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Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 10:01 pm
by Merk
Guys, I won this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dance-Dance-Rev ... 7675.l2557

How the shit do I go about getting it shipped to Chad's house?

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 10:38 pm
by Fluffyumpkins
lol

I wasn't sure whether or not you were actually going to bid on this. That's baller as hell! You see what you want and you TAKES it BOOOOOIIII.
Shipping is available with any freight company you choose. 25.00 per pallet charge and 5.00 per strap charge if you use freight. Quotes can also be provided by North American Vanlines at Phone 720-535-4139 for a quote or Bally STI at 630-352-3313
The Butt Hut is now a halfway house for arcade games.

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 11:06 pm
by Merk
When I bought Drummania the nice man who sold it to me set up shipping but it sounds like this guy wants me to do it myself and I do not know how to go about setting up a shipment!

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 11:14 pm
by MonMotha
Well, STI is still the "preferred" way to "just make it work", IMO. It will not be the cheapest option; expect about $700 or so from Cali. They will, however handle basically everything. You'll need dimensions of it, however it's packed, and the weight. DDR is dense enough that I actually got billed actual weight rather than dimensional, but I was able to have the seller stack the stages and marquee which lowered the volume significantly compared to trying to ship it assembled. Note that STI will not disassemble it for you; you must have the seller do that.

STI no longer has any relationship with NAVL (or therefore Beltmann) as far as I know. I think you can still book it through the same people, though. I think Ho has up-to-date contact info for them.

If you do want to have it done more cheaply, Uship seems to be the place people are using. It's basically a reverse auction type system. You may need to have the seller pallet it for you, and don't expect the full "white glove" treatment with full blanket/shrink wrap, etc. that STI gives, though you might get lucky.

Make sure you indicate that you need liftgate service (unless Chad's constructed a dock that I don't know about).

Where the hell are you going to put this thing? AFAIK, Chad's house is already maxed out on DDR machines.

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:20 am
by Merk
Chad confirmed that we can rearrange shit in his garage to make it fit. I'm guessing it will snuggly fit adjacent to the Blitz and Beatmania 3 cabinet where there is currently a pile of trash and a lawnmower.

Can shipping be arranged online or am I going to have to talk to some operator and explain what a DDR cabinet is to them? I'll go the STI route.


I'll talk to Mikey B. but if he's interested in storing it I'll let him hold on to it. This machine is basically not going to be played until I buy a house which is not something that's going to happen in the foreseeable future.

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:38 am
by Ho
Call Michelle Bianchi at Precision Transportation, Inc. (630) 352-3312

I last shipped with her in November of last year. DrumMania and GuitarFreaks from Montana for $700 total. I would guess around $500 for DDR, but I haven't been following shipping prices in the last year, so things may have changed (in either direction) in that time.

Brandon is absolutely correct that how you package it is going to make a difference on what it will cost. In a fully assembled state, I wouldn't be surprised by a price tag approaching or even exceeding $1000. However, if you remove the bars, stack the stage halves, and then stack the bars (flat) and marquee box on top of the stages, you create two much more compact items and could get the price down into the $400-500 range. But that's going to depend on your seller doing some work for you.

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:04 am
by Merk
Ok, I e-mailed the seller, waiting on a response to work a few things out with them. I asked them if it's possible for them to remove the marquee but I will ask them to disassemble the stage halves and bars as well. I'm sure they'll ask for a fee but hey if it's not ungodly I can front them some cash.

What exactly do I tell Michelle? "Hey I have a DDR machine in Sacramento can you ship it to Indianapolis?" if I name drop Brian Ho will she know who I am talking about? I assume they need to know if there's a liftgate, the weight, and dimensions of the cabinet. Do I need to have the seller remeasure everything if they disassemble the cabinet for me?

Sorry I'm a giant babby when it comes to shipping shit. Julius (the seller) took care of everything with my Drummania so I don't know the logistics of making logistics work if you get my drift.

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 12:38 pm
by Riot
I used Michelle and can give you the rundown of what I said when I get home around 4 if you want.

