Category Archives: packaging tips

How we saved our home with boxes

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This year my wife and I decided to take on a really complicated task.  We decided to take on a new place to live and saw an opportunity to make our lives a little bit better with a whole lot of work.  Due to the housing marketing being so good before the COVID-19 pandemic we moved into a super nice neighborhood at the lowest price that had ever been available in it.  This also came with a caveat of moving into a non-move in ready home.  We ended up with a timeframe to fix up the vast majority of the home and also we ended up with a giant mess doing so.  We ended up using cardboard boxes to organize and save our ability to live there.

The best decision we made was to work more organized.  Moving into a new home was going to be an exciting thing and at first, we were super happy about the ability to move into a great place with such a low cost. We didn’t have a ton of stuff moving from a small apartment into a large home but what we did have was still a bit too much for the location due to all the work we are doing with it.  I think that our issue was we were constantly working on the majority of the house at the same time.  By the time we moved in we only had really one room that was finished and able to be lived in and that was our bedroom. 

With the entire house being under construction we found that we simply didn’t have a lot of space to live.  It was livable until the winter started to kick in hard.  The issue that we had was that we could no longer work on projects the yard and we only had the space available in our garage to do messy jobs such as cutting wood and staining.  This left us with a big issue because our garage was so full of items and products.   This was where we had to organize in order to find room to work.  The house was already too full to add the garage stuff to ti so we had to be cleaver.  What we did was order a bunch of high-end cardboard boxes and we started to get to work.

We began by organizing all of our items by type and use.  This was important because we need to still be able to get to the items that we used constantly easily.  We decided that we could use the vertical space in our garage in order to save space.  We started packing up and actually building our towers vertically as well. 

In order to do this correctly, we ended up creating a system to know what we were stacking.  We stacked our packages by the type of items that are in it and the use we will need it for.  So an item we will use most often we will put a 1 on and a 5 on items that we wouldn’t not use much.  Then we would stack the packages in that order 1 on top so we could grab it out easy.  With this, we had more room to work and a garage we could continue to use. 

Getting the Right Tape

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I never imagined that some situations would happen in 2020.  The movement from brick and mortar business to eCommerce has taken the entire country by storm.  The reality is though that with all the lockdowns and regulations that it is much safer to be an eCommerce company in 2020 than any other.  This is simply due to the demand for shipping.  People are not going out of their homes nearly as much and in many cases, they are not allowed to by law.  This means that the demand for online shopping has skyrocketed.  It has also meant that the need for shipping has increased and the products that are needed to do it.

If you are getting into the shipping industry or your company is now finding that its most important department is shipping then there are some good lessons to learn and know.  The big thing to know is to make sure you are staying competitive in the market.  This is hard to due because technology is so vast and people can learn anything.  But having good relationships with companies is a big way to stay on top of the competitive nature of eCommerce. 

One major area that you need to be competitive in and can really crush competition is having a most efficient shipping supplies supplier.  It is more important to make sure you have good quality contact that can get you the gear you need and on time.  There is no way to ship without product and having a company fail on delivering the things you need is not good.  That is why having a great contact is a good thing and being able to buy products in bulk is a big part of having a great contact.

Shipping supplies are simply expensive and you need to be able to find a place to get them at a good discount.  I have to say that being competitive is more than shopping on Amazon versus going to your local store.  Yes, Amazon will be cheaper, but it will also be way higher than a major store that only sales these items and gives bulk discounts.  Bulk Discounts are a huge part of this industry and making sure you know what you need is part of it.

You need to know every amount of each item you use per shipment.  This is tedious and can end up saving you tons of money. My business found a big problem with spending when we were packing up boxes to ship.  Our packers were using about 10 strips of packing tape per box.  To all of us this seemed normal and was needed to hold the weight of all these items.  But when talking with a specialist in the industry from our supplier we found that our tape was thin and not capable of sustaining our competitive nature.  So he started to inform me and my company of thicker tape that could do the job in 3 strips of tape.  This was shocking but we figured that it would just cost more.  It did, but not relative to the project.  The tape costs 25% more, but also we would be using 200% less of it. The savings were incredible and once we trained our staff they were happy they didn’t have to tape nearly as much. So I hope this tip helps you and your company!

Garage Filled with Boxes?

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This weekend was certainly a lot of work at my house.  We decided to start cleaning out our garage after the COVID-19 pandemic.  It has been a long time since our State got back to any kind of normal but since we are all able to go back to work just about as usual we are finding that going out and doing normal things again is happening too.  That means that housework is getting back to normal and we found that our garage was riddled with Amazon packages.  It was just wrong and it was filling up our garage.  Now we know we needed to organize and move a lot of things from our garage to our shed, and this was the time to do it.

This all started out with us having to clean out a shed that we had never used.  It was filthy because the tenate who lived at out home kept a dog in there and never cleaned anything.  So with a shovel, broom, and preasurized hoze we went to town with bleach.  It took a few hours to clean and to dry but once we were done we were able to start taking all the filled cardboard boxes from the garage and move them into the shed. This took many hours to get it all sorted and filled up but it left us with a good amount of space in our garage.  Then we had to decide what to do with the insane stack of Amazon packages and how to best get rid of them.

