You must have gone to UPS store. I sold some step rails and ran into the same problem. I didn't get a shipping quote and figured it can't be more than 50 bucks or so. I just made a box out of 3 boxes and had ups store add packing peanuts. You might not need the peanuts, but go to Wal-mart or Target and see if they have any left over boxes for end tables or what not. Then just cover it in some brown paper and take it to a fed-ex or Ups store like that. The UPS store is sometimes out of their mind for shipping costs. I think they wanted like 90 bucks to ship my bars and when I was done building my box project it was like 45 bucks. Just go to Wal-mart or Target or any other retail store for that matter and grab a box or some boxes.