How To Pack And Ship A Tonneau Or Cargo Cover


If you no longer have use for the tonneau or cargo cover of your old vehicle, you can sell them online for good money or send them to someone you may know. In this post, we will go over the easiest and cheapest way to pack and ship a tonneau cover.

What You Will Need

Here is what you will need to pack and ship a tonneau or cargo cover.

  1. Shipping box
  2. Kraft paper
  3. Shipping tape

In order to get the best shipping rate, you will also want to buy your postage online. You can buy your shipping label directly from the post office, you will be paying the retail price. Instead, you will want to use shipping software such as Pirate Ship or Shippo. They are free to use to get discounted UPS and USPS discounts.

You will also need a shipping scale and measuring tape to get the weight and dimensions of your package. You don’t ever want to guess or estimate your package to ensure that its delivery will not be returned or fees charged to the recipient.

How To Ship A Tonneau Or Cargo Cover

Step 1. Assemble Your Box

The trickiest part of shipping something like a tonneau cover is the long box that you will need. The easiest way to ship will be by ordering a box with the right dimensions like this one. However, they usually come in large quantities. You may not need 15, 25, or 50 boxes because chances are, you may only be trying to ship one cargo cover.

As an alternative and cheaper option, you can order with the correct width and height and then make up the length to what you need. For our Ford Escape tonneau cover, the dimensions that we needed were 55in x 6in x 6in. So you would want to order boxes with a width and height of 6 inches. This listing comes with five quantities of 36in x 6in x 6in so you will need two of them to make up the length.

We show you exactly how you can use the telescoping method to create length in the post below. You would use the same method as shown with the boxes for your tonneau cover.

Read Here: How To Ship A Golf Bag Cheap (With Pictures)

Step 2. Protect The Ends

Next, you will need kraft paper to pad the ends of the tonneau cover. Since tonneau covers are sturdy and robust, you don’t need to bubble wrap them as you would with other more delicate items. Instead, your main goal is to make sure that they do not shift or move in the box. Padding the ends will ensure that they stay in place.

Step 3. Adjust The Length

You will want to adjust the length of your box so that it fits your tonneau cover and padding at the end. You don’t want any more length than needed because extra dimensions will add to the shipping cost. Use a box cutter to cut out the extra length that is not needed.

Step 4. Securely Tape Your Box

Make sure that you’re not skimping on taping your box. Especially if you had to make up the length by telescoping a few boxes or if you had to adjust the length of your box in any way.

The Cheapest Way To Ship A Tonneau Or Cargo Cover

Once you’re ready to ship your box, you will enter the destination address and package dimensions. This is what it will look like for Pirate Ship.

Make sure you click on the right arrow under “Choose a Service” so you can see all your options. For our package going from Texas to Washington state, UPS Ground was the cheapest service available. However, you can select any service that you would like depending on your preference of price, carrier, and delivery speed.

Once you select a service, you will see the breakdown of the shipping cost, including additional fees. There will be surcharges added for all carriers due to the length. For UPS, an additional handling charge is applied when the longest side of the package exceeds 48 inches and our package is 55 inches.

You can then buy your label, print it, and stick it on your package. You can then drop it off without having to stand in line.

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