eBay Sellers: Shipping Wrapped Retail Boxes

[Manny Calavera]

OK, I'm in a hell of a bind. I have something (a PlayStation 3 arcade stick, if you must know) that I need to ship out tomorrow. I cannot find a box for it. I've scoured my house, hit up friends and local business owners to no avail. The box is really awkward as it's too big for conventional shipping, but it won't fill the larger boxes. It's similar in size to a Macbook box.

So I was thinking about wrapping it in something and shipping it as is. The inside is well-padded, but the box will surely get dinged which I'm not to worried about at this point. I'm wondering if anyone has experience wrapping retail boxes. What should I wrap them in if I go this route? Or should I make a box?

 

[VMan]

I wouldn't wrap the retail box, as it might have been purchased as a gift, and nobody wants to get a dinged-up box.

Why not just go to a UPS store or Mailboxes Plus (or whatever the name is) and buy a box - should only be a few dollars.

 

[sho'nuff]

yes, any privately owned mail shop will have various sized cardboard boxes for a price , fill in the empty space with peanuts or styrofoam or bubble wrap

 

[EL72]

Wrapping is likely to rip during transit and then gets caught in conveyor belts, the address label comes off... bad news in other words. Don't cheap out; find a proper box and ship your goods like you would like to receive them.

 

[Manny Calavera]

Well, I forgot to mention that I purchased a box from the USPS store and it's way too big. The next smallest one was too small; that's why this is driving me up a wall. I do agree I probably shouldn't wrap it and might just fill the monster-box full of peanuts and take a hit on the shipping.

 

[ratboycom]

why not cut the USPS box down to a reasonable size and just tape it up. I take a little of my shipping overhead off by doing that on a lot of items (used to send a lot of Audi Headlights and oddball shaped large stuff)

 

[Edward Appleby]

Originally Posted by jonglover

Well, I forgot to mention that I purchased a box from the USPS store and it's way too big. The next smallest one was too small; that's why this is driving me up a wall. I do agree I probably shouldn't wrap it and might just fill the monster-box full of peanuts and take a hit on the shipping.

When you just want to fill up space, those little inflated plastic bag thingies are much more efficient than peanuts and I believe cheaper.