The Quote Is the Whole Number
Domestic orders ship on what the freight world calls delivery to door. In plain terms, we coordinate the shipment from production all the way to your address, and the freight, customs clearance, duties, and related import costs are already inside the price we gave you. There is no second invoice arriving three weeks later, and there is no customs paperwork waiting for your signature.
That sounds unremarkable until you have been on the other side of it. Plenty of packaging is sold as a per-bag price with the journey quoted separately, or not quoted at all until it ships. The per-bag number looks great in a spreadsheet and then the landed cost lands somewhere else entirely. Comparing suppliers only works when you know which of those two things you are looking at.
What Included Actually Includes
Shipping cost is not a flat fee we bury in the bag price. It moves with the size and weight of your order and where it is going, which is why it is calculated into your quote rather than published as a table. What matters to you is that the calculation happens before you commit, not after.
- Freight from production to your delivery address
- Customs clearance and the filings that go with it
- Duties and related import costs on the shipment
- Final delivery, so the pallet arrives where you asked for it
If you want the estimate broken out so you can see it, ask. We would rather show you the math up front than have you wondering what is inside the number. And if you are ordering from outside the United States, none of the above applies to you in the same way, because those orders ship on different terms entirely. Our post on
international coffee packaging shipping covers who pays what in that case.
The Clock Starts at Artwork Approval
The standard timeline is 9 to 12 weeks, and it breaks into two halves: 4 to 6 weeks in production, then 5 to 6 weeks of delivery to your door. The half people forget is the second one. Packaging is not made down the street, and the delivery leg is a real, plannable stretch of calendar rather than a rounding error.
The other half people forget is where the clock starts. It starts when your artwork is approved, not when you first email us and not when you get the quote. Every day spent revising a design is a day the production clock has not begun. That is the single most common reason an order lands later than a roaster expected, and it is entirely inside your control.
- Get artwork approved early, because nothing before approval counts toward the 9 to 12 weeks
- Work backward from your in-hands date rather than forward from today
- Reorders follow the same path, so do not wait until you are nearly out
- Tell us your deadline up front and we will tell you honestly whether it is achievable
If you are timing a launch or a seasonal release around this, our guide to
how many stock bags to keep on hand covers the reorder math that keeps you from running dry mid-cycle.
How It Is Packed for the Trip
A long trip is hard on packaging, which is a strange sentence until you remember that packaging is itself a product that can be crushed, creased, or scuffed. Yours is packed to survive it. Films are wound on cores. Pouches are packed flat in cartons with protective material. Larger orders ship palletized so the load stays square and stable on a truck.
That is also why you should not judge a shipment by the outside of the carton. Cartons take the abuse so the bags do not. What matters is the condition of the product inside, which brings us to the day it arrives.
Be Ready Before the Truck Shows Up
Most delivery problems are receiving problems, and they are avoidable with one conversation. Tell us where the shipment is going and what your receiving situation looks like, because a pallet arriving at a roastery with a dock is a different event than a pallet arriving at a small shop on a residential street.
- Say whether you have a loading dock, a forklift, or neither, before the order ships
- Make sure someone will be there to receive and sign for it
- Clear the floor space in advance, since a pallet of bags takes more room than people picture
- Plan where it will live, away from direct sun and damp, so the bags stay in the condition they arrived in
We keep you informed at artwork approval, at production start, and at shipment, and you get tracking once it is on the way, so the arrival date should never be a surprise. Your dedicated service contact is there for status the entire time.
What to Do the Day It Arrives
Open a carton before the driver is gone, or at least before the day is over. Count what you received against what you ordered, and look at the bags themselves rather than just the boxes. You are checking that the print matches the proof you approved, that the seals and any valves or zippers look right, and that nothing shifted or crushed in transit.
If something did arrive damaged, tell us immediately and keep everything. Do not discard the packaging or the materials, because that is the evidence a freight claim depends on, and throwing it away makes the problem harder to solve for everyone. We take delivery condition seriously and would rather hear about it the same day than a month later.
A Number You Can Actually Build a Plan On
Delivery to door exists so you can treat a packaging quote the way you treat any other line in your budget: a fixed, knowable cost with a date attached. The bags, the freight, the clearance, the duties, and the last mile are one number, and the timeline is 9 to 12 weeks from the day you approve the artwork.
Handle the two things on your side, approve artwork early and tell us how you can receive a pallet, and the rest runs quietly in the background. Whether it is
custom coffee bags, ready-to-ship
stock bags, or a
digital run of 500, it arrives at your door at the price you were quoted.
