How to Save Money When Shipping Bulk Foam Fingers

Foam fingers are a staple at sporting events. Whether the sport be football, basketball, baseball, soccer, or hockey, fans love waiving their team's foam fingers while cheering on their beloved team. These foam hands provide an incredible opportunity to raise funds by selling to your fan base. While finding the right shape and size for your foam finger may not be so difficult, fitting your order into your budget may be a bit more challenging when factoring in the shipping costs. Foam fingers are very lightweight, so why are they so expensive to ship? It is true that foam fingers don't weight much; however, UPS and FedEx calculate shipping prices based on dimensional weight rather than actual weight. Dimensional weight is determined by utilizing the following formula: (Length x Width x Height)/166 = Billable Weight. Here's an example of one of our best-selling foam fingers:

18" #1 Foam Hand Mitt

• These are packaged 100 foam fingers per box.
• Actual weight of each box is only 13 pounds.
• Shipping case size is 20" L x 17" W x 15" H

Therefore, using the formula from UPS/FedEx, 20 x 17 x 15 = 5,100. Now divide 5,100 by 166 and you get 30.7. That number is rounded up to 31 pounds billable weight per carton of 100 pieces.

Even though the package actually only 13 lbs, UPS/FedEx uses 31 lbs to determine the shipping cost. You can see why shipping bulky items is so expensive since the billable weight is nearly triple the actual weight.

Our Solution to High Shipping Prices for Foam Fingers

The most effective way to save money when shipping is to ship from factories closest to your destination. It is much cheaper to ship from TX to FL rather than shipping from ME to FL. Therefore, we help choose the closest foam finger factory to your shipping destination to save you money.

We have now updated our website to allow you to sort the foam fingers by the state they ship from. We have a filter on our foam fingers page allowing you to choose from only the foam fingers that ship from the state that is closest to your location. TX, NY, and ME factories offer the most options for foam fingers, so you would simply click on the state closest to you in order to display the best selection of foam fingers for you. This will save you a ton of money, plus the shipping time is faster! See foam fingers from nearest foam finger factory to you by clicking the links below: Maine New York Texas

Secondary Solution for Saving Money When Shipping Foam Fingers

Since foam fingers are made out of open cell foam, they are very soft. Therefore, they can be compressed when packed into their shipping box. Some factories compress the foam fingers by default and other factories only compress when requested. An example to show how effective compressing foam fingers when packing them in a shipping box, I will use the same popular 18" foam hand as used above. Uncompressed would only be about 35 foam fingers per box. Compressed allows for 100/box. The compressed option obviously allows for only 1 box compared to 3 boxes for uncompressed, which will save you approximately 66% in shipping costs. The 18" foam hand used in this example comes compressed by default to save you money. Below you will find links to foam fingers that are packaged compressed by default and those that can be compressed with request. Compressed Foam Fingers by Default Foam Fingers can be Compressed by Request If you need help finding the best solution for your needs, one of our customer service experts will be glad to personally help you with finding the right foam fingers for your school or sporting event. Just give us a call, send us an email, or live chat with us! Related Articles Whether Your Like 'Em or Not, Give Them the Finger 10 Great Promos For March Madness Football Season and a New School Year Fall High School Sports Spirit Items Top 7 Football Spirit Items