From Boise Idaho to Saint-Paul-lès-Dax, France
Somewhere in the cargo hold of a UPS jet in mid-April is a small but very important package of surplus industrial equipment with a five-figure price tag. It has a long journey from its starting place in Boise, Idaho to a small village — Saint-Paul-Lès Dax — in the south of France. That's a distance of 5,214 miles or 8,391 kilometers in seven days. That's a pretty remarkable trip in these times of supply chain problems, but Obtainium Surplus is pretty experienced at this sort of thing even with all the shipping issues.
A Shipping Lesson
There's a shipping lesson in this story. The flight to France has some other steps along the way, including packaging, hand delivery, trucks, customs, taxes, duties, and tariffs. Each step can easily throw up roadblocks and delay the delivery of a product. The buyer wrote a substantial check to get a quality piece of legacy industrial equipment, and it has to get to him fast. We'll save you the suspense because our package gets where it's supposed to be safely and on time. Here's how it happened:
Seven Days from Start to Finish
April 4, 2022 — Buyer makes contact with Obtainium to purchase an LT Phased Array Ultrasonic Flaw Detector (that's a long name for a piece of equipment that is used in industry to make sure the pieces you are using are good and don't have hidden cracks or defects). The French buyer found the piece at Obtainium Surplus (https://obtainsurplus.com/).
April 6, 2022 — Purchase is confirmed by the buyer. The check, as they say, is in the mail or, in this case, a wire transfer.
April 11, 2022 — Wire transfer is complete. Payment for the legacy equipment is confirmed.
April 13, 2022 — While waiting for receipt of payment to Obtainium, the buyer takes care of customs and tariff issues.
April 13, 2022 — The wheels are moving fast now. The Obtainium crew is preparing the Flaw Detector for shipment. By the end of the day it is carefully and substantially packaged in a heavy cardboard box with plenty of padding. It's almost closing time, so the crew hand delivers the package to the UPS store (http://www.ups.com/) a few blocks away to make sure it gets out first thing in the morning.
April 14, 2022 — Our package heads out of Boise and arrives at the UPS facility in Louisville, KY.
April 15, 2022 — It transfers via UPS to a facility in Philadelphia at 6 AM and departs for France at 8:24 PM after the buyer pays duties, taxes, and import fees. It arrives in Paris, France at 9:30 PM.
April 20, 2022 — The package makes its way from Paris to Saint-Paul-Lès Dax at 7:15 AM and is out for delivery.
April 20, 2022 — DELIVERED at 12:05 PM.
April 21, 2022 — An email from the buyer confirms everything is fine. Thank you Obtainium.