Category: Packing Guide

Every month we hand out the Box of the Month award for the best parcel packaging on our dock, and this month it goes to a plain shoe carton from a customer named Walt. Walt did everything right. Double taped. Clear label. A little drawing of a smiling mouse on the side, for morale.

The driver who carried it, Marla, said it was ‘the most dignified box I have ever lifted.’ She then sat in it for forty minutes, which, as we know, is the highest honor a box can receive.

Walt receives a certificate and a free shipment. Marla received an official warning. Both are framed in the lobby.

Here is a hard truth from thirty years behind the wheel. Every box over 12 inches wide will be sat in. It is not a risk. It is a certainty. So pack for the sitting.

Use a stiff outer carton. Fill the void with crumpled paper, never loose pellets, which get knocked everywhere and found in January. Tape every seam twice. Then leave a second, empty box next to the first one as a decoy. Drivers have reported a 30 percent drop in sit damage with the decoy box method, though one driver reported it as ‘a very nice nap.’

Mark fragile on three sides. Cats respect three sides.