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A friendly reminder about the importance of sturdy packaging...

Started by jools&jim,

29 posts in this topic

jools&jim

jools&jim

Posted
Posted

 

When the US Post Office crunches and "pancakes" a box containing a very cool book which is on its way to you...

 

packing1.jpg

 

A good bit of this...

 

packing2.jpg

 

...plus the time, experience, and expertise which yields superlative inner packaging like this...

 

packing3.jpg

 

...will most likely insure that (no matter how the package is abused in transit) you'll wind up with a sweet, undamaged book like this in your collection...

 

GL76.jpg

 

:sumo:

 

TAKE THE TIME TO DO IT RIGHT (as this seller did)!

 

It's worth the effort... (thumbs u

 

 

 

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jools&jim

jools&jim

Posted
  • Author
Posted

 

I'm a firm believer that if the word fragile was never written on the box, it would not be crushed as shown.

(tsk)

 

Gotta go with a big negative on that one.

 

The major buzz-word I routinely heard from management when I worked at the PO was "productivity".

 

In other words...taking the time to read something that somebody wrote on a box takes precious time away from throwing it, and a hundred other similar boxes, into a huge canvas bin already overflowing with them.

 

Needless to say, given the volumes involved on any given day, reading the customer scrawl on packages was not encouraged. Even comprehending it enough to ignore it took time away from your task of heaving stuff around all day.

 

When I was working there, a box could have been marked "TIME BOMB -- DO NOT TOUCH", and it would still have been tossed across the sorting room floor in the same company as a 10-pound bundle of Penthouse magazines, that week's "Safeway" grocery circular, and a clearly marked crate of Bavarian crystal champagne flutes...

 

(thumbs u

 

 

 

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DarthBane

DarthBane

Posted
Posted

Been getting USPS boxes lately with all kinds of crushing and even big tears and holes. You could see the slab through them.

 

This was not my invention but discovered this here on the boards; when you ship slabs; the best recipe is doubling up with USPS 1095 & 1092. For a single slab you can still make this work for 2lbs or less and pay the same exact shiping cost as you would if it was single boxed because you would never be able to get that down to a 1lb.

 

You could still do this for two or three slabs. For four or five slabs depending on which coast its going to, I like to use Flat Rate boxes, but I will double box them. They can be opened up very neatly on the spine where it is glued together. I wrap a second flat rate box around the first flat rate box holding the slabs and seal everything up. Its almost a near perfect snug fit. You just have to re-tape up the spine part that you broke open.

 

 

 

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HarveySwick

HarveySwick

Posted
Posted
I'm a firm believer that if the word fragile was never written on the box, it would not be crushed as shown.

 

+ 100%

 

I had a friendly postal worker tell me to NEVER write "Fragile" on a package. She explained that if someone was having a bad day, your package becomes a target to vent their frustrations on. :eek:

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jhutton2

jhutton2

Posted
Posted

Good packing makes the difference in cases like this. Occasionally even that does not stop a book being damaged, but will prevent damage 95% of the time when the shipping box gets crushed or some other calamity happens to it.

 

When the box looks destroyed, but the book comes out unscathed, then the packaging and padding has served its purpose well.

 

Kudos to the seller on a great packing job.

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fmaz

fmaz

Posted
Posted
I'm a firm believer that if the word fragile was never written on the box, it would not be crushed as shown.

 

+ 100%

 

I had a friendly postal worker tell me to NEVER write "Fragile" on a package. She explained that if someone was having a bad day, your package becomes a target to vent their frustrations on. :eek:

 

I've become very friendly with the folks at my post office and they've basically said the same thing:

 

A good postal worker will treat EVERY package like its fragile. And a bad worker will see those packages with the writing on it as people criticizing the way they do their jobs and sometimes take their anger out.

 

By the way? People at my PO are the good kind. I think there are a lot more of their type out there than many want to believe. But that's only because there are no "hey my package made it in one piece" threads... :)

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the blob

the blob

Posted
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In other words...taking the time to read something that somebody wrote on a box takes precious time away from throwing it, and a hundred other similar boxes, into a huge canvas bin already overflowing with them.

---

 

i think it is useful to remind the mail carrier not to bend whatever it is in half to squeeze it into a mail slot. that's about it.

 

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FutureFlash

FutureFlash

Posted
Posted

Wow those packages took a beating. I've had the occasional one show up all beat up, but thankfully they were well packaged. Once I had a priority envelope soaked but the cardboard and the poly bag on the inside protected the comic from getting wet.

 

My pet peeve is Ebay shippers who do a manila envelope with very thin cardboard (or none), my postal delivery person likes to try to fold it and jam it into our small mailbox....and some of them even have Do not Bend written on them. Ugg, thankfully all of those have been low grade silver stuff, so it hasn't damaged any books beyond what they all ready were.

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