"mac davis" wrote in message
...
I ordered 2 carbide cutters for a turning tool from Crafts Supply..
Each cutter is in a plastic box about an inch square and maybe 3/4"
thick..

They came today in a 7" x 7" x 4" box, filled with inflatable bladders..
Seems like a padded envelope or MUCH smaller box would be cheaper to buy
and
cost less to mail, besides killing less trees..

I know.. picky, picky, picky... but I hate to see waste like this,
especially
from a place that ships thousands of packages a month..


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Consider that shipping containers under a certain size are more easily be
misplaced or hidden behind other larger objects. I think the over sized
containers help the shipper keep track of you shipment.

Back when I was in the automotive industry GM had a part that was a rare
earth magnet that was about the size of a pencil lead about 1/4" long. It
came in a box that would have held thousands but had it been placed in an
adequately sized box you would have needed a powerful magnifying glass to
see the part # on the box.

We did a lot of shipping and found that small parts had less problems
getting to their destinations when their shipping containers were a certain
size or larger. We seemed to have less calls from customers to located a
shipment when we used more "visible" containers. Basically parts shipped in
minimal sized boxes tended to take longer to get to where they were going.
IIRC we tracked a part that went thousands of miles to get to its 120 mile
destination and took 2-3 days. Larger packages to the same destination were
routinely delivered the next day.

While most of our shipments were stock orders and were shipped on pallets or
large boxes those small packages were typically single parts that the
customer needed quickly and typically were less profitable for us because it
was a single item being shipped. When the item got routed wrong or lost, it
cost us even more time and money to track and or reship the part again.


So yes the larger container does waist more packaging material and is not
considered to some as being "green" but it is also not green to have to
reship or track a lost order or use special handling on physically smaller
items.