Shipping wheels

I'm talking to a fellow Guzzi rider about buying some wheels he has for sale.

He got a quote from UPS who want $195 Canadian to ship & $64 Canadian to pack the wheels from British Columbia to central Ohio.

Seems abit steep to me.

Anyone have other suggestions or experiences about how to bring the cost down ?

Thanks

I bought a single front wheel from US (lots of them on US ebay still) and paid $112 postage & package...(it was really well packaged). Wheel was $60 but overall cheap way to get a new front cast wheel. One big thing to think about is the value stated on the billing slip as that will set the import duty. On a separate item (shipping my own coat that I left in Houston office) I'm still in dispute with DHL around duty because sadly the admin staff shipped it with $150 value and they tried to whack me extra £50 for duty.

A mate of mine in Dubai uses a shipping group who reduce the base shipping price by 'groupage' into a container. They basically hire a container & rent out spaces until it fills; then spread cost across the users - I'll try and find their details from him as they likely do UK also

sorry meant do Canada

Cost me $250 to pack & ship carbon fibre wheels 2,000km within the same state. And that was 4 years ago.