How do Bikes & Electric Bikes Get Shipped? - Bike Box Sizes & Shipping Info

Hey, Peter here at Sixthreezero. Everyone is receiving everything through the mail these days, how does that happen? Why is the box the size it is, et cetera? Let's talk about that a little bit, it's kind of interesting. I've mentioned in a few other videos that I do wear a lot of hats here. I manage the customer service team and also I do quality control with the factories. I also manage our operations, which includes logistics, going from the factory to the warehouses, from the warehouses to you, et cetera, et cetera, so we're always working on more efficient ways, better ways, to deliver a perfect product to you at a good price. There are so many things to balance, so many things to balance, and so many limitations and restrictions on what we can do. For instance, to send a bike to you and have the shipping be as economical as possible, we have to keep the box within certain dimensions according to FedEx or UPS or whatever carrier is carrying the bike.

When we are packaging the bike, we have to try and keep it within that dimension, otherwise, the cost to ship the package starts to skyrocket and actually can make the whole operation completely unprofitable and not something that can be done. We really have to keep it within those proportions, so it's really an amazing jigsaw puzzle that we get to figure out, along with the factory, how to arrange these bikes in a nice, safe way, also within a certain size package. There is that restriction there because if there wasn't a restriction there, I would make the boxes a lot bigger, quite frankly, but FedEx does put a cap on how big a box can be. They even include if the box starts to bulge a little bit and get a little bit bigger. The reason for that is because it takes up room on the truck and that room on the truck means that if there's overflow, they're going to have to get more trucks, more drivers, more gas, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, it starts to add up and it costs more money.

Anyway, that's why the size of your box is the size that it is, typically around 56 inches by 27 inches tall by about 8 inches wide for a regular bike. An e-bike might be a little bit bigger, maybe just a little bit bigger, so maybe 58 inches by 28 inches by maybe 8, 9 inches wide, that's about a typical bike box. We're restricted by dimensions with FedEx for that. Also, with the e-trike, it's a different kind of box, it's a little bit lower, but a little bit wider and it's really quite amazing. I was looking at our first iteration of the e-tricycles that went out and the packaging needed a lot of improvement after that first run. Most of them were pretty good, but there were some things that we found out, and then we actually made seven important improvements on that.

It's neat because earlier today, I opened up one of the first editions and I opened up one of the ones that came in today and you can just see the amazing amount of difference. And then we can also see the amount of damages happening in transit going down significantly due to the changes that we've made. But what's really fascinating and interesting is that you still have to work with the same size box. The tricycle box, the box is actually overall, it's about an inch bigger than it used to be, which was to stuff the extra packaging in that we needed to protect the bike. Anyway, if we had limitless potential or infinite capabilities or whatever and had no restrictions, the box would be bigger and there would be more packaging material in it, but we are restrained by size to keep the bike economical.

Obviously, if there's no limit on cost or whatever or you don't care about spending twice as much for a bike or whatever, then accommodations could be made, but as it is, we have this certain limitation. Anyway, that's why the bike comes in the box size that it does. Obviously, we do the best with the packaging, and 99% of the time, perfect, it makes it through the brutal FedEx gauntlet just fine, and sometimes it doesn't, sometimes things happen. But anyway, all you got to do is give us a call if something does happen, (310) 982-2877 and we'll make it right. We'll figure out what to do to send you a new part or help you out with the bike shop. There are always a number of solutions to get to make things right for you.

DISCLAIMER: The 365-day return policy mentioned in the video above is no longer valid. Please refer to www.sixthreezero.com/pages/30-day-test-ride for the updated policy.