Modern Plastics Shipping Policy

In most cases your order will be shipped within 24 to 48 hours from order receipt. Some items may require ordering or special services and could delay your shipment slightly. We ship orders complete (no backorders) so that you do not incur any extra shipping charges.

To determine your freight cost before shipping you will need to ADD TO CART the item and quantity. This will then bring up a link that states "Determine Shipping Costs." You can either proceed with the order, delete that item, or backup out of the order entirely.

If your freight code comes up as "TBD" (To Be Determined) in the shipping cost section of your order, you will receive an e-mail notice that will advise you of your actual shipping costs. If for some reason you do not want to continue with your order at that point, you may cancel the order without any charge.

Modern Plastics utilizes UPS for most of its shipping needs.

Handling/Boxing/Pallet Charges: All orders shipped via UPS, Federal Express or Emery are assessed an $8.95/per handling/boxing fee and/or a $10.00 per "palletized shipment" charge (in addition to the actual freight charges by the carriers).

Materials that cannot ship via small package carriers will ship via common carrier.

In some cases, materials must be crated to insure safe arrival. Crating charges will be e-mailed to you along with the shipping charges on an individual basis.

All orders are shipped F.O.B. shipping point by the least expensive surface method available, unless premium/fast shipping methods are requested.

Local deliveries are shipped via our company-owned trucks and orders are assessed a delivery charge.

WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SUBSTITUTE MATERIALS: From time to time Modern Plastics may not have the exact plastic item you selected in our On-Line Plastics Purchase Center. Under certain circumstances, Modern Plastics reserves the right to substitute a comparable plastic product that is of equal or higher quality than your original selection.

For example, if a particular color of "Plexiglas®" Brand acrylic sheet sheet is not available at the time of purchase and Lucite® brand of the same exact color is available, then you would be shipped the item that is readily available. If however you have an application that is either quality critical or is specified that a certain manufacturer brand product, grade, type, etc., is called for, then please inform us in "Customer Notes" of this fact when placing your order.

Additional Information on shipping:

Shipping plastics is not like shipping other standard UPS type products. For one, many plastics are indeed fragile items that require special packaging, boxing and handling to insure that they arrive in pristine, unscratched condition upon arrival at your door. There are not only additional packaging materials and special boxing that add cost, but also the labor to prepare the packages for shipping can get quite lengthy. An example of this is when wooden crates must be assembled for encasing large sheets of plastic that would be easily damaged by even the most careful common carrier trucking company.

Also, Federal Trucking Regulations, in terms of how plastics are "classified," can also determine the rate of shipping your order. Some plastics might be very light in weight, yet consume lots of "air-space," thus a higher corresponding shipping bill. As you can imagine, it is less costly to ship an item via UPS than with a trucking company. That is why we offer many of our items cut into "UPS-able" sizes. UPS won't take a 10' foot long rod, yet, but we'll offer you 2 pieces of rod 5' foot long instead. You're still getting the desired footage, but the item can be easily shipped in the 5' foot length via UPS.

Another cost factor comes into play with International Shipments. Many countries now prohibit the use of wooden pallets coming into their country for fear that the wood could be harboring insects, disease, etc. Plastic pallets are now be required by most countries and these plastic pallets (since they are not commonly used right now) have a cost structure that is currently higher then wood pallets. Those costs must be passed on to the buyer when shipping good overseas. In time though, the cost of plastic pallets should equal that of wood as it becomes more commonplace.

Many of our rods are sold in 6' or 8' lengths. Again, these items are easily shipped through UPS service. On the other hand, sometimes you need full rod lengths or full size sheets and that's when you'll see the "TBD" notice. It's also when when our skill, knowledge and experience of 58 years of shipping plastics materials all over the world comes into play toward getting you the fastest and least expensive shipping means possible.

Lastly, there are the UPS and trucking charges themselves that with the cost of fuel, transportation fees and fuel surcharges seems to escalate more and more.

We believe the main message in all of this is for you, our customer, to know that Modern Plastics is exceptionally knowledgeable when it comes to shipping our products. We strive daily to insure that you are getting the fairest, most economical means of receiving your product.

It is not our intention to gouge or profit from our shipping charges to our customers. Since the inception of our website and e-commerce activity, we have never had a shipment returned for damage (anywhere in the world!) while in transit. That more than anything demonstrates the care we take to insure safe arrival of your plastic goods.