choice among people from the Caribean, with barrels frequently shipped from the UK to countries like Jamaica.

However, whilst barrel shipping is a great way of moving your stuff, you will need to find someone to move it for you. A barrel will be too big to send in the standard post, and so you need a transport company to move it for you. This is where Shiply comes to your aid. There are hundreds of barrel shippers on our platform ready to bid on your job, typically at rates up to 75% off, and it only takes a minute to get started.

How Much Does It Cost To Ship A Barrel?

An accurate estimate for shipping a barrel is difficult to give as there are a number of factors that affect pricing. To help give you an idea of how much shipping your barrel would cost, however, here are the most important factors:

Distance - How far your barrel is going to travel is going to play a big part in how much the shipping costs. Generally, longer distances will cost you more, although the price per mile typically drops over longer journeys. Barrels are often sent abroad to countries in the Caribbean such as Jamaica, and if your barrel needs to go abroad, you can expect this to cost more than a domestic journey.

Size/Weight - Standard barrels tend to be 55 gallons, but there are larger ones available. A larger barrel will cost more. The weight is also important, with significantly heavier items likely to cost a premium to ship.

Timings - Should you require your barrel to reach its destination within a certain timeframe, or on a specific date, then you may need to pay a little bit more for this. This is because many barrel shipping companies on our platform are making a similar journey already and just want to ensure that they are not travelling empty, so the more you can be flexible with dates, the cheaper your price will be.

Locations - Whilst this is an infrequent issue, pick-up and drop-off locations that are particularly remote may incur extra fees just because they are so far away from any other drop-off points.

How Can Shiply Help Find Barrel Shipping Companies?

Usually, shipping a barrel involves you doing all of the digging to find a company to carry out the shipment. You can spend hours on the web or searching through phone books - thankfully, Shiply is here to streamline the process of finding a barrel shipper for you.

All you need to do on our platform to get started is enter the rough size of the barrel that needs moving, the pick-up and drop-off locations, and the desired timings for the shipment. Once you have done this, you will start to receive quotes to ship your barrel, often within minutes! Shiply gives you one easy place to collect and compare quotes, allowing you to view feedback scores and message any service that quotes you to ask further questions.

Finding a barrel shipping service on Shiply isn’t just easy, it is also very inexpensive! As stated earlier, most of the drivers on our platform are already making journeys and have spare space in their vehicles. They want to ensure that they are travelling completely full, and so look for extra items to move. As their costs are already sunk, they are able to offer rates up to 75% cheaper than usual. Not only is Shiply cheap, but using us also means you are helping the environment by reducing the number of unnecessary transport vehicles on the roads.

Preparing For Your Barrel To Be Shipped

If you have listed your barrel, collected quotes, and booked one, then it is time to prepare your barrel for shipping. We recommend the following:

Documents - Should there be food, restricted items, or your barrel is going abroad (or all three) then you may need to provide documentation to be shipped with your barrel. We highly recommend getting these sorted before pick-up to avoid any issues during transit.

Packing - You want to make sure that your items can’t move about too much in the barrel a this can cause damage. Packing material put in after the barrel is filled should help avoid this. Any particularly valuable or delicate items should be wrapped individually before being placed in the barrel.

Cleaning - Whilst this depends on what you are shipping, cleaning any valuable items before shipping them is recommended as it helps identify damage caused by the journey more easily.

Photographs - We also recommend that you take high-quality time-stamped photographs of your barrel and contents, as in the unlikely event that damage occurs during transit, these will serve as proof.

What To Do After Delivery

After your barrel has been delivered, we recommend checking the contents for any damage or anything else that appears wrong. If there is an issue, raise it with your chosen barrel shipping company immediately.

We also request that users leave feedback for their chosen barrel shippers so that Shiply users in the future may know what to expect.