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 12:44 pm
by Ho
You will need the origin zip code, destination zip code, liftgate requirement, dimensions, and weight. You can probably get measurements from Chad's machine.

You can mention me if you want. She may remember me. I guess she might. She seemed to have at least a vague recollection of me when we spoke last year even though I hadn't worked with her directly (I had worked with other agents in her department and then she moved to another company) in probably 7-8 years before that. But I wouldn't expect any special treatment.

But these are the types of one-off, special handling jobs they specialize in, so you can count on them to handle all the details with only a minimum of input from you...and some $$$, of course. :)

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 12:59 pm
by Merk
Riot wrote:I used Michelle and can give you the rundown of what I said when I get home around 4 if you want.
That would be nice, thank you! I really am new to this and I don't want to sound like a dumb fuck to the pros.
Ho wrote:You will need the origin zip code, destination zip code, liftgate requirement, dimensions, and weight. You can probably get measurements from Chad's machine.

You can mention me if you want. She may remember me. I guess she might. She seemed to have at least a vague recollection of me when we spoke last year even though I hadn't worked with her directly (I had worked with other agents in her department and then she moved to another company) in probably 7-8 years before that. But I wouldn't expect any special treatment.

But these are the types of one-off, special handling jobs they specialize in, so you can count on them to handle all the details with only a minimum of input from you...and some $$$, of course. :)
Don't they need a full address? Do I need to explain that this is a DDR machine / arcade cabinet? How do I go about paying them? Do I need to have the seller palletize the cabinet if I use Michelle?

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 2:51 pm
by Ho
That's all you'll need to get the quote. It's nice to be able to get a quote BEFORE you buy something so you can figure it into your costs and you don't always have full information at that point. They'll obviously need the full address to place the actual order. I don't think they'd have much luck just sending a truck into a zip code with a guy yelling, "Here, DDR machine...c'mon, boy!"

Tell them it's an arcade machine. They most likely don't care what machine it is, but she's probably familiar with DDR.

You can do COD (have a check for the driver when the delivery is made) or you can pay in advance with a credit card. When I used to do it that way, the check was supposed to be a cashier's check from a bank--something guaranteed that won't bounce--but I've done credit card the past few times. You just have to fill out a form and fax or email it back to her. Not too big of a deal.

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 3:29 pm
by Merk
I sent Michelle an e-mail (Riot gave it to me) asking for a quote! Does anyone know if they need the thing to be on a pallet or can STI take care of it?

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 4:00 pm
by Ho
They'll take care of it. Sorry, forgot to answer that.

BTW, you're not actually dealing with STI as Michelle does not work for STI. She works for Precision Transportation. As your agent, she'll arrange all of the details at both ends and in between of picking up the machine, packaging it, moving/storing it, and delivering. This will likely involve several different companies.

However, STI will likely be involved on the delivery side since this is in their territory and is one of the companies that she contracts with. I actually tried to book directly with STI once and they told me I couldn't and had to go through an agent. And that makes some sense since they could handle everything once it got to their warehouse, but they likely don't have any contacts at the origin unless it happened to be in their territory. That's what the agents are for. :)

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:06 pm
by MonMotha
The credit card option with STI is relatively new (past 4-5 years) but works well. I recommend it if possible. If you do COD, it must be a certified or cashier's check, which will probably cost you at least a few bucks to get from your bank, and of course you have to remember to go get it. There's no additional charge to pay by credit card.

Note that somebody will have to meet them at the delivery point. They'll call you the day prior to arrange a time, and you can postpone a couple days if you have to, but they won't want to hold on to it for much longer than that without paying them a warehousing charge. If you ask nicely, they can usually give 30-60min call ahead before they actually get there (basically whenever they're leaving their previous stop). Be sure you or someone else can take some time off work to meet them.

Re: Welp, I bought a cabinet

Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 8:07 am
by Merk
Thanks guys, as always you are all a big help. I am working with Michelle and my initial quote for a shipment from Sacramento to Indianapolis is $635.40

~$2100 for a DDR machine. Not the cheapest but hey, I can now realize 17-year-old Merk's dream of owning a DDR machine!