We first tried to fill them with things and move them to the shed.  We did this for what we could but we still had a pile several feet long and many feet tall of cardboard boxes in our garage.  It was really hard to figure out what to do because we didn’t want to simply put these in the trash.  The next issue is that we are only able to recycle one trash can at a time and all these packages were simply not going to fit.  We tried just stacking some in the can, but that would literalyl take a year to recycle that way and we knew we were going to have to start breaking them down.

So first we started to break them down with out hands and we ran into trouble.  Those massive staples in some of the packages were simply too tough to overcome.  That left us with a sad feeling and our hands were in pain trying to overcome the stress.  So we then decided that we needed to get scissors to break them down and get them into the can as neatly as possible.  We each got through one box before our hands were red and about to start blistering.  That was a bad idea, but we decided a knife was the answer.  So I went into my fishing kit and got out a nice fixed blade knife.

This fixed blade had a great rubber handle and was made of a good stainless steel to deal with fish and water without rusting.  It was a fallkniven f1 knife and it went through the packages really well. So the next time you run into the same issue as us you now know what to do and how to recycle them all safely and quickly.

Corporate Gifting Candy

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One major trend that has happened over the last few years is a little bit generous.  The idea of being thankful and showing it with a gift is nothing new to the world.  Gifting has been a sign of goodwill since before we could write, but this year it has taken off into a new level.  Corporate gifting is a new trend that has gone from small to massive.  It can be seen as not only gifting from an eCommerce company, but many companies are sending gifts for closed deals and sales proposals.  It certainly has been a new trend and who doesn’t want to get a cool set of tickets to an NFL game or a custom candy boxes for the boardroom after a deal just closed.  It really is a great way to make goodwill known and to also make friends.

So why has this trend taken off and who has been responsible for it.  Surprisingly I saw that one of the biggest companies in corporate gifting was a candy company that split apart.  It began with a one person who wanted to make candy for adults and the other partner wanted to make artistry.  Now they both compete in a different candy world and that is corporate gifting.  One company makes candy boxes that are elegant and filled with class.  The other company actually makes slightly perverted or more adult-themed candy. Each company is wildly successful, but they are working on two different ends of the spectrum.  I am very happy to see that both can succeed in the same market and I am happy that they split without much animosity. 

Each one of these companies specializes in different holidays and occasions. They each have vast products that in corporate lots of other brands besides themselves.  Now Corporate gifting is vast and includes many companies in each gift.  Candy and champaign could be in one gift or gummy bears and beer in another.  They may have t-shirts and pro sports tickets in them and they can be customized until your heart is content.  This allows companies to be able to reach out to other businesses and show that they are interested and care.  As a sales tactic, it is fun to receive cool gifts and it also shows intent.  If a company spends 10 thousand dollars on gifts just to talk to you, it means they really care. 

On the other end of the spectrum, many companies are giving corporate gifts for holiday parties and they can be wonderful. If you have a holiday party and you want to go overboard, this is a great way to do it.  Custom gifts for different departments or board members are a nice touch to show your employees that you really care.  I am fairly certain that I would personally love a corporate gift and even my company has started to send them to each of our clients after we partner up.  It is a great experience and once we were even gifted something back and we loved it.  It went to show us how much these gifts matter and that our business was on the right track for success and building lasting relationships.

So the next time your company closes a really big deal or is thinking about throwing a party remembers about these gift packages.  It could be a great addition to your occasion.

So many Boxes

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It really is amazing how many styles of boxes there are and how they end up piling up at our home.  It is 2020 and we are just passed our state lockdown laws.  Work has mostly gone back to normal but it is still stressful to out and shop.  There are many rules and regulations that have happened and that are still in place.  This means that with it being so crazy outside we are buying more through online retailers.  E-commerce is becoming our main shopping center and it has caused some extra areas of stress that we didn’t have before.

The first thing that has happened is that if we are not home lots of packages are getting delivered to the door.  This means that our goods are sitting outside in the heat and weather and even open to people simply walking up and taking them.  This leaves me and my wife with lots of stress.  It is hard to think about 300 dollars of items getting delivered and sitting unsafe outside our home for hours on end.  Really it does bother me and causes me a large amount of anxiety which makes working harder.  It is the little things like this that really make the whole situation simply awful.  I don’t like the regulations or being forced to purchase online. It has also left us with another big issue that we never saw coming.

What surprised us the most is the excess of cardboard boxes that we now have.  The purchasing habits that we now have are really unfortunate.  It costs extra in our neighborhood to recycle.  This is because our trash is private and not government-run.  The cost to recycle means extra money per month and also I have to purchase a 200 dollar trashcan or rent one.  Either way, it costs a lot of extra money and I simply do not want to pay it.  With the economy the way it is I am simply unable to pay for it.  So now our garage is filled with cardboard boxes because I am only allowed to use so many trash bags per month.  So they keep stacking up.

The solution has been time-consuming as well.  Now I have to take extra time each week to go and break down the boxes.  It is partially unsafe because I am not able to do it by hand.  Some of them are very hard and simply I don’t want to strain myself.  This has led me to use knives in order to break them down and make them small enough to fit them into the bags.  I first used scissors but they dulled quickly and left blisters on my hand.  This was not a long term solution and so I started using my fishing knives to break them down.  I had to be careful due to the safety issues involved and I didn’t want to slice myself at all.

It is unfortunate that I am forced into these measures and the fact that I am not recycling also hurts me.  I know it is simply a waste to trash all these paper products and I am contributing to the waste our society is so well known for.  I hope the regulations in our State end soon because they seem to be just making the whole situation worse.