Shipping and packaging charges Caintuck Audio has an account with UPS and I receive a small discount on shipping charges The insured shipping charges on Betsy, Alpha and Lii Audio baffles and loudspeakers are billed to my customers at my cost ..... To protect the speakers in shipping, I have devised a system using foam "channels" to cushion the speakers and use 1/8" hard board on all interior surfaces of the shipping carton This makes packing the speakers for shipping a bit labor intensive, but worth the effort The original channels were made from Styrofoam which worked well but often broke (crumbled) when removing the speakers from the shipping carton I recently had some channels made from PE foam which is not as fragile or as messy as Styrofoam The downside is that the PE foam costs quite a bit more than the Styrofoam The cost of the PE foam, 1/8" hardboard and shipping cartons continues to increase on a regular basis A charge of 35.00 (my actual cost) will now be added to invoices to offset the cost of the packaging materials on speaker and baffle orders The Betsy, Alpha and Lii 15 baffles are reasonably priced considering the performance they provide, so I prefer to keep the prices of the speakers low and charge a small fee for the packaging materials Happy listening, Randy in Caintuck