Excessive Packaging

[Spartancrest]

Not merely a Tosogu problem but a world wide waste problem - I just received a long awaited Tanto guard that I purchased back in July - the guard is un-remarkable but 'cute'. My beef is with the amount of packaging involved with shipping an object that was under 5 cm and could easily fit in a match box or padded envelope. Why do we tolerate all this extra garbage being shipped around the planet? I have had conversations with sellers about this before but nothing changes, I can well understand packaging some fragile items in this way but an all metal virtually unbreakable object need not be packed to survive being dropped from space!

[ChrisW]

You would be surprised with the incompetence of some delivery services. This is how a seller covers their rear in case of an unfortunate accident.

[1kinko]

Who paid for the shipping and handling? Over here I suspect it’s a way to secretly add profit.

[Spartancrest]

Darrel you may well be right, I have seen many items listed cheaply with high postage fees or the same item listed very expensive with low postage fee - either way you still pay the same [or more if you don't watch the postage cost carefully] I saw a guard sold recently in Japan where the usual local postage to the warehouse was 1,000 yen, but in that case it was 10,000 yen - must have had an armed escort!

[Infinite_Wisdumb]

Agree Dale. I save all that stuff and recycle it but I’m not 100% sure it ever actually gets recycled 🤷🏼‍♂️

[ROKUJURO]

One aspect to think of may be the general size of a package. I have talked with a deliverer a while ago and he said that very small packages are more likely to get lost.

[Spartancrest]

Jean 

Can I get the job cleaning up under the conveyor belts.

 

[rkg]

Well,

 

There's two problems - first, boxes often need to be big enough to stick the customs forms on (depending on the service it was sent by).   In addition, sometimes a slightly larger package tends to not get lost, damaged less, etc.  And... if the seller has a "system" that works for them, has prevented damage claims, etc  it really can be a major pain to do something different.

 

Second, damage is a thing - envelopes can get mutilated (and lost), and even boxes require some thought - here's a couple of my favorite "receptions" (NOT!! - I almost had a heart attack when each of these showed up, as they both had 6 figures worth of kodogu in them for me to image):

 

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1462966100425400&id=266005023454853

 

 

 

In the first case, the sender did everything right, but UPS tried real hard to smash it (and it arrived in the winter so I had to wait a number of hours for it to warm up before I could  even open it for inspection to prevent condensation issues).  In the second case, the shipper probably could have put this box in the next bigger one and got a better result - again, keeping your goodies away from the corners/sides  of the box generally gets you better results...

 

I'm sure some of you guys can probably attest to the crazy packaging I personally use, but I've shipped a lot of small valuable items all over the world/have received a fair number as well and I only do it in response to the damage to boxes I have seen/had to deal with....  I'd love to use less, but until the package carriers of the world stop trying to crush things, that's not gonna happen....  Too bad guys like Pelican/sks, etc haven't addressed this market with lightweight plastic cases so it all could be reused (their normal cases aren't really right for this - tooo heavy)

 

Best,

rkg

(Richard George)

 

 

[DRDave]

Years ago I received the most extreme example of cheap packaging I've ever encountered.  Seller used a Marie Callender's frozen dinner box.

 

 

[Curran]

9 hours ago, rkg said:

Well,

 

There's two problems - first, boxes often need to be big enough to stick the customs forms on (depending on the service it was sent by).   In addition, sometimes a slightly larger package tends to not get lost, damaged less, etc.  And... if the seller has a "system" that works for them, has prevented damage claims, etc  it really can be a major pain to do something different.

 

Second, damage is a thing - envelopes can get mutilated (and lost), and even boxes require some thought - here's a couple of my favorite "receptions" (NOT!! - I almost had a heart attack when each of these showed up, as they both had 6 figures worth of kodogu in them for me to image):

 

I'm sure some of you guys can probably attest to the crazy packaging I personally use, but I've shipped a lot of small valuable items all over the world/have received a fair number as well and I only do it in response to the damage to boxes I have seen/had to deal with....  I'd love to use less, but until the package carriers of the world stop trying to crush things, that's not gonna happen....  Too bad guys like Pelican/sks, etc haven't addressed this market with lightweight plastic cases so it all could be reused (their normal cases aren't really right for this - tooo heavy)

 

Best,

rkg

(Richard George)

 

 

 

Oregon Post Office does seem to have a way with things. I remember sending you something that took on a fair amount of damage. The only other item worse off was a package to the UK that had been stabbed clean through, but somehow missed hitting anything other than the negative of the sukashi tsuba inside.