Black River Trading Company

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Shipping pottery is possible but, generally speaking, it just doesn't ship easily.  It is heavy and easily broken if not well packaged.  It can be very time consuming and expensive to package well enough so that it DOES NOT GET BROKEN in transit.

We think about selling and sending out ceramic pottery in 3 ways;

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1) Customer Pick Up – If you’re coming here to buy and take away the pottery in your own vehicle, we are happy to provide without charge whatever help and packaging materials are needed to get it into your vehicle for safe transport home.

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2) Delivery – We have no regularly scheduled delivery routes…but, sometimes, particularly if the customer wants a substantial quantity or wants quite large pots, it just costs less and makes more sense for us to deliver. This is often the case when the customer is within a 500 km radius of our location.  Sometimes we already have a delivery in queue that might take us at least part way to where you are and some savings can be had from delivering both orders on the same trip.  Otherwise, our delivery charge is 75 cents per kilometre (round trip). 

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Sample Delivery Fees: 

Our location to downtown Ottawa – 385 km round trip x $0.75 = $288.75

Our location to central Toronto – approx. 450 km round trip x $0.75 = $337.50

Our location to Montreal area – approx. 800 km round trip x $0.75 = $600.00

Our location to central Hamilton, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo – approx. 600 km round trip x $0.75 = $450.00

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There is no additional packing charge if we are delivering … and no broken pots!

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3) Packaging and Shipping - Our minimum order to ship any pottery is $75.00.   If we’re shipping to you (whether by Canada Post, courier or trucking firm) there is a packaging charge of 35% of the value of the pottery. This is in addition to the shipping cost. 

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To provide an accurate shipping quote we need 3 things: 

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a) to know exactly what you want to buy

b) the name of the town to which you want us to ship

c) the correct postal code (we don't need the address for a quote, but we need the postal code)

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Sometimes we are asked to ship pots thousands of kilometres away (say... to the west or east coast).  This is doable but if you can't order a substantial quantity (such as a half or full pallet – essentially spending a few thousand dollars) and then arrange to pick it up yourself at the trucking depot of a major city, you may be stunned at the shipping cost.  On our side, for such orders we usually need to construct very tough thick wooden crates to ship safely…that in itself is time consuming and expensive.

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Large e-commerce retailers can blow all they like about their free shipping but it's easy to see the packaging and shipping is already baked into the very high prices for their pots.  Properly packing and shipping heavy yet breakable ceramic pottery is anything but free...

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Call or email for clarification or if you want to proceed…

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